How to build a huge Twitter presence: A Case Study with Scifi Author Doug Wallace

Every now and then when you're browsing Twitter, you'll find that social media done right. You know: tens of thousands of followers, a fun, snappy bio, and engaging, colorful tweets that aren't trying to sell a thing.

That's Doug. By day he's a native Texan computer security expert residing in Salt Lake City with his four children, but by other times of day, he's an "inkslinger licensed to quill" with a solid bio and a really fun, engaging Twitter feed. He's actually gotten so many followers that editors began to take notice, so I thought we could ask him for a little advice.

Twitter: How To Stop Finding Other Writers and Start Finding READERS!

You know how it is. You keep getting followed by writer after writer and soon it's just a clusterfreak of writers, all of you talking in circles and promoting your books, and WHERE THE HECK ARE THE READERS???

Four quick tips filled with hashtaggy goodness to help you start finding readers on Twitter. 

Holy crap guys, I have three short stories coming out in 2017! Also a picture book!

So it's been a crazy season of acceptances here, and I've been so blase' about life I forgot to tell you guys, my dearest blog people. Silly me! People have accepted my:

--Short story about two brother scientists who try to solve aging...by jumping out of an airplane into a volcano with a bear. Adrenaline Age is as crazy as it is scifi, based on everything I learned in my Biology of Aging class taken to an illogical extreme. That's coming out from The Overcast, a wonderful podcast voiced by J.S. Arquin, who you all know from my story Brain Worms and White Whales.

--Superhero short about an engineering student whose multiple sclerosis threatens to keep him from earning money for school. It's a more realistic superhero origin story with a dose of modern robotics and a spoonful of that nasty medical science I study full-time. Puerto-Rican-centered Hierro comes out 2017 from a dark little publishing start-up that I've fallen in love with recently: The Crossover Alliance.

--Whipping the Dead, my stream-of-consciousness dreamscape that blends some of my Japanese heritage with memories of dying grandparents. To make it truly literary as f, it's structured after the Fibonacci sequence. It's maybe my most beautiful and most pretentious thing I've ever written. I freaking love it, and I guess Pantheon Magazine did, too.

And if I failed to mention that I have a children's fantasy history picture book coming out, about a little Khoi-san boy whose father rides dinosaurs, then I have failed utterly. Utterly, have I failed. I'm truly happy about this one, because there's a wonderful teacher's guide about dinosaurs and African history involved, and the publisher's hunting down a great illustrator, and it's all great. It's called The Different People, and it celebrates diversity in all her forms, and it's coming out from E-treasures Publishing!

So yeah! Amidst all my hype about my upcoming superhero novel, about the comic book character who shoots his author, I forgot to tell you those things. (By the way, if you want to be on the list to know about that novel FIRST when it comes out, you gotta drop me a line) 

But now you know.

Fredericksburg Barnes and Noble: Doin' Some Community Good With Books!

Since you're all book lovers, and some of you may or may not live in Virginia, I just wanted to drop a little note to let you guys know there's a cool initiative going on at the Fredericksburg Central Park Barnes and Noble (and maybe some other B&Ns around the country) where at the checkout you can also donate a book of your choice to area children! That's kind of cool! I chose one of the Magic Treehouse Books, because I remember really getting a taste of the wonder of history through them, and because they're pretty fun! So if you're in the area you should totally do some of your Christmas and Chanukah shopping there!

The Fburg area B&N is ALSO letting local students ask for donations for their school today. You may love this, and if you do, you should head down and grab some books. Personally, I don't feel super-great about the whole donate-extra-money-to-the-govt-thing, since I happen to have gone to school in the area, and I happen to know these particular schools inflate their budget at the end of the year to get extra federal funding. (That's actually pretty normal: anyone who works in govt can tell you that a lot of bureaucracies do this, where instead of asking for exactly the money they need, and trying to create efficient solutions that cut spending, they'll actually buy up extra useless stuff like hundreds of staplers and whatever to make sure that at the end of the fiscal year they get extra funding.) So to me, it seems a little crooked that these schools will then go send children out to collect MORE money for them.* 

But my qualms aside, you know, it's so nerve-wracking as a little teen girl to ask people for money, and they really deserve at least a high five. They're all raising money for particular departments, which you know may or may not get enough funding from the school depending on politics with the principal. (When I went to Colonial Forge High, it was common knowledge among the students that the principal shifted around funding for departments depending on which ones her kids enrolled in) So stop by and show these kids some love.

And any way, this post is about B&N, not about public schools, and I'm just really psyched that the business tries to engage with the community in a deeper level. We need businesses like that. As writers, this is part of the reason we love book stores: they create real life stories, while selling and sharing our stories. They're safe places for humans to dream about a greater future where we all come together to help each other out, regardless of personal differences or the wrongs of history. A+ and two thumbs up to Fburg B&N.

That's not just the yummy book cafe pretzel in my tummy talking, I promise. -_^

~Jen

byjenfinelli.com

*(Full disclaimer, I'm friends with people who are currently in court against Stafford County School System to try to get equal access for their handicapped kids and end disability discrimination, so I have some pretty hardcore bias against that system)

Books as superhero gear, and new reads for you - a little "guest" post from becominghero.ninja

Hey SuperPeeps. No, don't be mad at me, books are totally superhero gear. Look, here, here is proof: 

Picture taken from this sexy article, on comics as literature, which you should DEFINITELY READ! 

While Spidey looks super uncomfortable with his butt all up on that pole, the point remains, superheroes read. You read to get inspired, you read to become a better person, and you read to relax, so that you're all revved up and ready to fight the next day. If you want, you can take a look at that link above for some comics reading material that some smart dudes think will make you smart and feelingy and stuff. Make sure to come back after that.

So I'm really into the idea of discovering new reads--you know, things your friends have never heard of that are actually objectively well-written. In other words, stuff by authors who are indie because they're independent, not because they can't write. = P Along those lines, since I'm always looking for dealsies for you guys, I talked to a bunch of authors to see what they'd be willing to give my SuperPeeps for free.

First up is James Beamon. This guy's technically no indie: he's a traditionally-published pro from the Science Fiction Writers of America with his name in like 20 different books and magazines. His snarky, oddball style's about as indie as they come, though, and he's one of my top ten favorite authors in the world, so he's heading up this list. He told me he's willing to share, for a limited time, his full novelette Dialogues with Talking Heads, a scifi about a "post-mortem communications corporation" that makes money injecting things into dead people until they talk. Funny, a little creepy, and actually romantic, too. (I was like one of the earliest buyers. Yeah, unlike you guys, I paid money. Look at your privilege, SuperPeeps! = P Back in my day…)

Our next star is Crystal Collier, an established indie author with one of the prettiest websites in the biz and the cutest obsession with cheese. (Of course, you're not here for her cheese or her website, so I'll move on) She's the fantasy author of the Maiden of Time series, described as Jane Eyre meets Supernatural, and I've been following her e-mail list since her first book came out eons ago. For you SuperPeeps only, she's willing to give you the entire first novel in that series: Moonless! Having read it, I can tell you there's plenty of romance and lots of weird fantasy juju. Perfect new read.

Because this is a superhero website, we'd be remiss if we didn't include some superhero fiction. Outside of the comics world, superhero fiction's a sparse genre, with few offerings, so I was recently delighted to discover Kai Strand, author of the SuperVillains Academy series. Her series focuses on a bully recruited for a school of super villains. I like surprises and twists like that, and I loved her writing style in the little short story she's offering you guys for free! It's an exclusive point of view shift from a character from her book, and it made me pretty hungry for more. ;_; #sohungry 

Next on our list of wonders, let's go international. Nigerian author Ray Anyasi is multiply published in nonfiction, contemporary, poetry, and romance. He's an intrepid self-made businessman, as well as the leader of a small press, and he writes sweet, tender romance set in Africa, with characters authentic to his experience. I know all of you in the #ownvoices movement are scrambling right now to look him up, and you're right to get excited: he's offering SuperPeeps the first two chapters of his romance novel, Broken Cloud! African prince, forbidden love, the works. You have my permission to swoon.

Last, there's me. If you like vengeful robot-cars, sentient cockroaches, androids made of ink, zombie fairytales, or anything else like that, I've written it, and I'm especially excited about my new book, Becoming Hero, about a comic book character who shoots his author. I'm offering, for a limited time, the first two chapters of the new book! 

So why, oh why, do you get to get these free things from these authors, SuperPeeps? Well, reading through these folks will either get you inspired or help you relax--and you're also supporting indie business and diverse representation, both things that make the world better by increasing the opportunities available to everyone. I feel like conscientious choices are the first step towards becoming superhero material, don't you? Also--little hot tip for you--this is a great way to help you shop last minute for that bookworm in your life this winter. Because you're getting free fiction, you can test it out, see if it's a style your bookworm friend will love, and then you can always head back to the author's shop to buy a gift! I told you, I look out for my peeps. ^_^

So that's today's super gear, Peeps! 

(Drop me your e-mail address below, and I'll send you all that delicious free fic. All of these stories stop being free when the snow melts, or Feb 15th, whichever is sooner, so...yeah, hurry up. = P)

You can see more "SuperGear" posts at becominghero.ninja, where I talk about all kinds of things that aren't books that I can imagine superheroes using or people who love superheroes drooling over.

The Little Boy Who Turned Into an Ant (G, #FlashFiction Parable)

Thinking today about the twisted metaphor of the ant.

Imagine a little boy who loves ants. He crouches on his fat little legs, with his chin on his knees, watching them, and as he watches one ant struggle for her little crumb--a burden so big, and so heavy for her, and she's stumbling around with this crumb--he feels for her silly little life, and for the sticks she has to climb which must seem so huge to her. Sometimes the ants attack him, and he laughs at them, and their tiny jaws. It's so silly to him that the ants will kill each other for being a different color--but after a while their fighting stops being just a silly thing he watches, and starts to become kind of freaky, as he begins to imagine what it must be like to be ripped limb from limb down there in that field of battle. The little boy begins to bring bread crumbs to the ants, and begins to try to make little paths of separation between the ants of different colors so they don't kill each other, and when the big mean neighbor boy comes with his magnifying glass to fry the little ants, the little boy fights him off. Day after day he spends crouched, just watching them, talking to them and building stuff and laughing, chirping along, like children do.

However, the ants begin to eat through his Father's house, through the basement boards, and through all the little boy's board games.

"We're going to have to spray to get rid of them," his Father says.

"But I love them!"

But of course, if the Father allows the ants to keep eating through everything, then the whole house will be destroyed, and all the dogs and cats, and birds, and all the other giant and glorious pets that the ants can't understand will lose their home, and suffer--to say nothing of the boy, and the Father. Ants are brilliant but quite destructive creatures.

So the ants must be sprayed, but the Father feels the same compassion the little boy does--after all, he is the kind of man to have dogs and cats and birds in his house, a man who loves every living being. However, there is a kind of complete ridiculousness, a uniqueness, a separateness, you might say, to this kind of love, and he says so to his son.

"Son," he says. "If you were to become an ant, and warn them, and lead all the ants away from the house so they stop eating through the very foundations of the world they live in, do you know what the ants would do to you?"

The little boy nods. He's watched enough ant wars to know. "They would kill me, because I would be different than them, and ants hate different. They would stretch me out and tear me apart."

"And if your soul were to survive this kind of suffering, and be reborn a person again, what would you have gained for all your trouble? What would be your inheritance, your nachalah, your prize?"

The boy looks up at his father with big eyes, and says, "The ants, Dad. The ants would be my prize."

"Then ask of me, my Son, and I will make the ants your heritage, and the ends of their world your possession."

And the boy asks.

Even more absurd than this, dear ones, is the mystery of God and his people.


Read the original story from which this parable is created, in Tehillim 2.

How to Make Comics or Draw Superheroes, Part 1

Hello all! I’m thrilled to present to you the first blog post in my little “making comics” series. This post’s goodies? Art technique tips from Palle Schmidt, the artist of Boom! Comics’ “Thomas Alsop” and internationally-published comic writer in both Denmark and the US. In his spare time, Palle offers a very popular introductory class to burgeoning comics artists, and if you want in I’ve got a hot, sexy tip for you at the end of this article. Tasty!



Let’s check out some of Palle’s secrets, tools, and tips! Go to my comics site to dive in!

The Window

Flash Fiction/Short poetry originally written for my parents

Once upon a time
Wind sparkled in the tree tops
Footsteps, light on the roof
Dirty with island muck
Sabre dangling
Shirtless
A defeated pirate's hat
Pearl, from a tamed mermaid, on leather string
Hunting a shadow
You left the window open.

"Now mermaids are not like they are in the storybooks..."

Fantasy flash fiction tale

The moment she grabbed my butt I knew it was over.

I knew it was over, because she had ten-inch-long claws, and ten feet under the murky water I couldn't scream. I kicked; silt filtered around my ears, in my nose, scratching my skin. Another set of claws caught my shoulder, and the sting in my spine told me she had sharp teeth, too.

Mama had warned me not to go looking for mermaids. "They're not like in the storybooks," she'd said, her eyes distant. But with that smile tickling the corner of her mouth, of course I'd go looking! If she REALLY didn't want me to find her map of "second star to the right, and straight on til morning," she shouldn't have left it just lying around in that padlocked safe in the secret cave under her bedroom floor.

Maybe that wasn't really "just lying around."

Still, what with the slippery hands gripping my forearms and my lungs burning for lack of air, I had to blame someone. Another solid kick--my bare foot hit a scaly, slimy thing. Like a giant snake? I yelped, and mud and water flooded my throat, and my eyes jerked open. The light of the moon above me looked even further away than I'd remembered, and for a second, before I closed my eyes again, I saw the pale, toothy face, and the huge blank lidless fish eyes, just staring at me.

Okay, now I was freaked out. I thrashed, and my fist hit the creature's face--"bop them on the nose to establish dominance," Mom had said. She said that about sharks, not mermaids, but who can tell the difference, anyway? It released me, and I shot towards the surface.

I got one gulp of air before it grabbed my foot again. My fingers scraped against the rock on the shore. I heaved myself up, slipping on the algae, and bashing my knee against an underwater stone. A rough tongue scraped my knee. Oh gosh oh gosh...

Just as I got half my torso onto shore, the mermaid rocketed out of the water, grabbed the back of my head, and tried to slam my skull against the rock. A violent push-up on my part protected my sweet tender brainmeats--and knocked me back into the water.

Holy COW this was ridiculous! I squealed with repressed rage--I don't know why I bothered to repress it--

And for a second the mermaid backed off. I treaded water as she stared at me from a few feet away. The moon reflected off her heavy, seaweed-mat of black hair as I heaved. The gills in her neck flared, and blew steam. We looked at each other for a terrifying, beautiful second, just breathing, me with my lungs, her with her gills. When I blinked, she blinked, her eyelid transparent like an amphibian's. Blink. Breathe. Holy crap, this was happening. Two living creatures, connected by water, and air.

Okay, so high pitched sounds got to her! Communication, like a whale. I did it again.

She dove.

Uh-oh, I messed up. I didn't want her down there. Something brushed against my leg. Hooo boy okay I couldn't see...my heart thudded a mile a minute in my chest. I tried to control my breathing, in case she decided to yank me under again. Slowly, slowly, I treaded my way back towards the rock...

And made it to shore.

I got out, dripping, and backed away from the water's edge. There, on the sand, far behind the rocks, lay the pan-pipe I'd pinched from Mama's safe. It used to belong to a child who never grew up. Mama always said she never grew up, but I always thought she was talking about someone else...

I thought about playing it again, to see if the mermaid would come back. I liked her. It wasn't her fault she tried to drown me. It was like that otter that loved the baby duckling, and tucked it under its armpit to swim around with it, until the poor little baby duck drowned. It was ignorance, and violent love. Very violent love.

A dark cloud blotted out the stars above me as the sea breeze puffed in gusts, gusts slamming the water against the rocks. It was a bit of a stormy night, wasn't it? A night for good boys and girls, fresh from a bath, to curl up under soft, downy sheets with a book and a warm glass of milk as the rain tickled the windowpanes outside. I'd had my adventure. Time to pocket the pan-pipe and head home.

You know, Mama didn't get to have a secret cave under her bedroom floor by playing it safe.

I grinned like the mermaid, put the pan-pipe to my lips, and blew.


The End.

The Parable of the Gooberlator -- with apologies to Jesus

The kingdom of atheism is like a man who took his spaceship in for repairs and began to argue with the mechanic about the part he needed.

"I've never heard of a Gooberlator," he said. "I think you're putting me on."

Because there were no gooberlators in the shop, and because gooberlators are highly sensitive, tiny, and explosive nano tech nuclear fusion generators, neither the mechanic nor the owner of the spaceship could actually see a gooberlator. However, the mechanic had installed hundreds in the past using precision instruments and the Gooberlator Instruction Manual, and he'd also experienced the effect of The Gooberlator in his own life.

"How do I know you're not crazy?" The spaceship owner went on. "I'm just supposed to listen to your testimony of something I can't see?"

"You can read the Gooberlator Manual if you like…" said the mechanic, scratching his simple head.

"Written by men! Pah," said the spaceship owner.

"Well, you can't go into space without this part," shrugged the mechanic. "I don't know what else to tell you, feller--you'll blow up in a fiery inferno if you try. The quantum engine of your ship'll trap you in a horrific time paradox where your consciousness lives forever in the moment of the explosion."

"You'd damn me to eternal torment for not believing in your Gooberlator?" the spaceship owner gasped. "How cruel! How evil, to punish someone for what they don't have enough evidence to believe!"

"It's not…I mean…" The mechanic scratched his head. "What?"

"I shouldn't be punished for not believing in something I can't see!"

"But…with all due respect sir, innit your own fault if you go to space with the wrong equipment? I can't see gravity, Imma still goin' die if I jump off a cliff."

"I have experience with gravity. Everyone has. I've never experienced this gooberlator, and for all I know you're selling me something for no reason!"

"The Gooberlator is very expensive," the mechanic sighed. He'd spent nearly his whole life savings on his. "But no one's making you go to space."

The spaceship owner pointed out the window, enraged. "Yes they are! You know as well as I do all humanity's being forced to space after the Groknak accords!"

The mechanic looked outside at the destroyed planet earth, crawling with zombies, aliens, man-eating plants and such. Somewhere in the distance a harpy ate a guy, and a volcano erupted. "Oh, yeah, I forgot." He realized the spaceship owner was right, that truly in this world the only certainties are space and taxes. Space, with her scythe and hood, comes to us all. Space waits for no man. Oh space, where is your sting…

"Well, if you have to go to space, you have to have a gooberlator," said the mechanic.

"Look, there are as many spaceship parts and parts-sellers as there are world religions. How do I know your Gooberlator is the right one?"

"Well, I reckon you can do what I did and research them all. You'll have to buy a catalog about each part, and study it, and learn its function and the reasons it ultimately doesn't work as a life-saving nuclear stabilizer combo power-generator. You'll read a lot of debate, and you're right, there are liars out there who try to sell fake parts. That's why you do your homework, and find a trusted mechanic."

The spaceship owner honestly paused for a moment. He didn't need to tell the other what they both already knew: because of Earth's electro-pollution dome, there was no way to get communication from the refugees currently in space to find out how their ships had turned out. People were fleeing the planet almost as fast as they were being born, and they never came back. So all the research was very model-based, and even thinking about trying to do that much research made the space owner clearly dizzy.

The mechanic looked at the owner with kind eyes, and said, gently, "You know, you can sometimes tell how well these ships work by running them here in the atmosphere. It's not foolproof, but you could buy a gooberlator, and see how much better your ship holds up in storms, and how its glow lights up the night sky, and keeps you on a straight course when you don't know where to go. I love my Gooberlator. 'Course the experience is different for errybody. You can always return it later."

"I'm not gonna let you take my money and mess with my ship for anything that's not certain," said the owner. "And nobody like me has time for all that silly reading you're talking about--the Gooberlator Manual, plus all the other major texts in the world? My time is money!"

"I reckon if you take the time just to read the Gooberlator manual with an open mind, that'll be enough…"

"And if it's not?" the wanna-be spaceman scoffed. "I'd have to become a full-on mechanic to really know for sure!"

"You could just talk to your friends who got gooberlators, and see how they like 'em so far..."

"But anecdote means nothing!" The owner shouted.

The mechanic squinted. "Isn't that the way you pick most things, though? Your doctor, your lawyer, your lamp on Amazon Space Prime, even your vote for Evil Dictator Space President--don't you usually read some reviews, look up some tech specs, and talk to people who've experienced it to make the choice?"

The owner blinked. For a second, he realized his hypocrisy, but that made him uncomfortable so he quickly quoted something he'd seen once in an angry youtube rant: "Improbable claims require extraordinary evidence. Hmpf!"

The mechanic scratched his head again. "Who's deciding what's improbable, here? We live in a world where they're all growing pancreases in peetree dishes, talking to each other long-distance on little hand boxes, riding flying machines, building computers that almost act like people, and swapping their organs around between bodies. All of those things got called improbable at one time or another, so what makes the Gooberlator more improbable than the Higgs Boson?"

"People have seen the Higgs Boson!"

The mechanic rubbed his mustache, thoughtfully. "Are you sure? With their eyes?"

"Yes!"

"I…don't think that's true, and if it is, more people than've seen the Higgs Boson claim to have seen God--I mean, the Gooberlator. I reckon most of us don't have the eyes for that, though." The mechanic saw the spaceship owner about to open his mouth again, and it was way past lunchtime, and the mechanic had a long line of people waiting who did want gooberlators, so he decided to end the conversation. "I'm sorry, sir," he said. "I gotta get back to work."

"By all means, go! Don't try to sell me any more crap!"

The mechanic began to walk away, to take the grimy tunnel from the shop out to the garage. He paused at the magnetic door to look back over his shoulder. "You know, you will go to space one day, whether you're ready or not. Wouldn't it be better to do all that hard research now, and find the Gooberlator before it's too late?

Or do you really plan on coasting your whole life, and then taking off into the unknown without making sure you're truly prepared?"

Jen Finelli writes more offensive parables like this here and here. If you'd rather read horror, science fiction, or literary flash, click on the word you prefer! Be warned that the horror is truly horrible, the science fiction is very nerdy, and the lit flash very experimental. This is the home of the weird. If you liked this story, please share! Wicked souls like Jen's feed off that kind of thing.