MindGigs.Blogspot.com
A blog on mind, work, ethics, and the power of game. I created this blog as a counter to working too much. It helps encourage different forms of work. It goes against work, and with laziness.

SmilesResponse.Blogspot.com
A marketing blog on response, ready by bloggers, marketers, and business professionals. Everyone needs smiles and everyone needs response. Get them smiling by reading online business blog posts.

JourneyEssay.BLogspot.com
Journey essay is my blog on the journey of life. I adore the essay. I go with the essay every single day of my life. It’s a secret love. I love sharing these narrative stories with readers across the world.

Post2Gig.Blogspot.com
A blog on earning from blogs. A blog on monetizing blogs. A blog on freelancing jobs. A blog on blogger’s hope.

CreativeBusinessFreelance.Blogspot.com
A blog on the freelance industry to make money freelancing. Business is all about being creative. Read this blog to improve creative business skills.

Buzzpaper.BLogspot.com
What is the buzz paper? How can it help you? The buzz paper is a white paper in action. What is a white paper? I can’t give it all away. Keep reading.

TransformersOutpost.Blogspot.com
A blog on the series Transformers, 80s cartoon, mecha, and how they influence the world. A cartoon can influence the world? Cartoons are art. There is more to animated series than art; you can go with comics, novels, and manga too.

BrokenEssayPoets.Blogspot.com
A blog featuring more of my creative essays, some poetry, and bliss holding points. You must remember your Blake, your Keats, your Frost, and Your Thompson.

IronSwordGames.Blogspot.com
Why play Strategy Games? Why play first person shooters? Why take breaks? Strategy and FPS help your mind. Strategy games and FPS games allow you to take breaks. Games allow you to make money. Games teach you much. Read this blog for some creative happiness, reviews, commentary, and good buys.

BusinessCoffeeMedia.Blogspot.com
A rejeccted query. A bad cup of coffee. A video going viral. These things hapen to all of us. Business Coffee Media is my response to Smiles Response. Marketers can read it for ideas, writers can read it for money, and bloggers can read it to take some breaks from the business world.

BrokenSwordComics.Blogspot.com
Comics are some of the highest forms of art. This blog demands more reading. Reading comics can be addicting, and this is a good addiction. Find reviews, find essays, find investments, make money.

VideoFeedBook.blogspot.com
A blog comparing video to books and ideas to hope.

GraphicStoryInvestor.Blogspot.com
A blog on making money off graphic novels and manga. These are always good investments, much like buying a first edition hardcover or softcover is worth money.

AnimeInvestor.Blogspot.com
A blog on making money off anime, having fun with anime, buying manga, and selling comics.

HistoryforBattle.Blogspot.com
A blog on military history and strategy, from Napoleon to Caesar, World War 2 to the Punic wars.

GameStoriesGo.Blogspot.com
A blog on game stories, chronicling wins and losses I have had and others have had in games such as Civilization 2, Warcraft, Age of Empires, X-Box games, and Playstation games . Every game has a story. You might find some fan fiction for fan fun here too.

GameArtEngine.BLogspot.com
A blog on the gaming art. A blog on making money off games. A blog on creating games. A blog on strategy.

For Children

The bread and butter of the comic medium is pandering to children. It’s important for children to read comic books. As I learned to read, it became obvious I wasn’t going to pick up a copy of Virginia Woolf or Stephen King like I could riding a bike. Instead, I was offered comic books by my parents, titles like Iron Man and The Thing and Batman so that I would learn to read at a smaller level. This isn’t  to say comic books are always easy to read, but some titles like spider-man are just as important to read in times of youth as that first time you pick up “The Hobbit” or “Harry Potter.” Comic books teach just as much as a movie like Star Wars or books like “Lord of the Rings” do. Usually there is an emphasis on the battle between good and evil. Some comics will even bring up subjects children should acknowledge at a young age, including drugs and depression. Still, I wouldn’t give a child a copy of The Punisher.

For Teens
Teens like burning time, escaping from school, and trying to stay away from drugs. Comics help you read, can kill some time, and can be of more value than games. Teens often read endless amounts of comics, both the ones for youths and the ones for adults. Teens are not always the biggest buyers, but they can be.

For Adults

If you like a good novel, there are plenty of comic books with comparable weight. While titles like Spider-Man can be good for children, many tales are driven towards adults who began reading comic books at an early age. Try out longer forms like “Maximum Carnage” and “Revenge of the Sinister Six.” There are always the classic graphic novels. Many libraries have whole sections of graphic novels, some even special collections with single issue comic books. Take a look at your comic shop for one that catches your eye; you’d be surprised how many adults find themselves walking down the comic shop aisles.

For Writers

Want to write? Want to be an artist? Comic book writing is a bursting field that is always looking for new talents. The medium actually pays well and many creators make a living solely off selling comic book scripts or illustrations. I have heard as much as $2,500 for a comic script from top publishers, though that was noted by Neil Gaiman ages ago, so it might be higher or less. That’s a shot in the dark: If you want to write comic books you have to start with short stories for independent publications, then you have a chance at the big gig. If you have dreams of creating super heroes, it can be done. This leads into my point: If you want to write comics you will have to read them, just like writing a novel.

Still not convinced you should read comic books? I’m done arguing, but give it the same chance you would a novel by an unknown writer.

Where? Amazon and Ebay are good points for essentials.

Other Essentials
Iron Man
Why? The Omnibus is out for the original iron man stories, but you may want to save money by doing more with Iron Man via essentials. These are classic stories by some outside writers for the Marvel universe.

Akira is also coming out complete again. Even if you don’t like manga, Akira trades are a must buy. You may wait until they all come out; I am not sure if they are all out yet. Tales Of Wonder is a good spot.

HardCovers to Buy:
Buy “The Killer” and “Okko” by Archia Press are good buys. Both are incredibly addicting. Killer wins on crime, Okko wins on dreamlike art and fantasy archetypes.

Powers is another good buy from crime in hardcover format. Watch out for The adaptation of Richard Stark’s “Parker” series written by Darwyn Cooke, of Batman TAS and Justice League fame.

Games to Watch
Kill Zone 3 and Crysis are out for Playstation. I would consider Kill Zone first. If you want role playing, Dragon Age Origins wins, but Demons Souls is the older game to go with. For combat, you may try Call of Duty on some titles. Playstation is winning with first person shooters, but they have some final fantasy offs, such as demons souls and the upcoming Children of Eden.

Books to Read
There are some interesting adaptations out. Conan is coming out again, and there is a new release. Crysis has a release of an adaptation. Iron Man: Virus is a good book to try; DC is coming out with adaptations, so Marvel is starting to follow suit.

Game of Thrones is out on HBO. It’s a dreamlike historical fantasy with northern men with big axes and pretty girls. You might try the original writings by George R.R. Martin.

What 2 Watch For:
The Thor movie is out, but I would go with Game of Thrones. I really want to see the next Spider-Man film. Smallville is done, so what do we go with for television? Heroes is secondary, and always will be. You may simply watch some of your old Smallville toons. Watch out for new animation to come out because of the comic craze. Netflix is the win here: you can check out animation and anime online and via some game players.

My final recommendation would be to save. You cannot buy everything in he book. the economysucks right now for many of us. So you might sell to buy more. Sacrifices are good. Much of what you may not like can bring in some dough on Ebay.

Dario Argento called Suspiria with witches, and he calls the author out of hell with Stephen King in Tenebre. Tenebre has the visuals — the girls and the houses — and it has the cheesy natural look of a movie no one else could make. I am reminded of Dawn of the the Dead, the original version with the mall fort.

Girls always die in these movies. Italian horror can be different, if you watch enough.

There are some money plays here as well. Of course: the agent is here. There is an interview with the new famous author. It was a drug for many of us in the 80s, where some are born.

Is he a Stephen King? He is a bestselling author. This movie is not “In the Mouth of Madness,” which you may be thinking of all ready. Tenebre is a book with necro pages.

The setup is the author and the agent. This is the easy stuff. The death call and the dogs calling out is the 2nd point. The 3rd point is the loss of life. This is the code.

Oddly, the author has all the girls.

Will he lose his heart to the horror? The horror is the woman. The horror is the dogs.

There is nothing left to give away. This is the code. Watch it in the afternoon. It’s a decent foreign film. In my analysis, Suspiria is the win against Tenebre.

Never quit your art.

A writer can be quite a character. Ask one how their work is going one day and they will light up; another and they will hide behind their beer or cigarette and mutter something. The path to creative writing is a hard one if we intend to make a living doing this. Writers by definition are troubled souls who try to find something on the lonely page that excites them. When the words of a short story, novella, or novel fail for them, they escape to something else. But, as a drug, writing is hard to put down forever. Once we try to escape it we will see it in everything.

Starting a new creative writing project is like doctor Frankenstein trying to create life; for all his good intentions this “creation” could turn out bad, but the good doctor has to try anyways. Our project need not be daunting, but the writer, initially, is stuck between whether they want the story to have life or just get it out of them. A piece of writing may never find a home. Why write it? The key to most creative writers is that, when discovering whether something is good or bad, they find the process a joy. We can pull hairs out editing something later, but for now we are Columbus setting sail.

Doctor Frankenstein should have never created the monster. When we quit a project, often we have the same thoughts. Why did we start to begin with? This is, in short, a terrible waste of time. That is the creative mind at work: we start, quit, start, and quit again. We go through cycles as writers. Some days we will want to build the monster from scratch; other days we just want to forget it.

There is a path to success that lies in between. There was no happy ending for Doctor Frankenstein, but there can be for the writer. Before we quit a project consider why it was started. There must be something deep within us that wanted to find the words, put them to the page, and show it to others. Our beast may not be ready for others eyes for years, but, in the end, we never know. In order to find success we must capture that drive in the beginning to write, catch the doubts in a net before they consume us, and dream as much as Mary Shelley did when she wrote “Frankenstein.” Consider the merits of writing a novel: we can write on anything we want. Consider the merits of a creative essay: we can explore the mind.

We will start and quit; it is in the writer’s nature. And, when we discover the monster within us, the one that wants to quit, we should let it out on the page. Science was Doctor Frankenstein’s ally; our ally is the words we discover when we start a project.

I am rebuilding this site to offer more for you. Keep reading for reviews and commentary. To support the site I will try some new ad sites, but I love blogging to much to quit anyway.

A jazz lodges a transcript below a defensive hello.

Boom! Studios Graphic Novel

Review by Jacob Malewitz
Smiles-Media.com, Ghost Writer For Hire – SEO, Direct Mail, and Blog Writing

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If you want a surreal modern fantasy, look for something good, better than a story about Potter maybe, or perhaps just to the rising fantasy comic book medium. Crossgen Comics Sojourn did it well (I reviewed that series here).
With rave reviews, a good eye on quality, high end artwork, and a fascinating story not of an ancient or medieval time, but a future not so far away—North Wind is here and it made a splash.

I came slowly to the title, while finding top reviews and how the North Wind could not be kept on store shelves.

So I jumped in; you should too.

The world of Northwind is different—colder. Humanity made mistakes. And Humanity has to pay the price. A world as a hook? A world as a warning? Actually, the timeless man vs nature conflict immediately presents itself as the hook, and mother nature does, in the very opening of Northwind, want blood. You get a post apocalyptic device used, so popular in films and even television. But it has all the traits of a modern fantasy, not “The Stand” or some end world TV series.

So far nothing on the actual heroes and heroines, but it is because the book has such a light taste for them, almost minimalistic if I can use a big word.

Here goes: a rogue enters a village looking for an apprentice, but that’s not too complicated. Simple. And it stays that way, a rogue book never really finding flat footing on the ground. It has the elements of a big epic, and I think that’s what appealed to readers. For some, this small epic will be a joy, but it is too simple even for me. Still, it avoids the clichés “a hero leaving a land and becoming a king.” We have little people in a future fantasy landscape.

Northwind is truly a unique book, showing readers new to the series immediately why it sold out across the country. Its pacing, the stripped down basics of comic fantasy, these are all quite different but not always fun. Life is different for the characters, who aren’t true super heroes. There are no big super heroines with certain body parts made appealing to the 15-75 crowd of boys. It departs from the origins of hero comics.

Northwind has elements of a Conan adventure, fantasy plot devices, and a world that could be. I said Conan, mainly because of the film and comic stories so popular today. Just like David Digilio’s pacing, the artwork doesn’t say—look! It is just tells a story, no devices, no cleavage, no huge gun battles.

Look at the story. Then you will want to look again.

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Smiles-Media.com, Ghost Writer For Hire – SEO, Direct Mail, and Blog Writing

Coffee And Heroes, Defining heroes day after day, even business heroes

Oddly, I began with the notion of short stories. Short stories by the hundreds! Writing short stories, selling short fiction to the biggest markets, even if they didn’t publish anything close.

Then came the idea of the novel. What writer hasn’t though of writing a novel? In my experience, the natural progression of any artist is to go big, to take the big gamble, and then to see what happens.

What kind of artist are you?

It takes someone oddly crazy, entirely amusing, and incredibly disciplined to write a novel. However, it’s something millions of people across the world take part in. Whether you want to be the next Stephen King or Clive Barker, whether you’re naturally a poet or usually more in tune to music, there is the odd gamble of the novel.

The novelist at work isn’t a pretty sight. He or she is quite different already: Writing. And worst of all, writing a book! That’s scary; people do get scared by the novel.

You must write the next masterpiece, and it won’t mean anything if it’s self published or bought by some small press. There is this idea of moving toward the Great America Novel. It must be literary, quote Hemingway and Fitzgerald, perhaps with a touch of Virginia Woolf. You create it, you become it. It can be as maddening as the latest Warren Ellis graphic novel or the down-and-out journalist Hunter Thompson. It can get scary, and make you feel odd like drinking bad milk. The scares don’t always occur for horror novelists for readers, but they do occur for the unpublished novelist, the artist who wants to write.

Sure, this is all going to a point. I take you toward my novels, which are “oddly” different from the Great American Novel. But what novel truly has been that sort of novel? Who the heck writes like that today except John Updike or Toni Morrison? I can quote more names, but it would be like filling this page with stuff you might not know and I surely can’t remember.

The Great American Novel is more the Great Genre Bend today. The artist who works does have the advantage. And I see so many novelists not writing for profit or movie deals, but writing with an idea that something will happen with the next novel, something big, and that moment you couldn’t capture unless you went to heaven.

My novels are odd and unpublished. I usually don’t rush to write them, but rarely is there a day where I don’t tell some kind of story. I tell them in The Writer Who Smiles, the eBook that’s too big to be an eBook (it’s almost 150 pages!), and essay-like, clear and positive work of something different.

You Can Order my eBook, The Writer Who Smiles, from Booklocker.com. It takes a FREE Adobe Reader to read it. Who’s it for? What’s it about? Writers. Writing. For $10 it’s a steal.

Coffee And Heroes, Defining heroes day after day, even business heroes

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I have been a freelance journalist for over five years, exploring this craft which sometimes pays well, usually pays something, but often pays low. So how do we get around that? If you’re a beginner to the field of freelance journalism, in 10 minutes I give you an edge on this powerful, profitable, and constantly enjoyable field.

Write for the Market—
On her excellent blog, Write From Home, Amy Derby points out writing for the markets is essential. You can’t just write what you want in most fields. You need to write for the market if you want to start selling articles and columns. This means treating freelance journalism as a business. If you study a market, even if only for 30-40 minutes, you gain an edge. Why? Because many journalists just send pieces randomly around, “knowing” their writing is excellent. It isn’t always about the writing quality and style. Sometimes it’s about the topic.

Choosing Topics—
So if you’re going to write for a market, you’ll see the hot topics. For example, when I was an editor for a college newspaper, I explored comics and novels often. However, in terms of reader response, I noted entertainment readers read more about films. This means getting to know your audience.

Write for the Audience—
The next step in writing for the market is finding the audience. For example, business writers trying to sell anti-aging products wouldn’t write a piece with a slant toward college students. You need to know your readers first before trying to angle an article toward them. It’s somewhat like a buyer profile.

Working from Day 1—
Freelance journalism isn’t a tough field to break into: once you get some experience jobs will come. But, they may not pay that much. If you work 40 hours a week and get paid a salary under $20,000, you need to have some aspirations for higher jobs. For example, editing jobs usually pay more than staff writer jobs. If you can freelance for other fields while working a lower paying job, it can help pay the bills.

Selling—
There are far more full time journalists than freelance journalists. The problem with freelance journalism is that many newspapers are cutting down on editorial work, where new writers can submit and publish articles like a magazine. As a journalist, you need to expand into markets beyond newspapers. You may want to break into online journalism fields, where you can work from home and sometimes work less while getting paid more. Selling means this is, again, a serious business. Freelance journalism, however, has been around since the printing press. It’s an enjoyable job which will like be around for a few more centuries.

Starship: Mutiny by Mike Resnick

Starship: Mutiny
By Mike Resnick
Review (C) Jacob Malewitz
Smiles-Media.com, Ghost Writer For Hire – SEO, Direct Mail, and Blog Writing

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The writing style of Mike Resnick is paramount to this science fiction story succeeding. Take the beginning: an anti-hero of sorts named Wilson Cole has arrived aboard the Theodore Roosevelt, a ship full of angry outcasts of the military, usually using drugs to cope with boredom. Cole fits in well here, as unfortunate as that is, but that’s precisely what he doesn’t like. He intends to turn the Theodore Roosevelt into a fine fighting vessel. He ends up going on adventures across time and space.

“Starship: Mutiny” is set in one of the most popular science fiction universes around, called the “Birthright Universe,” created by Mike Resnick. There have been many novels and short stories set in the Birthright universe, including this tale. “Starship: Mutiny” is a short novel that takes no prior knowledge of Resnick or Birthright Universe to read. And in terms of continuity for the Birthright Universe, it’s right at the beginning (Resnick includes a chart of events in this U, including the order of the titles in it).

The dialogue controls much of the early story, harnessing Resnick’s talent for creating military science fiction via simple dialogue drama.

“Mutiny” is an adventure yarn first, a science fiction classic second. It has perfect characterization, which Resnick uses so very well that the writer’s natural talents are obvious. This science fiction story keeps you guessing as the Theodore Roosevelt and its crew take chances. They are outcasts, but Cole intends to turn them into soldiers again.

What matters most is the deft characterization of Cole, and how well Resnick takes him out to the surrounding worlds on big adventures.

At its core, this isn’t a huge epic that spans the galaxies, or the Birthright U. It’s a small story told not poetically or in some grand prose—but in the general view of SF adventure. For those new to science fiction, namely military science fiction, this is a perfect beginning. If you want to read legend Mike Resnick, winner of many top awards including the Hugo, “Starship: Mutiny” is the perfect beginning too. It’s simple and elegant. And it’s part of a new series, “Starship,” with the sequel to this book being “Starship: Pirate.”