Technology In Lieu of Common Sense

"Uh-I don't know what happened. I left the keys in the car and I shut the door and it locked.  The car's not supposed to do that."

In my secret non-author identity as a call center advisor, this is my most common call. Be it a dealer or customer, they're always shocked that the car would have the sheer audacity to lock them out. After decades of human evolution when it comes to automobiles and locking the keys inside, you would think that we would have learned, but such is not the case. These so-called smart keys that are supposed to prevent such a situation have spoiled us.

Shockingly, most times they never blame themselves for locking the keys in the car or in the trunk. They're angry and disgruntled, the victim of some form of trickery that the car has played on them. I even had one admit to pulling off on the highway to take a smoke and getting locked out.

Sometimes I just want to ask: What were you doing to get your keys locked in the car? Having a car that doesn't have a smart key, I'm paranoid about getting locked out. I'm always aware of where my keys are when I get out of the car. And if it ever happens, I have a family member with an extra set, just in case. Maybe I'm crazy, but even with technology, I wouldn't want to rely on a machine to save my butt in a jam.

Are we being dumbed down by technology, leaving common sense and our brains by the wayside?
 Are we getting too lazy to think, instead relying on Apps and computers to do it for us?

My grandmother used to carry an address book the size of a Yellow Pages in her purse, which she kept with her until the day she had her final stroke. Everyone from distant relative to close neighbor was listed in that book and she even kept a backup at home. Nowadays all our contacts are stored in our handy dandy smartphones. If your smartphone crashed, would you be able to remember your emergency contacts?

The same goes for driving. I've seen people pitch a fit because their GPS isn't working. I know of people who get directions everyday for their commute. What happens when you can't get directions?
What about something as simple as shopping? Do I really need to whip out my smartphone's calculator to figure out what my discount at Macy's will be?

I'm definitely not against technology, obviously it's there for a reason. But every so often, maybe you might want to warm up those brain cells just to make sure they're working right. It may save you a long wait for roadside because you locked your keys in your car.

What is Twitter Etiquette?

As indie author's one of the most powerful tools for getting our name and product out there is social media. It's been a learning process over the past year, but we've finally got it down. I'm not sure about Von, but my favorite social media tool is Twitter. It's short and sweet, no need for extraneous content, 140 characters and you're done. If I happen to find an interesting article or picture, I just click on the blue bird, it's miniaturized to Shrinky Dink size and posted to our Twitter page, easy enough.

As our Twitter followers have grown over the past few months, so have our interactions, or Retweets. At first, we would send a Thank You tweet, thanking them for thinking of us, but we soon discovered that retweeting the retweeters content was even better to return the favor.  If an author happens to follow us then we make it a point to follow them back. It's a good way to grow your network and interact with other people trying to do the same thing you're doing.

I got quite a shock, one day while trying to thank one of our retweeters. I clicked on that author's name to find a profile page full of nudity, whips, chains, and handcuffs. Okay, if we're not comfortable even looking at this person's page, do we have to retweet their material because they retweeted ours?

Another question concerns serial retweeters. If we know they retweet our stuff almost automatically, sometimes several times a day, do we retweet their stuff multiple time also?

What about Followers who speak an entirely different language? Do I follow someone even though I don't have a clue what they're saying?

It's not like someone wrote a handbook on proper Twitter etiquette. I hate being rude and don't want our Followers to think we're trying to snub them. So we had to make up our own rules.
If a Follower is into something risque that we're not quite comfortable sharing on our page, we'll send a thank you Tweet or retweet something safe they've retweeted from someone else.

For the serial retweeters, we retweet them once or twice. Anything more and you're caught in a vicious, repeating loop.

The rest is just play it by ear and stick with our own judgment.  If we're not comfortable with something, than the best course of action is to leave it alone. Over time you'll gain Followers and you'll lose Followers, that's just the way Twitter goes.

Accepting Imperfection

This week I started reading through our debut novel The Body Hunters for the first time in nearly a year. Come to think of it, I just realized this is the anniversary of the day we published it, weird. We've been working on a script adapted from our book, so I needed to read through it again and make the necessary changes as far as the adaptation was concerned. In a script, you can't have paragraphs explaining what's going on, that's something that has to be discussed between characters or otherwise shown in the film. There's no need for flowery prose in a script, all that has to be streamlined, leaving the skeleton of the story. Though we've gotten good reviews and positive feedback from those who've read our first book, some of the mistakes we made as first time authors stuck out to me.

With the script it's been sort of a Body Hunter 2.0. Now with a fresh pair of experienced author's eyes, I've gone in and changed what never should have been, including one reality television subplot that never really went anywhere. In the screenplay, there's a better introduction to our hero, Aiden Stone and the villain is even more of a monster, if that is at all possible. And like our latest works, the voices of Von and I assimilate into one and you can't tell where my writing starts and hers begins. Still, looking behind me, I'm tempted to pull a George Lucas and go back and make changes to the first novel to satisfy that egotistical author in me who's looking for perfection. But I know I can't do that. If I'm stuck looking back at the past, how can I concentrate on the future?

Every mistake we make with any project, not just our first is an opportunity to grow and learn as writers. Sure being an artist, you want it to be perfect, so you change this word and that, and you spend hours editing trying to get it just right. But sometimes that search for perfection does more harm than good. You stall and procrastinate, obsessing over the littlest thing, moving paragraphs around until you've done nothing but made yourself crazy. That is something our editor, Reggie, told us from the start. She forced us to make a deadline and stick with it, which is a policy we still go by nearly four novels and a year later. We're only human, so we have to accept that we can't be perfect all the time.

Starting From Scratch

For nearly a year and a half we have been living in the skin of our characters, Danielle Labouleaux and Aiden Stone, stars of The Body Hunters series. We know these characters and their supporting cast so well, we know how they would react in certain situations and can even complete their sentences. Right now the third book in the series is with our editor Reggie and we're in the midst of writing the fourth book. After we release the fourth book, tentatively titled The Lazarus Effect, we're taking a break from Danny and Aiden and starting another series. That's where the problem lies.

One thing we've taken note of from our readers is that even though they love the mystery and paranormal aspects of our series, they love the drama between our characters even more. Therefore, we decided to delve into something that was strictly drama in a real world setting. We can promise that there will be plenty of twists and character conflict. The dilemma lies in creating characters who are not just Xerox copies of the cast from our first series. We're not going to cut any corners and we're not taking the easy way out.

Our new protagonist is a biracial young woman and that's where her similarity to Danny Labouleaux ends. We're purposely making her an edgier character who would do things to accomplish her goals that Danny would shudder to even consider. It takes a little work to take your brain out of one character and transplant it into another, especially when you've been in their mindset for so long. We've had a long time to develop Danny and figure out what makes her tick, now it's time to devote that same love and attention to another protagonist. While Danny and company feel like home, these new characters and scenarios have us in uncharted territory where we are free to start over from scratch.  It may be a daunting task, but it helps us grow as writers.

Now we're not leaving The Body Hunters permanently, there's still a lot more stories to tell, as well as a prequel, and the movie script that's currently in the works. One day I'd love to see Danny and Aiden on the big screen. We're just taking a little time outside our comfort zone to develop something else and challenge ourselves. If it's not a challenge is it even worth doing?