Self-publishing made easy

Are you tired of the waiting game?  Are you tired of publishers turning down your manuscript after holding on to it for months?  Or maybe you got a traditional contract, but you will never receive another penny beyond the little advance that they gave you.

Vanity publishers can cost thousands, but wait:  You do not have to pay to publish your work.

I can publish my own books without spending a penny, unless I choose to purchase special services such as proofreading or cover art.  My publisher provides cover templates that I can use to easily make my own covers, and they even provide some clip art if I don't have an image of my own that I want to use.

My books get listed on Amazon, and I can choose whether to offer them on Kindle.  I set the price of each book, so I control how much money I make on each sale.

Instead of waiting months or even years to hear from traditional publishers, and gettinga "no" inmost cases, I can see my books in print as soon as they are ready for my readers.

I'm talking about Create Space.

Try it, you'll like it!





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Book and book bag, great pair of stocking stuffers!

The purrfect bag fur the purrfect book fur fans of science fiction
(my cat helped me write this).

http://www.zazzle.com/book_bag_with_a_book_cover-149375046195985280

http://www.amazon.com/Darkening-Light-life-dream/dp/1475097948/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355169055&sr=1-1&keywords=tessa+dick+darkening

Get your stocking stuffers here

You still have time to get those stocking stuffers.

coffee mugs

pet dishes

T-shirts

book bags / shopping bags

greeting cards

posters

and more!

Have a cup of coffee with PKD!

http://www.zazzle.com/tuffy777

~~~

The myth that the poor don't pay taxes

In the course of political debate, it is often said that the poor do not pay taxes. That simply is not true. Perhaps 47 percent of Americans do not pay income taxes, or get refunds at the end of the year, but everybody pays taxes. Every time you buy something, you pay taxes. Even when you buy food items that do not have sales tax added, the price includes the taxes paid by the store, the farmer and the distributor. And if you drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes, you pay huge taxes. Every time you buy a car or register a vehicle or put gas in the tank, you pay taxes. Whenever you pay rent or make a house payment, you pay property taxes for yourself or the landlord. Even if you have enough deductions to bring your income taxes to zero, you still pay for Social Security, Medicare and Disability. Those are taxes. If you have a private retirement plan, that money will be taxed, sooner or later. Taxes hurt everybody, especially the poor. Raising taxes on the "wealthy", which seems to mean an income of $250 thousand a year, hurts everybody because the costs of those taxes are passed down as surely as rain falls from the sky. Let's talk about what an income of $250 thousand means. It means that you are not a millionaire, that maybe you can send your kids to college, that you can make your house payments unless you foolishly bought too much of a house, that you don't have the wolf at the door every month. It does not make you wealthy. And in this economy, you could lose your job any day, so you had better have some savings. Let's talk about savings. The banks pay less than one percent on savings, which doesn't even come near to meeting inflation. Other investments are risky, and they don't pay that much more. Most mortgages and automobile loans are nowhere near the lowest rate, and many are around ten percent or more. Credit cards can charge as much as 35 percent interest. No, maybe poor people do not pay income taxes, but they do pay somebody else's income taxes every time they buy something or pay their rent. And God save people who have debt! Everybody pays taxes, and everybody is hurt by taxes. ~~~

Get Origins while you can; it's about to go out of print

Origins Part One: Thor’s Hammer is about to go out of print, to make way for the expanded epic tale, Fallen Angels. The story follows the survivors of interplanetary war as they struggle to rebuild civilization on a hostile planet where giant beasts roam through mountains, jungles and deserts. The prison planet Gaea, having survived the planet-destroying doomsday weapon, offers meager refuge for the people who fled their shattered home world. In the midst of their efforts to survive, a new religion is born. Get it while you can, under $10 on Amazon! http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Part-One-Revised-Expanded/dp/1440459673/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347640187&sr=1-1&keywords=tessa+dick+origins "Origins is good stuff, real science fiction, unlike most of the bogus SF on the current market. . . . I would say you not only have an alternate universe good for a sequel or two, but for a long series of novels and short stories. Many a Grand Master has based a whole career on one or two private universes.” ~~ Ray Nelson (co-author of Philip K. Dick’s The Ganymede Takeover)

McCormick Grill Mates sent me this great kit of tasty things

Last Saturday the Crestline Lioness hosted a barbecue for our sponsoring club Big Bear Lions, and a good time was had by all. This is our annual reward to all our members for the volunteer work that we do all year. It’s always a welcome treat and a chance to get together and socialize for an afternoon. Our barbecue was made especially flavorful this year because McCormick sent us a free package of grill spices and seasonings. I requested the kit through Crowdtap, a social web site where you can earn points and trade them in for cash. I was thrilled when McCormick selected me as one of the lucky few who received the kit. The kit includes an envelope of Spiced Brandy and Herb Marinade, which made our chicken tender, moist and tasty. We also received an envelope of Memphis PIT BBQ Rub, which our chef Ray used on the short ribs. We got a shaker of Grill Mates Molasses Bacon and a shaker of Montreal Steak spices, which Ray used on the steaks after asking people which flavor they wanted. The bottle of Brown Sugar Bourbon BBQ Sauce got passed around among all the tables, and it was quite empty when we were finished eating. Ray insisted upon cooking the meat, and he owns the grill, so there was no argument. He refused to wear the apron that McCormick provided in the kit, so I’ll have to model it for a photo. We also got a little booklet with some recipes and the url for the web site where we could get more recipes. I’ve been a member of Crestline Lioness since 2005, and I’ve been a board member for the past five years. Lioness is part of Lions International, the world’s largest service organization. We conduct a variety of fundraising activities throughout the year, including yard sales, opportunity drawings, White Cane Days and much more. We support a variety of local and national charities, including City of Hope and Guide Dogs for the blind, and our main focus is on preserving sight. We are especially proud of our annual project of building a float and entering it in the Rose Parade in Pasadena on New Year’s Day. So when we finally get a chance to relax and have a day without work, we really enjoy the barbecue. Everybody brings some kind of side dish, but the centerpiece is always Ray’s grill with burgers, hot dogs, ribs, steak and chicken sending delicious aromas our way. Between the Lions and Lioness, we had about 50 people. McCormick made our party even tastier than ever this year. ~~~

Coming soon, another science fiction novel

Coming soon, and with great cover art by Nick Buchanan! ~~~

~~~

Kitty Cornered: How Frannie and Five Other Incorrigible Cats Seized Control of Our House and Made It Their Home by Bob Tarte
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

While pawing out treats to my furry friends, I quote the oft-repeated line in Kitty Cornered (after telling a cat no to the demand for treats), "while wiping the cat treat dust off my hands".

It's always difficult, and often impawssible to refuse a cat anything. They're purrsistent.

Cats rule my life, but at least I can point to Bob Tarte as a total cat slave, while I still manage to resist some of the more unreasonable demands from my furry task-masters.

This book is hilarious most of the time, sad at times and a great read.

It's easy to read, so I could have plowed through it in one evening, but I want to savor every delicious word.

~~~




View all my reviews

Lobster Report (just for fun)

My fellow crustaceans, We face one of the most serious problems in the history of civilization, and our government is covering it up. I speak about alien invasion by creatures from the sky. You may laugh, but this invasion is real. We find almost daily evidence of lobster mutilation and crab abduction, yet the government continues to insist that aliens do not exist, and besides, it would take them millions of years to get here, even if they did exist.  They are simply burying their heads in the sand and ignoring the vast mountains of evidence for alien invasion.

 Hundreds of sightings of strange metal craft hovering above come into my hotline every month. Nobody knows what kind of propulsion system these craft employ, but they do perform amazing hydrodynamic maneuvers before our very eyes. We could never achieve such stunts, and even if we did, our pilots would surely die from being tossed around inside the ship.

 We even have some photographs of these strange aerial craft, admittedly out of focus, but clearly showing metallic craft of roughly ovoid shape, one end being flat with fan-shaped thrusters and the other end being more narrow and pointed.

 Those who have encountered the inhabitants of these craft and managed to return report that the aliens have pink skin, or sometimes brown skin, and that they lack any sort of exoskeleton. Instead their bodies are covered with soft, flowing substances which must be the vestigial remnants of ancestral exoskeletons. These substances come in a variety of colors and patterns, suggesting that the aliens belong to separate communities, if not separate species. They must have evolved to carry their skeletons inside their soft bodies, although our scientists can see no evolutionary advantage to s uch a mutation.

 These evil aliens invade our world on a daily basis, abducting our citizens and the fish who share these waters with us. In some cases, a citizen loses a claw or a bit of skin but otherwise escapes the predation engaged in by these evil invaders.

 We must demand that the government release all information about this phenomenon, and that our defensive forces put a stop to the abduction of fish and crustaceans. ~~~

Kipple - all my stuff is turning into kipple

Phil used to describe the process of entropy in terms of kipple. All your stuff, no matter how shiny, new and cool it might be, eventually turns into kipple. Like my stuf

f.

Life on one leg

Yes, I still have both of my legs.  However, one of them is badly broken.  I'm in a brace and on crutches.  Thank God, they didn't put a cast on it, so I can take off the brace to scratch the itchies.

Getting around is problematic at best, even inside the house.  I've learned to hobble into the kitchen on one crutch, so I have a hand free to stir the pot and carry my bowl of soup back to my desk in the living room.

The two hardest things are sitting down and, even worse, getting up from a chair (or from the toilet).

I'm learning ways to bathe without the benefit of the bathroom fixtures that were designed for that purpose.  You see, sitting in a tub is out of the question, unless I want to spend the rest of my life in there.  Standing up in the shower is too painful.  Even my good leg begins to hurt after a few minutes because it has to carry all my weight with no aid from my left leg.

Every day I thank God that this is temporary.  My leg will heal, eventually.  It makes me feel even more sympathetic toward those who have lost one or both legs permanently.

Meanwhile, since I can't do much of anything involving physical activity, I've been experimenting with make-up.  Now, Granny always told me that if you paint your face when you're young, you'll have to paint your face when you're old.  At age 58, I still consider myself young, but my face seems to disagree.  I feel about 26 on the inside, but I'm beginning to look like 76 on the outside. 

I would appreciate any tips you might have about moisturizing (I have very dry skin), wrinkle reduction, choosing the right shades for fair skin with freckles, color coordinating, etc.  I have so little experience with make-up! 

Thank you so much for reading my post!

  ~~~

Strange murals and monuments at Denver International Airport

Masonic?  Yes.  New World Order, probably.

Denver International Airport Murals (http://extraordinaryintelligence.com) – slideshow dvd

~~~  

From

http://extraordinaryintelligence.com/970/the-unexplained/mysterious-murals-and-monuments-at-the-denver-airport/

  ~~~

Philip K.Dick Festival 2012

Want to learn more about Philip K. Dick?  Meet others who read his work?  


Sept 22-23, 2012 will be a weekend of celebration and examination of Phillip K. Dick’s life and work, hosted by San Francisco State University. 


http://www.philipkdickfestival.com/


The Guest of Honor is Jonathan Lethem, who edited the Library of America editions of Phil's work.  


Not everything is set in stone, but some speakers, mostly academics, have been lined up.  They plan to charge $35 a day or $50 for the entire weekend of the festival, but that could change.  


The web site says, "Speakers and presenters will have their entrance fee waived, but at this point we cannot promise presenters either travel or lodging expenses."  However, when I offered to speak, they said that they will not waive my entrance fee. 


I was really hoping to attend, but I can't afford it..  


I would have to take a train or airline to get from Southern California to the Bay Area, and although friends have offered me a place to stay, and they said they would feed me, I cannot pay the fare to get there.  I can't drive due to a recent head injury, and I don't have a car, anyway.  


If I can manage it, I will attend, but I will not be a speaker or sit on a panel.  They made me feel most unwelcome.  Besides, why should I pay them to let me work for them?  


I'm hoping to scrape up the money to attend, but I will be there as a private person. 


  ~~~ 

NativeImagesPG's California Indian Blog: Forest's tribal relations program manager honored ...

Here's an interesting blog about preserving our national forests.

Did you know that I live in a forest?

NativeImagesPG's California Indian Blog: Forest's tribal relations program manager honored ...: CONGRATULATIONS DAN! We know how valuable you are to "Us", Glad to see other's do as well! INLAND: Forest's tribal relations program manag...

My book got one star on Amazon, five stars on Library Thing

Terry Allen gave my companion book, Firebright and the Edge of Reality, a five-star rating (5 out of 5!). 

See it on Library Thing.

http://www.librarything.com/work/12720914/book/87001567 

Buy the book on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Firebright-Edge-Reality-Collector-Edition/dp/1463632630/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1340464183&sr=1-4&keywords=tessa+dick

And plese note that it has only one Amazon review, and it gives my book one measly star!

Also see my memoir TessaB. Dick: My Life on the Edge of Reality.

http://www.amazon.com/Tessa-B-Dick-Life-Reality/dp/1461142695/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1340464183&sr=1-1&keywords=tessa+dick

and the original memoir, the one that started this chain of events,

Philip K, Dick:  Remembering  Firebright

http://www.amazon.com/Philip-K-Dick-Remembering-Firebright/dp/1442110279/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1340464183&sr=1-2&keywords=tessa+dick

  ~~~

Snacking for writers

Despite all the warnings about keeping liquids away from the precious and fragile keyboard, I always keep a cup of coffee and a glass of water at hand while I'm using the computer.  I figure that, if it's going to happen, there is nothing that I can do to stop it.  After all, I once tripped on an electrical cord a full ten feet away from the computer, and the coffee flew out of the cup then landed in a belly flop all over the keyboard.  I'm talented that way.

So I have my liquids, and I have my snacks.  At least once a day, I turn the keyboard upside down and shake out the crumbs of donuts, cookies and potato chips.  Yes, I'm probably ruining my health, such as it is, with all that junk food.

In an attempt to improve my health, and to continue avoiding the need to step away from the computer for an actual meal, I have taken to surrounding the computer with better snacks.

Cheese, I love cheese. Shredded cheese is a great topper for a bowl of soup, especially if you first toss in some croutons for the cheese to hug.  Cheese is also good on crackers, of course, but that strategy lacks imagination.  I like to pan fry a tortilla in butter, adding shredded cheese on top so that it melts into a gooey, delicious mess.  You can add tomato chunks or salsa for extra flavor.

Celery is great, after I strip off most of the strings.  Those strings are too hard to chew, and sometimes they roll up into a ball and choke me.  Celery is good dipped in peanut butter or cream cheese.  I've given up on carrots, unless I have the time and inclination to cut them into thin slices.  My dentures just can't handle the biting and chewing any more.

Oh, and then there's fresh fruit in season.  August is my favorite month because the fruit on my wild blackberry vine ripens in August.  At about the same time, the tomatoes in my garden start producing enough fruit to share with friends and neighbors.

The apples on my ancient tree usually ripen by Halloween.

And then there's the frozen fruit off the Schwan's truck.  Since I can't drive, it's a blessing to have food delivered, and their prices are competitive with the grocery store -- sometimes lower.  (No, they did not pay me to say that.)  Schwan's has a variety of snacks, meals and ingredients for meals, plus the most delicious ice cream I ever ate.

But I digress.  Surrounding myself with snacks enables me to spend more time writing and less time fussing around the kitchen for something to eat.

Living alone -- unless you count the cats -- makes it possible for me to ignore the habits and rituals of family life.  In fact, even when I had a husband and child, I often ignored them until dinner time.  Writing is my life, and other people just have to get used to it.

  ~~~

The Darkening of the Light, cover art

Nick Buchanan's wonderful art work is always awesome.  Here's his cover my my latest novel, The Darkening of the Light.

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Abandoned owls, revelation and insanity

An interesting post on Word and Film urges Harry Potter fans to stop abandoning their pet owls now that the movies have come to an end.

http://www.wordandfilm.com/2012/05/harry-potter-fans-stop-abandoning-your-pet-owls/

The same post goes on to point us to a "three-part Opinion piece in the New York Times (here's part one) exploring the difference between spiritual revelation and mental illness."

What, exactly is the difference between revelation and insanity?  Are children mentally ill when they see monsters in the closet or under the bed?  Are religious people insane when they talk to an invisible God?  Are creative artists crazy, or perhaps childlike?

Was Philip K. Dick mentally ill when he encountered information from a parallel universe?

I don't understand why the New York Times piece refers to the "golden fish".  Phil always called it the "pink light".  In any case, it is interesting that a university professor finds the subject worthy of exploration.

Here's a snippet:

Skimming through and across multiple encyclopedia entries, Dick found links and correspondences of ideas everywhere. He also stumbled into the primary texts of a number of philosophers and theologians — notably the pre-Socratics, Plato, Meister Eckhart, Spinoza, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, Whitehead, Heidegger and Hans Jonas. His interpretations are sometimes quite bizarre but often compelling.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/philip-k-dick-sci-fi-philosopher-part-1/

Professor Simon Critchley seems blissfully unaware of the fact that Phil studied philosophy at the University of California, or that he continued studying philosophy on his own after leaving the university.

A word of advice:  If you click the links, read at your own peril.  These things might expand your mind.

   ~~~

My books are now available in Europe and the UK on Amazon!

My books are now available On Amazon Europe and Amazon UK!


That includes my latest novel, The Darkening of the Light, in which we follow Edna Stax down the rabbit hole of alternate worlds. 


Yippee! 


  ~~~ 

Excerpt, The Darkening of the Light

If you like my other books, you're sure to love my latest novel, The Darkening of the Light.

Here's an excerpt: 

“Clear!” the doctor shouted, and then came the shock.  Again he shouted, “Clear!” and again the shock came.  And yet a third time, the charm, “Clear!” and then the shock, as if Dr. Frankenstein were bringing the monster to life.  The dead parts began to live, and the sinus rhythm settled into a regular pattern on the monitor, and the beeping became more regular and less frantic. 

Clearly the light had begun to darken, yet she lived.  Unable to move, but seeing and hearing all those around her, she lay in the hospital bed while her faithful suitor sat in the chair and talked to her, or Mother sat reading aloud from the newspaper, even reading the want ads, but never the obituaries, for the thought of death must never enter this room.  

  ~~~ 

Available on Amazon HERE 

or on Kindle HERE

  ~~~ 

Cover art by Nick Buchanan 

Allegro's Mushroom now available in paperback

now available in paperback!

https://www.createspace.com/3807595

My analysis of a book that fascinated my husband Philip K. Dick.

~~~

Allegro's Mushroom -- book excerpt

From my work in progress:

My husband Philip K. Dick became obsessed with John M. Allegro’s book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, which was first published in 1970, then disappeared amid a storm of controversy and was finally reissued in 2009, more than 20 years after Allegro’s death at age 65 in 1988. The thesis of Allegro’s book is that Christianity had its origin in a cult of mushroom eaters who told the fictional story of Jesus to disguise their recipes for vision-inducing drugs. He goes on to assert that early Christianity was simply one of many fertility cults.

Allegro was part of the original team that worked on the Dead Sea scrolls, until his refusal to fall in line with the orthodox interpretation of the scrolls led the team leader to publicly attack his work and eventually replace him. Any scholar who disagreed with the official “truth” was ridiculed or ignored by the small team of scholars (usually numbering half a dozen) who jealously guarded their treasure. For example, the team agreed that the scrolls had been written, and then hidden in caves, by a small Jewish sect known as Essenes, even though more recent scholarship tends to support the idea that the scrolls belonged to observant Jews. The scrolls might even have been secretly removed from Jerusalem shortly before the Romans captured Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple (Golb, pages 143 and 145-146).

Since only a handful of scholars had access to the scrolls, and they refused to allow other scholars to see them – or even to look at photographs of them – the orthodox interpretation faced few serious challenges until the Huntington Library began making microfilm copies of the scrolls available to all qualified scholars in 1991.

Norman Golb asserts that Allegro wrote The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross as a reaction to, and revenge for, being pushed out of the scrolls team (page 126, footnote). It certainly does attack Christianity, as Golb noted, and the primary members of the team were Catholic priests.

When Allegro published his book in 1970, he was immediately attacked by traditional scholars – not only the Dead Sea scrolls team – for his startling thesis that Christianity had its origins in a fertility cult that used hallucinogenic mushrooms. However, more recent scholarship and a number of primary texts and images from early Christianity tend to support Allegro’s theory about Amanita muscaria. However, his book contains errors and wild speculations that make it easy to find fault with his thesis. He seems to find what he is looking for, regardless of whether it actually exists.

The Amanita muscaria is a mushroom with white spots on the bright red cap, sitting atop a white stem. Numerous scholars have pointed out its resemblance to the red-and-white costume worn by Santa Claus. Like most red fruits, this mushroom is poisonous. It also causes hallucinations, plus wild frenzy followed by lethargy. It is also a purge, causing severe diarrhea. Allegro speculated that fertility cults used this mushroom to produce enthusiasm, in the sense of being filled with the divine spirit. He further speculated that Jesus Christ was simply a symbolic character who personified the mushroom. This proposition, of course, ignores the biblical prohibition against sorcery, which at the time meant pharmacy, the use of psychoactive drugs. Yet Allegro insists upon finding secret codes in the Bible that boil down to recipes for hallucinogenic potions.

I am going to be very tough on Allegro’s thesis, but The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross does have a great deal of value as an exploration of ancient religious ideas. I simply cannot agree that every snake is a penis and every womb is the volva (immature mushroom), or that a mushroom is a hermaphroditic creature consisting of a penis to be worshipped as God the Father while penetrating its own womb.

and all I got was this lousy post card

Well, it's actually a letter, but the sentiment is the same.

I never saw a penny of the consultant fee that Jason Koornick promised me for my participation in his PKD biopic, even though the movie has been out for ten years.

That money could pay my bills for two or three months, but when I ask Jason about it, he ignores me.

So all I got was this lousy letter:

Magic mushrooms? John Allegro's book examined

My next book will be an exploration of John Allegro's book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, a work that fascinated my husband.

Allegro, a member of the Dead Sea scrolls team, developed a shocking thesis about early Christianity. He asserted that it was just one of many fertility cults, and that the early Christians achieved visionary experiences by eating a poisonous mushroom.

Watch for my book and Allegro's book, coming soon.

~~~

The Postmistress - book review

I read Sarah Blake's novel The Postmistress because it was this month's selection for the local book club.

I have mixed feelings about it, since the story is so important but the author is somewhat lacking in skill to tell it. Here's the beginning of my review:





Sarah Blake used a wealth of actual and imaginary history to craft a tale about ordinary people living through the horrors of Nazi Germany’s march across Europe, the London Blitzkrieg and the pogrom against European Jews. Based partly on research and mostly on imagination, she takes us into the lives of a menagerie – and there lies the problem. She gives us too many main characters, none of whom is the postmistress of the novel’s title. The story of Iris James, Postmistress of Franklin, Massachusetts, turns out to be peripheral to the central story. Moreover, so many stories are told that the central story gets lost in the tangle of smaller stories.



Please follow the link and read my full review. It will increase the pittance that Epinions pays me.



http://www.epinions.com/review/Book_The_Postmistress_Sarah_Blake/content_575649189508



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