Let's hope I don't sink the 8 ball this time.

If this isn't an interesting turn of events, I don't know what is. I've been staying with my parents for the weekend because of a bedbug infestation at my apartment. I've got bites all over my body. Exactly why did God put those monsters on Earth? I could do without most insects, for that matter.

So that's why I'm staying with my parents. My mother and I are on chilly terms, but she's always had an interest in my writing. She's not actually involved in my writing, although she does read each chapter of my novels when I finish them. She gets a sneak peak at it before anyone else does. I prefer it that way because it means she doesn't have to read a 400-page book when I release it, and we can talk about it. She says her favorite is Dead of Night, then The Animals, and Transfer last. Reverse the order, and you have my favorites.

Over the past month or so, I've been thinking more about And I Feel Fine. The story is too good to give up on, and I've come so far trying to get the damn thing finished. The problem is that editing it would cost 500 to 600 dollars, well beyond what I could come up with in a short amount of time. (For comparison's sake, I made $177.65 in royalties last month. That's been by far my best month ever.) A cover would be another $50. Nick Ambrose does good work and his prices are reasonable, but a 300,000 word novel would be expensive no matter who was editing it. I couldn't come up with that much dough at once.

So I had an idea. J.F. Perkins, the author of the Renewal series, wrote it as a serial of ten novellas. I had the idea of just going the same route with And I Feel Fine. Right now I've split it into nine novellas. From what I've got finished, I have the first three novellas written out and most of the fourth. The titles for the first three are:

And I Feel Fine 1: The Chills
And I Feel Fine 2: As the World Burns
And I Feel Fine 3: The Alone State

I'll announce each novella's title when I finish it. (The novella, not the title. I should hope a title won't take too long to write.) Each novella will be anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 words. The Chills is around 38,000 words. Between the cover and a basic line edit, it'll only cost around $110. The rest should cost somewhere in the same neighborhood. I'll submit The Chills for an edit and a cover on June 7th. I'll let you know when it'll be ready for release.

And no, I'm not suspending work on Done is Done. I'll release As the World Burns and The Alone State over the next few months as I write Done is Done. When Done is Done is ready, I'll resume work on the fourth novella. It'll be ready some time this fall, depending on when I get Done is Done out. I've got my work cut out for me.

I'll post about the KDP Select promotion for Transfer and how sales were for May later tonight or possibly tomorrow. I have to eat dinner real fast and then pick up Amber for a few games of pool at the Saddle Bar.

For some reason I thought this promotion was for Dead of Night.

I knew this freebie was coming up soon, but I only just checked to see when it was only to find that it was for Transfer, not Dead of Night. I got it mixed up in my head somehow. That happens all the time these days. I'd post a Homer Simpson "D'oh" pic except I'm exhausted and don't feel like Googling for one.

Dead of Night Transfer is having a free KDP Select promotion lasting a full five days. Yep, I'm using up all five of my free promotion days for Transfer all at once. It begins on May 26th and runs through the 30th. The last promotion I did was for The Animals. I had 882 downloads in two days. I was predicting 1,300 or so, but I was planning on it lasting three days. In my infinite idiocy, I unwittingly scheduled it so that the last day was after my three-month enrollment in KDP Select ended. I thought it ended a day later than it did. So the promotion got docked at two days.

I'm not annoyed though, since I still had downloads at a much faster clip (18.38 per hour) than any previous promotion. Hell, I had more downloads total last time for a two-day promotion than I have for any of the others, and those lasted two, three, and four days each. I was certain I'd announced the Dead of Night promotion here before it started on April 5th and ran through the 8th. Nope, nada. I was in the psych ward for the first time when I would have normally announced it. I got out before then, but I had other things on my mind. As they say on 4chan, u dun goofed.

I've posted on 4chan before. Only once, though. Never again, man. Never again.

In Soviet Russia, file share you!

I did learn something else interesting tonight. Some authors would be horrified. I thought it was hilarious.

I just discovered that at least one of my three books has been uploaded to an illegal file sharing website. The Animals is on it, and I think Dead of Night is as well. Transfer isn't, which is understandable since that one's never sold well. No one loves Transfer.

Quite frankly, the most difficult part of knowing that my books are being pirated is finding a way to care less. My books are copyrighted granted, although copyrights are not the sort of thing I give even a nanosecond's thought to. While I don't know how many people have actually downloaded the pirated copies, I can't imagine it's that many. I'm still not that big of a player in the indie game. But if I was, that might inspire me to think up a way to care less about the copyright violations.

I don't know how much money in royalties this costs me, but I'd be surprised if it was more than what I spend on a midnight run to Wendy's. I may be losing money over this, but I'm sure as hell not losing sleep over it. To be honest, I think it's pretty cool that there's enough demand for my books that someone decided to buy them, upload them onto the pirating website, and hope people will download them for free. I hope a few people do. Call me crazy, but I'd rather have readers than money. The money is a nice side effect and while it is one of the top ten reasons I write, it's probably around number 9 or so. And if I did manage to become the next Amanda Hocking, I'd feel the exact same way. The pirating thing doesn't bother me. I wouldn't download anything from such a site myself, but that's because I have enough money to buy cheap ebooks on my Kindle and that I don't enjoy removing viruses from my computer. If other authors want to go after these sites for breaking copyright laws, hey, great. I just don't want to be a part of it. I don't approve of file sharing, but I don't disapprove of it either. I simply don't care.

And to really drive the point home, I'm not even going to link to where my books are being pirated. I'd rather not have someone try and rat them out on my behalf. Even if anyone, myself included, did report them, they're probably not based anywhere that could do anything to them. Russia hosts a lot of them.

And yes, that means if I downloaded it I might be able to see Russia from my apartment.

Facebook author page and other babbling

Yeah, I finally got around to making one of these. Hopefully it looks decent enough. I just made it earlier tonight so it's still a work in progress.

http://www.facebook.com/nicksteckelwriter

And no, I didn't ask my mother to join. She did so out of her own volition. I just now noticed that another person I know liked it.

I did get Chapter 2 of Done is Done do-err-finished. That title really makes announcing that something on it is complete really, really awkward. No one ever accused me of being the next William Safire.

I have two chapters done (hur hur) out of thirty. The outline says thirty, which means approximately thirty. I can never stick to those. Dead of Night was supposed to be 41 chapters, it's now 36. The Animals was going to be 27, and it got shaved down to 25. Transfer was originally 30 and ended up 28. What happens isn't that I cut chapters out entirely. I usually just decide that I didn't have enough material to justify two chapters and simply merge them into one. I've split chapters as well, but it's a lot rarer. And I Feel Fine (RIP) was going to be 111 chapters, making it a doorstopper of a book. I trimmed it down to a slim novella of 100 chapters. I still estimated that it would be between 300,000 and 350,000 words, well exceeding a thousand pages in paperback. I ended up deciding to put a stake through its heart 44 chapters into it. I know, three or four drafts, and this was the final version, and I make it nearly halfway through before casting it into the fire. Between all of the drafts, I probably wrote about a million words total on And I Feel Fine. I don't consider it wasted effort, since it was a million words of practice and every word helps whether I publish it or not. As for wasted time, you could look at it that way, except it was a lot of fun to write.

That said, I wanted to work on Done is Done, and And I Feel Fine had long since worn out its welcome.  So here we are. Funny thing is, I originally thought Done is Done would be short, about 50,000 to 60,000 words, around 200 pages. The first chapter turned out to be the longest one I've ever written for any of my novels at 6,000 words. The second was about two thirds that length. I'm going to try and keep the chapters shorter, since I don't want another attempt at a magnum opus. It won't be nearly as long as And I Feel Fine, probably being around 400 to 450 pages or so, about the same length as Dead of Night.

I need to end this before I go into more detail about things so boring that even I'm falling asleep. Done is Done should be released in August 2012. I hope. It might be in September, but I'll let you know once I get closer to being done.

Done is done is done is done is done is done is done is done is done is done. Sounds like some schoolyard taunt.

First chapter of Done is Done is...well, you know.

It's about damn time, I know. This is the first time I've finished a chapter of anything in two months.

Here's to many more chapters to come. 

Chapter 1: The Shadow of the Past

1
The two professors standing outside Abney Hall savored the gust of warm air. The weather was warm, close to sixty degrees, something few expected for northeastern Ohio in the middle of January. Andrzej Kaminski, a man who went by Andy since he'd yet to meet a single person in America who could pronounce his first name. Even Mildred had trouble with it. Andy stood beside Mustafa al-Dossadi, a fellow professor in the History Department and Andy's best friend now that Mildred was gone. But I loved and married Mildred, and even if I were gay, I wouldn't be attracted to Mustafa, and even if I were, gay marriage isn't legal here anyway. And even then, Mustafa just celebrated his three year anniversary with his girlfriend.

Andy took another drag off his Pall Mall as he thought about Mildred. It'd only been six months since she died. Losing a wife to cancer was a common cliché, but Andy knew that clichés became clichés because they happened so damn often. Say what you will about Lifetime Original movies, they're a lot more realistic than any summer blockbuster. Not a fun thing to learn about life.

Mustafa had been hired by Starkfield University as a history professor back in 1999 and had been teaching there ever since. He was half Andy's age and had also grown up in a war zone. While Andy had spent his childhood in Poland, with neighboring Germany falling under the rule of the Third Reich the day he turned four, Mustafa had spent his early years in southern Lebanon during the worst of the battles between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces that occupied his home city of Tyre. Despite Andy being targeted for being a Jew and Mustafa being targeted by Jews, the two hit it off immediately when they first met and had been friends ever since. Mustafa sympathized with what Andy had gone through during the Holocaust, feeling that he could relate. When Andy asked him one night during Happy Hour at the local watering hole why he could, Mustafa had replied “Being persecuted sucks, no matter who's persecuting you or what they're persecuting you for. I've been persecuted, you've been persecuted, we both agree that we didn't like it, so what else is there to say?” Can't really argue with that. Mustafa had dealt with his trauma far better than Andy had, as while Andy spent the rest of the evening reliving his stint at Sobibor, Mustafa ordered another basket of Buffalo wings and asked Andy his opinion about how the Buckeyes' defense would do Saturday against Penn State's rookie offensive guards. He's never been one to hold a grudge.

Andy was shaken out of his thoughts by a comment from Mustafa.

“This is not what the forecaster said today would be like.”

“Welcome to Ohio.” Andy said.

“I wasn't complaining. I've been here for ten years. Before I moved to Ohio, I taught at MIT. I've had time to get used to this country's schizophrenic climate.”

“I'm thinking the global warming might have something to do with it.”

“You've been talking with Joel Halberdier again.” Joel was the head of the university’s meteorology department. Andy thought global warming was a real problem, but that didn't stop him from wishing Joel would find something else to complain about now and then. “You can admit it, Andy. That guy will go into hysterics about climate change to anyone who listens and most who won't. I think half of the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere these days come out of his mouth. He's also responsible for another fifth but not from his mouth, if you get my drift.” Andy laughed.

“So are you planning to watch Obama's inauguration?” Andy asked, wanting to change the topic.

“He gets sworn in at noon. I have Basic Arabic from eleven to one. One of my students last semester had a saying that she used all the time. It got on my nerves at first, but the more thought I gave it, the more I came to realize that it is a profound example of saying volumes in three one-syllable words.”

“At least one of three words is a curse. How close was I?”

“Fuck my life, you were right.”

“So what are the three words?”

“I just said them, and they weren't the part about you being right.” Andy sighed.

“Fuck my life. Well, no one said today's generation isn't good at getting straight to the point. They're certainly better at it than you, since I asked you if you were watching Obama's swearing in two minutes ago and you didn't answer.” Mustafa laughed.

“I mentioned having a class from eleven to one. That would make it pretty obvious, Andy.”

“It's the first day of classes. The only reason any professor here would keep his students for the full period on the first day is if he wants to make all of his students loathe him forever, or at least until final exams are done and they leave for the summer.”

“I usually just go over the syllabus.”

“I started uploading those to my university page and have the students just download them and print them out.”

“If I did that, then there'd be no reason for me to even come here on the first day. And- hey Andy, I think you might be on to something. I sure don't want to come here at seven in the morning and mill around until I face my nine-to-ten class full of hungover students.” Starkfield University was one of, if not the top party school in America. The Princeton Review had listed Starkfield as the fourth best party school in the country last year, its lowest rank in twelve years. While its academics were a good deal lower on the list, Andy knew that in the fight between knowledge and and beer, well, if someone said knowledge would win and it did, Andy would buy them a Corona.

Mustafa shook Andy from his thoughts once more.

“Girls would never dress like that in Lebanon.” Mustafa said, looking at two girls chatting over something while dressed in tank tops, flip-flops, and shorts that Andy doubted would fit a cat.

“Again, welcome to Ohio.”

“Again, I wasn't complaining. I may be a Muslim, but I'm still a male, and I still enjoy some good eye candy now and then. Brooke doesn't know, but if she did, I doubt she'd mind.”

“You're lucky to have her, Mustafa.”

“I wish she'd stop making puns about my brother getting stiffed, but Hussein told me that's what happens when you get elected as county coroner. But he was sworn in two months ago and he deals with dead bodies all day, so he's had plenty of time to think up equally bad corpse puns. And it'd be nice if she wouldn't hear a song, fall in love with it, and play it over and over and over. 'Poker Face' may sound good the first time, but the millionth, not so much.”

“'Poker Face'? Who's that one by?”

“I'm guessing it's pretty comfortable under the rock you've been living under, Andy. I'd sing a bit of it to you except I don't want to get it stuck in my head. It isn't a bad song, but it's catchy to the point that once it's in your head, it'll be there for a few weeks and the radio plays Lady Gaga a lot more often than that.”

“I wish Mildred could see today.” Andy took a drag from the cigarette.

“Why? Oh yeah, Obama. I'm sure she'd be proud to see a black man be given America's worst job.”

“It is a proud moment for America. I hope you'll admit that much. I don't think Mildred ever expected to see something like that happen. Granted, she didn't, but she was black herself and you know how we met.”

“I know. You were in Georgia and offered your seat to her on a bus. No one expected that kind of politeness out of a man then, offering his seat on a bus to a black woman. Especially since you were risking being arrested. But some things don't change.”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw a woman on one of the Starkfield city buses a few days ago with no place to sit. There was a man in one of the seats, and when she looked toward him, he did his best to pretend that he'd fallen asleep. Not a Rosa Parks-like story, but it wouldn't have been anyway since both of them were white. I'd have offered her mine, but I didn't have a seat to begin with.”

“Mildred herself once said that back in the 1950s, whites were on top with blacks on the bottom. She then said that these days, regardless of what color your skin is, you're on the bottom.”

“Truer words were never spoken, and yet she was still hopeful to believe that everything would magically be okay again if we merely elected a black president. Obama won't fix everything in this country, if he manages to fix anything. At most, he'll leave office with at least a little hope for humanity left.” Andy gave his friend an odd look. “Andy, by the time the midterms come up there's going to be a lot of Americans wishing McCain had won, and Obama will be one of them. As much I hated Dubya, even I felt sorry for him toward the end since I knew he was hating every second he spent in the White House.”

“I would hope Obama is smarter than Bush.” Andy said.

“I think he is, and that will make him hate it that much more because he'll have a far deeper understanding of just how much his job will suck and a far deeper ability to regret ever running and worst of all, he'll hate himself forever for having not saw it coming. Michelle and his girls are proud of Barack, but inside, I'm sure they're wondering what the hell makes him think that he will enjoy any aspect of being President.” Andy looked at his watch.

“It's five after nine. We should probably get to our classes. I have History 229 first.” Andy said as he tossed the cigarette butt on the concrete and stomped it out.

“History of the Holocaust. I heard that they made that a underclassman-level course over the break.”

“It was a upperclassman course, but it got so popular that the history department changed it so more people were eligible to enroll. I used to have anywhere from thirty to fifty students per class. Just the one section I've got now has two hundred students and there's probably a few green slips I'll have to sign before class.”

“Not surprising. You're one of the world's top experts on the Holocaust. Starkfield's lucky to have you.”

“Top expert on the Holocaust and distinguished professor. Nice, but I can't say it was worth the price I paid. Not by a long shot.”

“Just boarding a plane from Beirut to JFK and knowing that I'll never return to that war zone was enough reward for me.” With that, they entered Abney Hall and went to their classes. Andy stepped into his auditorium and willed himself to face a crowd of two hundred students, hoping he could tell them about the hell he went through during his days under the Third Reich.

2
The class didn't start for another four minutes, but the auditorium was already packed. Andy knew that all of the students attended the first day. While Starkfield had a policy that any student who missed the first class could be dropped at the professor's discretion, Andy only had a few instances of students missing the first day and had never dropped one for it. Why the policy even exists is beyond me. All that happens on the first day is that I go over the syllabus and tell them why I teach this class. They're often bored, but I can't blame them since all of their other classes are far more boring. At least what I tell them gets their attention.

Two students approached Andy. Both were holding the green slips he had to sign so they could enroll. The slips were given to students who registered for a course after the deadline of three days before the semester began. One was a girl with blonde hair in a ponytail. She looked like she'd had no sleep the night before. At Starkfield? I can't imagine why.

“Hard night of partying?” Andy asked as he signed her green slip. The computer-generated timestamp indicated she'd registered yesterday morning.

“Yeah.” She muttered. As she walked off, Andy heard her say “I'm never doing ten straight vodka shots again.” Binge drinking at its finest. The second student was a man wearing tie-dye, flip-flops, jean shorts and smelling like pot smoke. This is your fashion sense on drugs. Andy liked his students and his job, and while he didn't begrudge the habits of his students, he did find a good deal of amusement in them. Andy signed his green slip as well, and he followed the girl searching for an empty seat. Andy did notice that the stoner's green slip was timestamped about three hours ago. You register late, it notifies you, and you print out a green slip from the registrar's website and there you go.

The usual chatter of the class was quieter than usual. In a morning class on the first day of a semester, the students would be tired, coming down from a high, hungover, or all three. Andy had been at the party school for twenty-six years. He knew how it worked.

“Class, class. Your attention, please.” The students' conversations ended. Andy noticed a pair up in the back row. One was a young man in a yarmulke. Glad to see I'm not the only Jew in the room. The guy next to him looked like he'd fall asleep any second. Hangover. I can spot those a mile away. Andy turned to the rest of the class and began.

“Welcome to History 229: History of the Holocaust. My name is Andy Kaminski. I'm a history professor here at Starkfield University.”

“We know that!” One wise-ass yelled from the second back row.

“As high and hungover as some of you look, I can't always assume that.” That got some chuckles out of the students. “Now then, I hope all of you have printed out the syllabus.” Most of the students gave slight nods. “Good. Before I get started, I want to ask all of you a few questions to see how much you know about the Holocaust. These won't be hard, even if you've been out all night.” A few more chuckles. If I can get a few laughs in a class about the Holocaust, I'm doing something right. This class needs a bit of comic relief now and then.

“First off, can anyone tell me what the Holocaust was? Just a few sentences to sum it up.” The Jewish man in the back raised his hand.

“The extermination of six million Jews and millions of others that the Nazis deemed undesirable.”

“Excellent. What's your name?”

“Howard Wasserstein.” Jewish name if I've ever heard one. The wise-ass from before piped up with another comment.

“I don't believe that six million people died in the Holocaust!” He yelled. A Holocaust denier? I don't know, but if he is, I can refute whatever arguments he makes. I don't even have to refer to what I personally went through.

“How many people do you think died?”

“Five million, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine.” The rest of the class laughed at that one. Even Andy had to laugh. He has a good poker face, but I think I should put it differently when I tell Mustafa.

“Touche.” Andy said, rolling his eyes. “But even then, what you said earlier is true. Six million people didn't die in the Holocaust, six million Jews did. As Howard said, other groups that the Nazis considered inferior were also killed. What happened to the Jews alone is referred to as the Shoah, but the Holocaust is the more general term. Not many people in the general public make this distinction, so for convenience’s sake, we'll just call it the Holocaust since that's by far the most well-known term for it. But that does make me wonder if you'd get arrested for breaking Holocaust denial laws in Europe, although in this case it's obvious you're joking.”

“Wait, the Holocaust happened in Europe?” A girl said from a back corner. Andy turned to her.

“It did. Why?”

“I thought the Holocaust happened in World War I or II or whenever?”

“It happened during World War II and it was in Europe.”

“Who did it?”

“The Holocaust?”

“Yeah.”

“The Nazis?” I hope she's not setting me up for another joke. I'd like to tell my story sooner or later.

“Yeah, but was that like Germans or Japanese or Russians or whoever?” The class groaned at this as loudly as it laughed at the wise-ass' comment. Even the wise-ass himself said “Jesus frickin' Christ”.

“The Nazis ruled Germany when the Holocaust was carried out during World War II. They took over Germany in 1933. They were defeated by the Allies in 1945.” I'd tell her that the Holocaust started on Kristallnacht, but I'm kidding myself if I think she knows what that is.

“That's when World War II happened? I didn't know that! I thought it happened when I was born or something.” How did this girl get admitted to Starkfield? I know we have a high admission rate, but it isn't open enrollment.

“All right class, let's continue. You've demonstrated that you all have, shall we say, a very wide range of how much you know about the Holocaust. But what you know comes from textbooks and other sources. Some of you may have read books from Holocaust survivors, watched Schindler's List, whatever. The Holocaust is a universally known event, though apparently not absolutely so. But books, movies, all that, are just stories. Textbooks tell you statistics, which don't mean anything to the reader. Books by Holocaust survivors are better, but even then, it's still words on a page. Powerful words, but words nonetheless. Movies like Schindler's List, we know the events really happened, but we also know on some level that what we're watching is a Hollywood movie. Special effects, fine. Sets, great. Actors, it's nice but we know that once they get done playing their role, the director yells “cut” and Liam Neeson goes to drink a cappuccino and call his agent. My point is, to really, truly understand the Holocaust, you need to hear it from someone who lived through it. I did. And this is my story.”

3
“My name is Andrzej Kaminski. I was born on January 19, 1929.”

“Happy belated birthday!” The wise-ass shouted, getting a few more laughs. It's always something.

“Thank you. Now then, I was born in Lublin, Poland. I was the third child of a family of six. My father was a wealthy banker and my mother worked as a secretary. It was a good life, though even then we faced problems because we were Jewish. My father was a banker, so he got his share of jokes about that. For the most part, it didn't really bother him. The Nazis took over Germany in 1933, but I was only four and don't remember anything about Hitler's election or the Reichstag fire. When I got older, I made the mistake so many Germans did during the Holocaust. I assumed that it wasn't my problem, because though I was a Jew, I didn't live in Germany. My father was the same way. He told my mother that there was no way Hitler would try to do anything to Poland, and if they did, they'd quickly be kicked out by the Polish or failing that, the Soviets. Ultimately the Soviets did take Poland, but by then it was too little, too late.

“As I got older and things got worse in Germany, I became aware it was happening but again, I assumed it was German problem. They were Nazis, not zombies. They weren't going to just spread everywhere. Even in Lublin, I was picked on for being Jewish, but I didn't care. Boys will be boys. I'm not proud of it, but I picked on other boys myself. I wasn't an outcast, I had my circle of friends, some Jews, some not. It wasn't that big an issue.

“The first day of September of 1939, the real nightmare began. Germany invaded Poland and World War II started. There was Kristallnacht several months before, which I'll go over in a later class. But even then, my father felt sorry for those that died but he was still content to let the Jews in Germany handle it. When Germany invaded, they quickly overran Poland. The Soviets counterattacked in early October, taking parts of Poland. Lublin wasn't one of them. Our home was in the middle of the what the Nazis called the General Government. It's a term that tells you nothing, but the Nazis were good at euphemisms. No one would have thought that “final solution” would ever be used for the Holocaust. It sounds more like some corporate Dilbert-style buzzword. After Lublin became part of the General Government, large sections were turned into ghettos. My father, mother, two brothers and three sisters were transported there. It wasn't by rail. We had to walk. I was the only one in my family who even had shoes, and that was only because of the neighborhood boys, ironically one who often bullied me before, ran into me the day before and gave me the shoes. I asked him why, and he said “Trust me. You'll need them.” before running off. His father had agreed to cooperate with the Nazis, and he suspected what was coming. It may have been his way of apologizing, but that was the last time I ever saw him so I'll never know for sure.

“The ghettos were not like Hell. They were Hell. At least I thought so at the time, though I later found that it actually could get worse. People often starved to death. Children, babies even. The housing was flimsy, if there was any. People died of diseases, ones most of you have never seen. There were mass executions as well, for any or more often, no reason. The SS were ruthless, and I was certain I would die there. I often hoped I would. Even then, I still signs of hope. Jews prayed, the prisoners shared what they had. Even the SS themselves could show small signs of humanity. My sister, fourteen then, was beaten up and raped by one the SS. I saw it all. The commotion attracted another SS officer, and I was certain he would kill my sister and me. He raised his pistol and I prepared for the end. A shot rang out, but I didn't die. Neither did my sister. The officer had shot the rapist in the head, and told us “The Master Race doesn't rape. He got what he deserved.” before walking off. In the end, inhumanity won. The officer had still killed one of his own men and ended up in front of a firing squad for it.

“The months passed and I grew up. When you're in a Jewish ghetto, you don't have a choice. You can't be a kid there. The Wannsee Conference was held in November of 1942 and the decision was made for the Final Solution. The idea was to send the Jews, excuse me, transport the undesirables, to the death camps, or rather, concentration camps. Concentration camp is something that we all associate with the same thing, but back then no one would have thought much of such a term except wondering for a second what it's supposed to mean. The cattle trains came and the undesirables, which was my entire family, were transported to the concentration camp. How all eight of my family had lived through the ghetto is still a mystery. I guess we were just favored by God.” Andy's irony was not lost on any of the students. Even the most exhausted, stoned, and hungover students were enraptured by it. I think even that ditzy girl in the back is realizing the horror of this.

“We were taken to the death camp, one called Sobibor. When the train arrived, my father got a look at the place. He knew what was going to happen. Everyone got a sinking feeling when they saw it. The Nazis tried to pretend we were going to be treated well but after the ghetto, we all knew. My father somehow found the strength to break through the planks in the boxcar and jumped off. He didn't get far. He broke his leg, and it didn't take much because of how weak the malnutrition had left his bones. The Nazis saw him and shot him without a second thought. Half an hour later, we were herded into the camp itself. My sisters and mother were taken to the gas chamber. They didn't die from Zyklon B. It's a common misconception that Zyklon B was the gas of choice for the Nazis. Only a few of the camps, most notably Auschwitz, used it and Sobibor wasn't one of them. They just used carbon monoxide from a petrol engine. It didn't matter. Zyklon B, carbon monoxide, you're just as dead. My older brother and I were the only two left that night. Losing a family member is bad enough. Losing a parent is worse, especially when you're fourteen. But I lost six of my family in three hours. The two of us were both old enough and strong enough to work but even then, our days were numbered.

“God did finally come through for us. For me, at least. Most of the other people at Sobibor, God left them to their fate. Even now, I often think that if Jews are God's chosen people, I'd hate to among those who aren't. Several prisoners, including a Soviet POW, had planned a revolt and escape from Sobibor. I wasn't planning to participate since I thought we'd just get everyone killed, but my brother convinced me that it was worth a try. If nothing else, he said, we would die knowing we gave the Nazis a fight. That was what convinced me, and on October 14, 1943, the revolt started. My brother and I managed to evade the gunfire from the watchtowers and got out of the camp. We ran as fast as we could and when we couldn't run any longer, we kept running anyway. Your brain shuts off when that happens. All that's involved are your two legs. We found out that the camp was surrounded by a minefield but we found that out the hard way. My brother stepped on a land mine and was killed instantly.

“I made it about four kilometers before I collapsed and passed out in a ditch. I knew my brother was dead. I could feel it even though I never saw or heard him die. I don't remember how long I was in that ditch, but I was awakened by a man's voice. They had found me. Not the SS, though. It was a Polish farmer. He'd heard rumors about a revolt at a nearby POW camp, but I said I didn't know anything about it. I knew what would happen if I was captured. The father drove me back to their farm. That conversation is the only thing from the day after the escape that I remember. He asked me if I was from that camp. I stammered, trying to respond. He told me not to say anything, he knew I was. I managed to argue that if it was a POW camp, what was a boy of fourteen doing there? He said “Smoke rises day and night from there. It reeks of burning human flesh. I would have to be an idiot not to know.” I asked him why he couldn't say anything or do anything. He replied “If I say anything, I'll be shot. If they find out you're staying with me, I'll be shot, you'll be shot, and my family will shot.” I asked him what he was going to do, a cold sweating running down every part of my body. He said back, “Make sure they don't find out.”

“I stayed at the farm for the rest of the day. The man told me he was named Bronislaw and he had a wife and two daughters. Both of the girls were suspicious of me at first, but Bronislaw had a talk with them and told them what Sobibor really was. They were thirteen and eleven, so their suspicions can be forgiven. The next morning, the SS visited the farm. Bronislaw saw their car coming and hid me in their closet. I overheard every word of his talk with the SS. They gave him my name, age, and description and asked if he'd seen me. He listened and had he simply denied it, they'd have searched the house. He was smarter than that. He told them that he'd seen someone who looked like me at the edge of his farm last night and shouted to me. I ran off, and that was the last he saw of me. He then asked why the SS were there, since he knew that while they would leave, they'd come back to ask more questions. The officers told him there'd been an escape from a POW camp two days ago. Bronislaw asked, “And what would a fourteen-year-old boy be doing at a prisoner-of-war camp?” The officer replied in a really ugly tone, “How did you know he was fourteen?” Bronislaw, calm as still water, answered, “You said he was.” I don't know if it was a trick or if the officer had just forgotten, but he was too embarrassed to say anything more. Bronislaw pressed further, “And again, why would a boy that age be in a POW camp? I don't think the Red Army uses child soldiers.” The other officer was getting angry but the first one, still embarrassed, spoke first, thanked Bronislaw for his cooperation and that they would be leaving now. The SS never returned.

“Months went by at the farm and the war raged around us. The Germans were doomed, Bronislaw said he was certain of it that Christmas. The death knell came on June 6, 1944. We weren't affected since the Normandy landings were eight hundred miles away. If we were going to be liberated from the Germans it would be by the Soviets, not the Americans or British. We did hear about Normandy the day after it happened, since Bronislaw had repaired his radio a few days before. It had been broken since before he found me. Six weeks later, we saw soldiers marching down our road. Bronislaw came out to see what they wanted. He realized that they were speaking Russian, not German.

“The village closest to our farm was liberated by the Red Army on July 18, 1944. Only a dozen  German soldiers and SS were left there and they peacefully surrendered. Bronislaw welcomed the Soviets and their commanding officer, who spoke Polish, came inside. The head officer talked to me. I told him about the horrors of Sobibor knowing he wouldn't believe me. He held up his hand and said, “Don't tell me. I helped capture Majdanek. My superiors didn't believe me when I told them what we found. They said that it was impossible that anyone could be so cruel to their fellow man. I finally told them, don't take my word for it. Come here and see for yourself. They got the same reaction from their superiors afterward. I don't know how far up the chain of command it went, but I imagine at some point even Joseph Stalin himself was told. I pity him, because once he found out he had no one above him to convince of how low man can stoop.”

“I immigrated to the United States in 1948 after living in Lublin for a few years, as the memories  haunted me and I wanted to leave the place where it all began.  I later realized it wasn't Lublin that haunted me. Those memories will follow me to the ends of this planet. I could go anywhere, Japan, Australia, Brazil, I could go back to Lublin or even the Holocaust memorial that stands where Sobibor once stood. It wouldn't matter. It's not the sort of thing you forget. Anyone who has been through any kind of traumatic event knows that. Whether it's something that happens to you alone, like getting raped, or that you experience in a small group, like a school shooting, or even one that you share with millions upon millions of other victims, it doesn't go away.

“I got my master's in history from the University of Georgia in 1955, got married the same year, and have been teaching history ever since. A lot of Holocaust survivors wrote books about what they went through but I'll be frank and say that I've never been much of a writer. I like to think I'm better with my voice than with a pen. But either way, I'm doing my part to try and help the world make damn sure that something like the Holocaust never happens again. It's not the first genocide in history, and sadly it wasn't the last. But hopefully we will figure it out some day. The Holocaust is in the past. We can learn about it and read about it and examine it and talk about it and watch Liam Neeson act it out all we want, but that won't undo it. Nothing will. What's done is done. The future is what we're supposed do something with. I hope I can be a part of it. I am a part of it, but I have more yet to do. And while I am a part of it, you all will be as well. It could be bad, it could be good. The decision rests with you.”

4
Andy's story had long since gained every ounce of every student's attention. He knew most, if not all, of the students were moved by it. Stories like that can't be blocked out by hangovers. One of the more awestruck students was Howard Wasserstein. Andy thought it was obvious that he would be. While most humans knew how bad the Holocaust was, Jews had a better idea than most. Although even the Jews who didn't go through it can't truly understand.

The students were snapped out of their stupor after a minute of reflection on what they'd heard.

“All right students, be sure to buy Elie Wiesel's Night at the college bookstore. It should be $5.99 but if you tell them it's for this class, they'll give you a dollar off.” Andy pointed to the wise-ass, “and for God's sakes, no jokes about jewing the cashiers. Be sure to read the syllabus. If you haven't printed it out, do so. It'll tell you what we'll be doing for each class and what to have ready for it. We'll be discussing chapters of Night every Monday. Even though it's been less than half hour, though it feels like a lot longer, it is the first day of the semester so we'll end there for today. I'll see you all tomorrow.”

A word of thanks

I don't know how many readers my blog has, and Blogger's statistics reveal less about that than you'd think. I've certainly had a number of people buying my books, but I don't know how many, or even if any, of them know about this blog. But if any of you readers are reading, this is for you:

Over the past few months, things have not been pretty in life, and anyone who is reading this blog has a pretty good idea of what's been going on. Just sticking around this blog for months and its bitching about my personal problems, shameless self-promotion, tl;dr statistics, and Etch-a-Sketch announcements about my plans is more than enough reason for me to be grateful to you.

And over the course of this blog, I've made some friends. Steven Konkoly for one. I don't know a lot about what he's been up to lately, but I know he's got a couple of new spy thrillers out there, Black Flagged and Black Flagged Redux. I'm grateful for that, too.

But here's the big thing. I've been doing the indie thing since August 2009. Since then, sales have gone up and down like Six Flags over Texas. It would have stayed up and gone even higher, but I was about as unreliable as a writer can get. I took books down, I uploaded new ones, I changed existing ones constantly, I uploaded rewrites, I was slow to get them to Nick Ambrose for editing for one reason or another, it was just a mess. Most of why I did this was because I had no idea what the hell I was doing and didn't do my homework to learn before I dived in. That makes for one steep learning curve. Even once I got the hang of it, I was still unstable and would make a decision, act on it, and then undo it after having some other epiphany a few days or weeks later. In 2011, I think I decided to permanently stop writing a good dozen times. You can guess how that worked. I'm amazed as hell that anyone would be willing to buy anything from me after all that. But things have been improving, and since I'd rather not bore everyone to death with more statistics, I'll just let this chart say it all:

Pretty damn good for something I made in two minutes.

Don't mind the weird things about it, like the "40909" and "41000" at the end, that's just the months for this year or the green dots on the side, that's just me trying to crop the thing in MS Paint. And if the font's a bit small, that's because Blogger's image formatting leaves a lot to be desired. (I'm better at writing than I am with computers, obviously.) All that aside, you get the idea. Sales have been through the roof the past few months. I know that 55 sales in the past two weeks doesn't seem like much to a lot of writers, but I'm grateful for whatever I get, especially with what you all dealt with to give it to me. The peak at the end there is for May, and that's just up to today. May's only half over, so this is going to be a record month. Hell, it already is.

But this isn't to brag about my sales. This is so I can say that despite all of the problems and crap that's been going on in my life, there's good things going on too. It isn't the only good thing, but it's one of the big ones. And every good thing helps. This one, unlike the others, was because of all of you readers who bought my books and put up with the crap I did while I was trying to sell them. It wouldn't have happened without your patience and your kindness. And if sales are going to go through the roof, you readers couldn't have timed it better. The large increase started in December 2011, right when everything else in my life began falling apart. The months since have been a living hell, but this was one of the bright spots. I am slowly picking up the pieces now, and this is going to help.

So to all you readers who bought my books despite the seemingly random decisions I made about them and to you readers of this blog who stayed here despite (or even because of) my problems, here's to you. It's only two words, but it's two words that say volumes:

Thank you.

Plan B

I would say I'm doing a hell of a lot better since my last post, but that's always been a surefire way of jinxing any recovery. So if you're reading this, I'll just leave how I'm doing to your imagination where I'm sure it'll be a lot stranger.

I have set aside And I Feel Fine. Whether this is temporary or permanent, I don't know. I do know that it will be a good long while before I tackle it again. I put a tremendous amount of effort into it, but that's because something like that can't be without that effort. And even then, I'm not sure my effort is enough. I'm not yet finished with the draft I'll be the most satisfied with and when I started And I Feel Fine, George W. Bush was President. As for when I'll be done with And I Feel Fine, it'll be either never or after Obama has left office, and that's assuming of course, that he gets reelected in November. No matter how the election goes though, I'm betting on And I Feel Fine ending up in development hell. I've abandoned it a thousand times before and I can't say for sure that this time will be for good, but I do know that right now I am not in any shape to tackle a novel with dozens of characters, scenes spanning almost a dozen states, and weighing in at easily over a thousand pages. Despite my recovery, I know that something of that scale isn't something I can handle right now.

I've always had a Plan B for this, though. I've mentioned Done is Done here several times, and last night I got about a page written of the first draft. Yep, I got a start on it. It's coming out pretty well, I think.

I'll post the first chapter when it's ready, although my mother and I will be the only ones who'll have edited, and we're not exactly professionals since last year between the two of us, we couldn't figure out how to load a staple gun.

But they say writers who blog do not write, and with that, I'll end this and get cracking on Done is Done.

Blargh

This is one of those nights where I wonder why I didn't stay in the psych ward longer and what the hell the staff there was thinking when they decided I was fit for civilized society again. It's nearly two in the morning when I'm writing this and I am barely in any frame of mind to write this entry, so forgive me if my writing style sounds like a hybrid of ebonics, l33tspeak, and LOLCat after being put through Babelfish Translator a few times.

Where to begin. I'm out of the psych ward, have been for ten days. The Wellbutrin is working all right, I guess. I have bigger worries. For one thing, I've been spending the past two months running on 4-5 hours of sleep. For another, I cannot work up the motivation to make coffee in the morning without spending three hours messing around on the Internet or just laying in bed first. Even then, it's not easy. I'm really starting to think I'm repeating the same mistakes of self-imposed isolation that I made living in Armbruster Hall at Ohio University back when I was there in 2006-2007. The only difference is that Athens had far more potential opportunities for socializing than Chillicothe does. I really need to go out and get some stuff done, but the lack of sleep has been interfering with every other aspect of my life.

But the only aspect of that problem that concerns any of my readers here is writing. I would go into how it affects every other facet of my life, but for one thing no one is all that interested in it and more importantly, I sure as hell don't have the energy to write an entry long enough to crash Blogspot's servers. I'd like to keep And I Feel Fine as the longest thing I've ever written. (Assuming I ever finish it, that is.)

Ever since I got out of the psych ward, I've had two writing sessions on the 25th and the 28th, with a combined total of 1,673 words to show for it. That's over the ten days since I got released. I haven't written a word of And I Feel Fine since then, and saying I've visualized the conception process for Done is Done would be giving me too much credit. At this rate I expect to have And I Feel Fine released some time in January. As for January of what year, I'm not so sure.

Writing when you've had a lack of sleep isn't easy, but writing also takes a good frame of mind, a lot of motivation, a substantial amount of happiness and positive thinking, and heavy confidence in your writing skills. Let's see where I stand on those points as well as energy just for lulz's sake.

Energy: About the same level as a baby sloth with mononucleosis.
Frame of mind: Somewhere between Alex deLarge from A Clockwork Orange and that deranged far-right Jason Vorhees wannabe over in Norway.
Motivation: George R.R. Martin has more people waiting for his next book than Facebook does users. Most indie authors have the same number of people waiting for their next book as I have Facebook friends. I have one person waiting for my next book, and weirdly enough, her and I are friends on Facebook, even if I am also under her Family list with the heading "Son".
Positive thinking: Slightly lower than a 13-year-old girl who writes poetry with titles like "Suicidal Tears" and "My Wrists are Crying Red".
Confidence in my writing skills: All of the aforementioned people in this listing, including the baby sloth, Alex DeLarge, the Norwegian loonbat (who wrote a manifesto that gives whole new meaning to "tl;dr" and was mostly plagiarized from such well-renowned scholarly sources as Wikipedia and the Unabomber's waste of perfectly good trees, I might add), George R.R. Martin (including A Feast for Crows), all ten gazillion of Facebook's users, my mother, and the writer of the poems "Suicidal Tears" and "My Wrists are Crying Red" (soon to be released in a volume with forewords by Harold Bloom and Seamus Heaney), could easily hand my ass to me in a writing competition. But then again, when I take into account everything else I've written in this Time Cube-esque entry, I can't help but think I'm a bit biased when it comes to my assessment of how well I write.

Well gee golly willakers, how can I possibly fail when I've got all that going for me?

I guess the tl;dr version of this is, expect And I Feel Fine when I either announce here that I've sent it off to Nick Ambrose for publishing, or if I forget to post here about that, when you see me announce its release on Amazon. Again, that's assuming I remember to announce it. Done is Done, same deal. Expect it when you see it on the home screen of your Kindle and not a second before. Virtually all of what little energy I have right now is being used for making sure the thread my sanity is hanging from doesn't get cut yet again. I'll try to write whenever I can, but I'm not making any promises. At this point, I wouldn't make a promise to myself that I will remember to brush my teeth at least once on any day that ends in the letter Y and expect not to break it. And with that, I think I'll end this stream-of-consciousness babbling here before my brain goes even more berserk and I end up losing The Game, so-damn it.

This is going to be a long year. Let's hope the Mayans are better are keeping their word than I am.

Blargh.

I know I'm nearly two weeks late on this one...

...but sue me, I've had other stuff going on. I would link to the entry, but since pretty much anyone reading this has a scroll bar on their browser, you'll have to do what the cavemen did and use it. Yes, cavemen. The people who existed when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and "All your base are belong to us" was actually considered a clever and edgy meme.

I remember those days well.

Anyway, I just wanted to post an interview I did with indie fantasy writer Jenna Elizabeth Johnson. Her blog can be found here and her interview with me, which was done some time in December of 2011 (that explains why I have links to my works on Fictionpress in it. Don't bother clicking them unless you like 404 errors.), can be found here.

And I'm probably asking way too much here, but does anyone reading this remember Hatten ar din?

Free Promotion for The Animals 2: Electric Boogaloo

Yep, the last free promotion of The Animals was such a success (by my standards, at least), that I'm doing another one. This one will last three days, from April 30th to May 2nd. Weirdly enough, May 2nd is the last day of my current enrollment in KDP Select, and yes, I do intend to re-enroll, since I prefer having more money over less.

Hmmm, can't imagine how that one happened. I think it's a Zodiac thing.