Coals In My Stocking

Imagine "Coals In My Stocking" rinsed and repeated to a refrain from Carole King's "You're So Vain", and you will share my earworm of the day.

One cannot copyright a title, but one can trademark it.

It is quite possible that Carole King could have trademarked her metaphor involving “clouds” and “coffee” (from "You’re So Vain"), so although that line of that lovely song is in my head, I consider coals in my stockings to be a safer choice.

There’s a copyright related point or three to this. 

Use of other people's words, quotes, lyrics seems to be on several fora and copyright-related legal blogs that I have read in recent days.

Science writer John Iovine has a really succinct and helpful 5-minute read on quoting lyrics or song titles to advance your plot and/or add mood to your story.

https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-legally-quote-song-lyrics-in-your-stories-books-and-articles-b0e62510ed55

That particular article is also a very good example of how to give proper credit, he walks the talk (to coin a phrase.)

By the way, "to coin a phrase" is irony. 

Wise, generous and canny author Milton Trachtenburg suggests wrapping a Disney movie quote within his character's dialogue in order to avoid copyright problems.

"Like The Wicked Witch said in Wizard of Oz, 'How about a little fire, scarecrow?' You get my point?"

Presumably, there would be a "So-and-so said" tag, either before the "Like..." or after the "...point?" 

I added the italics. Personally, I would have given "Scarecrow" and upper case first character because it appears to be used in the vocative case.

Characters, or for that matter, narrators can quote old movies, and even not-so-old movies. For instance, in the movie "Man Up" it is essential to the economy of various scenes, and to giving the audience a greater insight than the characters have, that both the hero and the heroine know "Silence of the Lambs" by heart, and saying, "Quid Pro Quo, Clarice" or even "Quid Pro Quo" is a verbal ticket to getting on (well).

Similarly, the characters in the same movie appear to be completely oblivious to another interest they have in common as they argue their way through the dance moves to Duran Duran's "Reflex".

My remarks plus text links come under fair use for commentary/reportage/critique/review.

The copyrightalliance has a very helpful article on how to legally use images, videos and the written text of others in blogs. 

https://copyrightalliance.org/legally-use-images-videos-content-blogs/

 

Crystal Everson, JD, for Legal Zoom explains the difference between parody versus satire.  Parody is the use of someone else's original work in order to comment on it, or criticize it. Most copyright owners do not like being the butt of someone else's humor, or vitriol, so are unlikely to grant permission. So, there is a Fair Use exemption. Satire, not so much, because with satire, one uses one person's work to poke fun at another. 

https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/parody-vs-satire-in-copyright-law

It is an important distinction, and the article is well worth reading.

For anyone wondering where coals or clouds fit in at all, there's Disney, to wit, #DisneyMustPay. SFWA appears to be spearheading an effort to stand up for Science Fiction and Fantasy authors who may not be being paid royalties by Disney. Everyone is asked to support the principle that WritersMustBePaid by using the #DisneyMustPay hashtag, and spreading the message.

There is also the allegedly copyright-infringing "Internet Archive", but there is good news. New Zealand has paused its plans to donate foreign authors' copyrighted works without the consent of the foreign authors to the "Archive", thanks to publicity and the protests received from copyright owners.

Finally, and a propos of absolutely nothing, except perhaps that the Christmas stockings are a mixed bag, SFWA posted a great link to an article about how to make aliens and robots fight more convincingly.

https://www.sfwa.org/2021/04/20/spec-fic-fu-how-to-make-aliens-and-robots-fight-better/

All the best,

Rowena Cherry  

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/

Karen Wiesner: I Have Dreamed a Little Dream (Authors and Dream Inspiration), Part 4

I Have Dreamed a Little Dream, Part 4

by Karen Wiesner

"Believe in your dreams. They were given to you for a reason." ~Katrina Mayer

As a writer, the question I get most often is where my ideas come from a lot. While I can honestly say everywhere, more often than not, dreams play a huge role of my fiction writing. Something about that twilight between sleep and dreams is a veritable playground for imagination! Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series is one of my series, in particular, in which many of the stories within it stemmed from a fragment of a dream that I was able to develop into a story. In a series of posts, I've revealed how these nightmarish gifts from the ether came to me. 

This is the final of four posts focusing on my Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series and the vivid nightmares or ideas that inspired the titles.

Karen Wiesner's Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series

** Nestled on Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin is a small, secluded town called Bloodmoon Cove with volatile weather, suspicious folk…and newly awakened ghosts.

Don’t close your eyes… **

What's coming up next in the series:

One of the things I love the most as I'm developing this series is that the characters from previous books make solid (i.e. not simply "glimpses" from one book to the next) appearances in later books. Considering how small Bloodmoon Cove is and how involved they are in each other's lives, it makes sense that the developing characters would be seen all through subsequent stories. I can hardly wait to write each one of these books in order to expand the world I'm creating with them. I hope readers will also be just as excited in seeing more from this series as I am.

BONE OF MY BONE, Book 7 

(release date estimate: April 2022)

** When Bennet was eight, he fell for Ice despite how she concealed who she was and where she came from. When they were 19, she disappeared. Still grieving a year later, he's floored at her return. Her comment about "how to bury what won't stay dead" compels him to solve her mysteries. But how does a mortal fight creation's first murderer when the entity bears an immortal seal and made a pact with the devil? **

I've outlined and I'm currently writing this novel. This is a newer idea I had for the series. At the end of 2020, I couldn’t stop coming up with notes for after a very vivid dream I had of the first “scene” in the story. I already had the title and had some very loose ideas about the story before I had the dream. At that point, I was sure that, with this much material, I could move right into outlining it. Past experience has taught me that, if I can complete an outline, I always know I can write the story. If I can't outline it, I'll either take it off my list of Works in Progress or simply reschedule the release date and work on it at a later time, when hopefully I'm more inspired after a great deal of time trying to brainstorm new ideas for it.

LOST AND FOUND, A Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series 2-in-1 including "Lost", Book 8, and "Found", Book 9 

** "Lost": Damaris remembers nothing of the past 48 hours. A retired couple found her in their woods. Their remodeling efforts uncover a hidden enclosure that cages what they don't dare set free.

"Found": What does a lifelong bachelor do when the woman of his dreams steps into his sanctuary and he finds all he's been missing…but revealing the truth behind their meeting could tear them apart for all time? ** 

The main characters in both books (I'm unsure whether they'll be novellas or novels at this point) will work for the library, so LOST AND FOUND was a great title that played on that. The idea for "Lost" came from a nightmare I'd had about a woman whose car broke down on the edge of the woods and she woke up in a cabin deep in the woods owned by an older couple without technology who are digging up something in the basement of their home. The idea for "Found" came about when my sister was talking about a story she wanted to write about a ghost in a library. 

HELL HATH NO FURY, Book 10

(release date estimate: April 2023)

** Eager to get a cake decorating business up and running, Isabelle inherits an old house in Bloodmoon Cove that seems like a boon…until she pieces together the tragic story of a poor immigrant who lived in this house and the woman he scorned. When Kesara committed suicide over his rejection, her heart-broken mother plotted revenge. Newly awakened to the legacy Isabelle has inherited, two ghosts plan to finish what they started a hundred years before. **

This story came from another dream I had about a young immigrant who came over to America because of lack of opportunity in his own country and fell in love with the daughter of the man who employed him. The bakery angle with the man's ancestor being willed the house the immigrant and his wife lived in wove itself into the story, given my love for TV shows focused on baking.

 

HAUNTED LEGACY, Book 11

(release date estimate: October 2023)

** After a teenage pregnancy, Danielle and Andy unsuccessfully made a go of marriage. After the split, Andy started a business while Dani’s art career took off with the help of Douglas Marx, whose reputation is spoken of in the same hushed tones as black magic. When Doug invites her to join him in Bloodmoon Cove, Dani notices a painting that haunts her as the figure in the painting becomes familiar—more and more like her own… **

The idea for this story has been with me for many, many years, titled for most of that time GILDED PROMISES and a contemporary romance without any supernatural aspects. I had the idea to make the story a suspense with Dani’s art agent being a villain. A little later, the painting I had in the outline I'd started (though never finished) made me wonder how I could make this a supernatural kind of story. I love Susan Hills THE MAN IN THE PICTURE, and who isn't deeply disturbed by Oscar Wilde's THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY? I wanted to put a paranormal spin on my original idea, and merging it into my Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series seemed natural. The title changed, stemming from the concept that not only would Dani’s agent be a villain but he would have a supernatural aid in his villainy—a painting handed down from father to son for generations that “captures” and drains the life from a victim, thereby transferring it to this creature.

ELDRITCH JUSTICE, Book 12

(release date estimate: January 2024)

** Rafe Yager (of CROOKED HOUSE, Book 3) has settled in Bloodmoon Cove with his wife Corinne. Given his former ghost hunting, he can't put aside his paranormal past as easily as he'd like to. He's been following the trail of a law firm that caters to the dead with unfinished business. His quest leads to the sinister Thoth, scribe of the underworld and Ma'at, justice personified …and the weighing of his own heart on the scale against the feather of truth. **

Rafe and Cori's story started in CROOKED HOUSE, but I wasn't ready to let go of them when I was finished with that tale, nor of an intriguing plot thread that actually started earlier in the series about a lawyer that caters to the dead with unfinished legal business (RETURN TO BLOODMOON MANOR, Book 4).

GHOSTLY TALES FROM ERIE COUNTY including "Bad Blood", "Dead Man's Road", "The Haunting of Desolation Cottage", "Keeper of Grimoire", "Cappy's Cupid", and "The Ancient One"

(release date estimate: October 2024)

** Short, haunted stories set in Bloodmoon Cove and Grimoire, Erie County, Wisconsin. **

I knew as soon as I conceived of Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series that I'd want to do a collection of ghost short stories with the volume covering some of the early years of the town as well as following up on the previous novels. The characters--main and secondary--introduced in all that came before will make appearances in the shorts.

Dreaming fragments of a story has happened to me so many times now that I've taken to having a tablet and pen in my nightstand so I can write down everything I remember immediately after waking up. The longer I wait, the more chance I'll forget something that will drift back into the twilight, never to be grasped again. I never know when these pieces might become full-fledged stories. Sometimes it feels a lot like I'm making lemons into lemonade with these gifts from the ether, but isn't that the essence of what being a writer is?

Do you have a pen and paper by your bedside just in case you wake from a compelling dream and need to write it down fast, before it floats away? Leave a comment to tell me about it!

Find out more about Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series here:

https://www.writers-exchange.com/bloodmoon-cove-spirits-series/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MLBJ7XP

Happy reading!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner

ChessieCon 2021

For the second year in a row, the Baltimore-area ChessieCon was held online instead of in person. (Not long before the scheduled date, we lost our hotel, which became a quarantine facility.) I was mildly anxious about the procedure for this con because it looked more complicated than last year's set-up, when members could just drop in to join a Zoom meeting anytime. This year, we had to register in advance for any session we wanted to "attend," and registration was locked when a panel began. To my relief, though, everything worked smoothly, easier than I'd expected. The system allowed me to sign up for my whole weekend's choices at once. Having registered, I received individual e-mails with the "room" link for each session, and it didn't matter if I started watching a few minutes into the time slot. It was only the registration itself that was "locked."

I always enjoy the musical events at ChessieCon. This year I watched two performances, Roberta Rogow (filk) and Bob and Sue Esty, formerly of the group Clam Chowder (mostly folk). I was especially glad Roberta Rogow sang one of my favorite of her standard pieces, "Schindler's List," which always brings me to tears.

Topics of panels I watched all or part of: Immortals in fiction; "A Century of Robots"; Native American mythology and lore in fantasy; pandemics in history and literature; creating gods for a fictional universe; portal stories. As one would expect from convention panels, many provocative questions were raised with no definitive answers reached. Fun! Panels also offer chances to learn about books one might not have read or even heard of.

Aside from the music, my favorite session was a lecture on mass extinctions—definition, types, consequences—delivered by Thomas Holtz, a paleontologist from the University of Maryland. He was an informative, lucid, and entertaining speaker, whose presentation included a lavish array of charts and colorful slides. I've bookmarked his name on YouTube to view some of his other videos in the future.

While I regret missing the live con weekend of yore, a virtual convention has advantages. No rushing around like decapitated chickens to get out of the house the day after Thanksgiving. (One year we unwisely left turkey soup simmering very low all weekend, asking one of our sons to drop by and check on it. We came home to a pot of charred bones. Never again.) No need to drive anywhere or spend money on hotel rooms, meals, and dog boarding. There's one odd negative consequence of watching a con on the computer, however. When I'm home, I can't avoid doing a lot of the chores and such I would do on an ordinary weekend, so I end up "attending" fewer panels and performances than I would in person. At the hotel, the weekend is all con, all the time.

Next year in person for sure, Lord willing!

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

To Review Or Not To Review....

Apologies for the bathos to Hamlet and his existential question.

 

I once wrote a review for my dentist. Then, I felt that I had to ask him to take it down. Reviewing your doctors and dentists might open the door to HIPPA violations. Of course, via ever-on GPS, your smart phone (if you have one) probably tells Apple or Android and all the businesses who track you, --and whoever provides your doctor's or dentist's office free internet-- which health care providers you probably use, but why confirm it?

 

Apparently, you should never write a review of a hotel until you have checked out of your own free will. Angela Hoy of writersweekly reports on an astonishing allegation that a certain hotel affiliated with the chain famous (or not) for advertisements featuring a large, red-bearded wizard (also a large red-bearded wizard) allegedly called the police and evicted a guest in the middle of the night after she wrote a review that offended management.

 

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/grandmother-granddaughter-kicked-out-georgia-hotel-giving-bad-review

When traveling, I write my reviews in email and save them to Draft, if I have the time and motivation. Trip Advisor used to give hotel-review writers ranking and momentary fame for reviews, but it may not be worth the hassle any more.

 

I no longer write book reviews. As a published alien romance author, with thousands of Facebook friends (last time I looked, which might have been 10 years ago), the chances are 50/50 that Amazon might censor my genuine and honest review of someone else's paperback on the unwarranted suspicion that my integrity might have been suborned by a Facebook friendship. 

 

There is an allegation that Amazon has some very creepy ways, not just regarding censorship, but also regarding privacy.  No doubt, anyone who sells advertising cannot be trusted.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-privacy-lobbying/

 

When you write a review of a hotel or service or product or practice, your review becomes a part of their advertising. That is: advertising content that you provide free.

Legal blogger Kate Dunnigan for BBB National Programs Inc. offers a business perspective on the use of user-generated reviews, which is interesting for potential review-writers. It also contains good advice for authors who might be tempted to solicit reviews from readers, or to cherry pick the good parts of mixed reviews.

https://bbbprograms.org/media-center/blog-details/insights/2021/06/23/product-reviews-in-advertising

Apparently, if one requests a favorable review, and includes an offer such as inclusion in a sweepstakes for a valuable chance to win a prize, or a coupon valid against a future purchase, the existence of an incentive ought to be disclosed when publishing the glowing reviews.

 

All the best.

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™

http://www.spacesnark.com/

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday