The Renewal

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: “Be sure to read the fine print.”

I must have heard or read it a hundred thousand times in my lifetime. (Yes, that could be an exaggeration.) It’s often flashed up during television commercials but the five plus lines of tiny print shoot by faster than you can say, “What?” Small print has become a joke in our society. The joke is on the consumer. It certainly was on me and my wife.

We were subscribing to our local newspaper . It’s not as easy to decide as you think. We’re a small town. It’s a small paper. To fill the paper, they publish some news articles from other towns and countries. It’s not greatly valuable to us in this Internet era. Most of our friends don’t take the local daily, the ‘Ashland Daily Tidings’. They take the newspaper from our larger neighbor, Medford. Medford’s paper is ‘The Medford Mail-Tribune’. Editorially, both papers are conservative, and they share owners and publishers.

ADT is published Monday through Saturday, except for the big holidays. You can guess them. For Sunday, we received ‘The Medford Mail-Tribune’.

We liked receiving the paper despite its paucity of local news. So after a brief debate last December, we renewed, paying for a year’s subscription, $124. Cool. Done.

October comes. Notices arrive. Our newspaper subscription is about to expire. My wife pulls out the paperwork. No, they’re wrong: we renewed in December, 2015, for fifty-two weeks. They’re probably just trying to get us to renew early, we reasoned. Periodicals are always following that practice.

But no. Last Sunday came a notice with the delivery: “Your subscription has expired.”

Nah-uh, we answered. Pulling out the paperwork with new fury, my wife re-affirmed her earlier understanding. Then she saw the small print. Here is the actual small print, copied from their website:

“Up to $3 is charged to all subscriptions for each premium edition. Premium editions are not included in the subscription price and your expiration date will be accelerated and adjusted accordingly. There will be no more than 16 premium editions per calendar year.”

What is a ‘premium edition’? It seems to be the normal paper enlarged by extra advertising inserts. That means we’ve paid an extra $48 for our paper for the ‘year’, which, because of the ‘premium editions’, has been truncated to about ten and a half months. And it’s curious, because even if you select online only, to save paper, you still pay $3.00 for each premium edition. You pay for it regardless of your subscription term – year, month, quarter, whatever.

(Paperless, BTW, is another burgeoning joke in our society. We get more paper in our mail than ever before, usually stuff we don’t want but that we must recycle – which we pay to have done. How many ‘special offers’ are received each week by wireless service providers, ISPs, Dish and other satellite providers, followed by insurance, cleaning, and credit cards offers…and let us then begin to talk about the Explanation of Benefits and bills that accompany every doctor appointment and prescription.)

We were floored.

We were angry.

We wondered…does this apply to its sister paper?

You betcha.

We wondered: do our friends know this about this their subscriptions?

No, they didn’t. They were sure we were wrong so we printed out a website screenshot to show them.

They were floored.

But here is the kicker that prompted me to post: yesterday, a plastic bag was delivered to our house from ‘The Medford Mail-Tribune’. There wasn’t any newspaper; just the advertisement inserts. Which, to us, means that we’re subsidizing the newspaper’s advertisement revenue by paying for these circulars to be delivered to non-subscribers.

We could be wrong about that. It was our snap insight, and they’re not always right. Regardless, we’re angry, and we’re not renewing.

October 30, 2016 3

A Writing Cat’s Advice

Careful with your words

The claws aren’t always needed

There are other ways

October 30, 2016 0

Authors Answer 104 – Best Advice for Authors

There’s a truth that’s uncovered, that if you want to write, you keep working at it, you keep writing. Not everything you write is fantastic, or even good. Many great lines or scenes are cut away because they no longer fit the story or they impede the pacing, or they’re out of character. Whatever. You learn from it, you face ugly truths, you think it through, whatever problem it is, and you sit down and you write again. And again. And again.

I Read Encyclopedias for Fun

Welcome to a very special Authors Answer! This is our 104th edition, which means it’s the end of our second year. And just like last year, we have some guest authors giving their answer to this very important question. I’d like to thank authors Mark Lawrence, Michael J. Sullivan, Django Wexler, and Andrew Rowe for agreeing to participate. They were very gracious when I asked them to participate. And thank you to Jacqueline Carey for her response. Unfortunately, she has her hands full at the moment, so was unable to participate. I love authors who take the time to respond when they can!

This week’s topic is an important one. Authors sometimes need a bit of help, so we’re talking about the best advice we have received in our quest for being published.

Celebrating our 2nd anniversary!

Question 104 – What is the most important piece of writing advice anyone…

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October 29, 2016 2

The Omens

A $20 check in the mail for some class action suit settlement.

Making seven of eight shots to the sock drawer from the three point line (the bathroom door).

Going by and scratching each cat’s head as they sleep and hearing deep purrs in response.

A hot, fresh cup of coffee and a good view of a rainy autumn day outside.

All the signs point to a good day.

October 29, 2016 0

Today’s Theme Music

Today’s rousing little ditty comes via ‘Raised by Wolves’. As I was closing down the day, I watched a couple episodes again (via Acorn) yesterday. This song, ‘Don’t Mess with Me’ by Brody Dalle, was featured on the second episode watched, in which Yoko gets her first bra and Germaine is treated to new underwear. Don’t think much of the video but enjoy the lyrics and the beat. Hope you get something out of it.

October 29, 2016 0

A Writing Cat’s Advice

I am a pantser

in ginger, gray, black and white

I just see and do

October 28, 2016 0

Today’s Theme Music

We started with a conversation. “Kenny Rogers can still sing,” my wife said.

Beginning with Kenny Rogers and the First Edition and ‘Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town’ (written by Mel Tellis) in 1969, Kenny Rogers had been a singing star our entire adult lives. He’d recently announced he was retiring from singing and touring but here he was singing A Capella with a group on a recent video.

You always wonder who can really sing and who has a sound manufactured in the studio. We discussed that a while, which turned me to one of my favorite recent live performances, live being a relative term, since it was recorded for a television show.

The television show is ‘The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon’. The Roots are the house band. Jimmy will sometimes sing with musical guests while The Roots provide the music, sometimes playing toy instruments, like in this video I’m sharing today. I love this exposure of humanity behind the music and how much fun they’re having.

Here is Idina Menzel and The Roots with Jimmy Fallon, singing and playing, ‘Let It Go’, a good remind that sometimes, we all need to let it go.

October 27, 2016 0

The Writing Cat’s Advice

Rest where desired

You’re coaxing the muse to come

Not pleasing others

October 26, 2016 0

Today’s Theme Music

Oh, Yes! Like many rock bands, Yes’ membership has changed a few times. For me, in high school in the early seventies, they were part of the core music line up in art class, as our hip teacher was convinced we would be permitted to play cassette tapes on a portable player (we didn’t call them boom boxes or ghetto blasters in those days) as part of the creativity cycle. Yes was rotated in and out with BTO, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, ZZ Top, Eric Clapton, Deep Purple as we painted and drew.

But today’s song is from their comeback. Having disbanded, they re-formed in 1983. (You know, whenever I write words like that, I can’t help but think of Spinal Top, the fake rock group in the center of the mocumentary, ‘This Is Spinal Tap’. ) When ‘90125’ was released in 1983, it was added to the listening library on Okinawa alongside Boston, the Rolling Stones, ZZ Top, Eric Clapton…hmmm….

Here is one of the most known songs from Yes, ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’. As they say, the owner of a lonely heart is much better than the owner of a broken heart. Rock lyrics…only the Kinks worked hard on language. Whatever: “You’ve to to want to succeed.”

Crank it.