Category Archives: Matt Jones

Spreading your Intellectual Property without Infringing on Someone Else’s

Business Matt Jones No Comments
Image in the Public Domain from the Library of Congress.
Image in the Public Domain from the Library of Congress.

Many people view the internet as a lawless scary place where virtual goods, the lifeblood of starving authors and artists worldwide, is freely traded and stolen. And worst, this is all done without the original creators knowledge or consent. This is the image often portrayed by lawyers and copyright holders around the world when working to protect their personal income. The sad thing is, to an extent, they’re completely right. It’s not difficult to find copyrighted works, especially popular and bestselling works, available for download the day they’re released. While there are many competing views, as content creators ourselves, we should make the best effort to stay on the straight and narrow as we promote ourselves and our works.

It’s not easy to provide good content and still ensure everything is legal. If you’re reading this blog, it’s likely that you’re an author working on your own works. Your words are interesting, your descriptions are captivating, and your audience is enthralled. However, if you’re like me, your drawing abilities leave much to be desired. But fear not, the internet is there for you. A simple google image search quickly gives you many great images that will give your prose that nudge to perfection. It happens all the time, and many times nothing bad comes from it. Perhaps even most of the time, nobody will even notice that the work didn’t belong to you. Some may even think you created it yourself. But, for the sake of argument, what if it was your work that someone “borrowed” and put on their page. No attribution or notice to you. It might make you feel guilty and quickly try to set matters right. Luckily, as technology advances, so does the ability to find content that is freely available to use on your site!

As always, if you’re concerned or have any questions, consulting a copyright lawyer can save you time and money in the long run. Information is freely given, but you ultimately own the responsibility for your own actions.

Images: As with all content, you want to ensure you have the rights and permissions to duplicate and host someone else’s work. While it’s perfectly acceptable to find an image you like on the web and ask the creator for permission, sometimes it’s difficult to know exactly who the creator is. If the owner of a piece of work is ambiguous, you probably just want to avoid the work altogether. When searching for work, look to buy from well known vendors or via trusted sources. A couple well known sites include: Shutterstock and iStockphoto.

If searching for free images, you probably want to look for images that are hosted under the Creative Commons license or listed as Free Use. These images are available by the content creator for your use following certain restrictions. Before using them, ensure you understand what is required and how far the rights extend. Many images, for example, are available to anyone as long as they contain proper attribution and are used for non-profit purposes. A few good sites to find Creative Commons images are to look at the Creative Commons section of flickr or look at wikimedia. You can also do a Google Images search and select “Labeled for reuse” under the usage rights of the search tools. Finally, you can just do a search on the Creative Commons website itself.

Writing: Like using images created by another, written content should be used carefully as well. Everything is given an initial copyright as soon as it is created, and that work should be respected. It is usually pretty easy to get access to bloggers and authors if you wish, so it’s never a bad idea to send a quick email asking for permission. This usually costs you a little time and can be very rewarding in the long run. The original author may even send traffic your way as a token of appreciation of your own work. You should always link back to the original work if possible as well. If not, make sure you give proper attribution and details on how the users can find the work referenced.

In the end, if you are using someone else’s work to help promote yourself. Someone, in the future, may consider doing something similar with your work. Play it forward and do what you can to help improve the current state of copyright on the internet. It may not get any better, but at least you’ll know that you’re one of the good guys. And, better yet, it might keep you free of all legal issues and ensure you can keep writing the good stuff!

Nothing to Fear but the Demons Inside

Matt Jones Reflection 1 Comment

Scary Tree I admit up front that I don’t read much Horror. It’s not that I don’t like the stories or the work as a whole, it’s just that it makes me uncomfortable. And it’s supposed to, that’s its entire job! A good horror novel will take you through an emotional journey no other genre does. It elicits emotions of fear, confusion, pain, angst, and sorrow. All novels attempt to play with your emotions to some degree, but few attempt to do so in a way that is supposed to make you uncomfortable.

Despite all the books I read, I never actually thought about what, exactly, is it in horror novels that makes me avoid them. I enjoy the excitement and the anticipation that they create. The adrenaline rush makes me feel alive and excited in a life where the most fear I’ll feel is while getting cut off on the freeway. The monsters are imaginative and creative. But most of all, the emotions are powerful! For other novels, I’ll smile during the love scenes and sigh during the sad scenes. I’ll play the good reader and act the way I’m supposed to, but usually it’s only horror that can make me act as a frightened boy and not simply a silent observer.

So, if horror novels are so powerful, why do I rarely actually read them? Maybe it’s because these adrenaline filled moments feel unnatural to me. They might remind my mind of past events that brought about the same physiological response. For example, getting shot at in Iraq while deployed in the military. Or, maybe something as simple as the power going out at night while I was in our unfinished basement as a kid. Neither experience was something I enjoyed.

It might also be the discomfort caused by breaking social rules. Many horror characters have to deal with mental issues that either force or just allows them to go against the social norms that have been drilled into us since childhood. You are put into the mind of someone who steals, rapes, maims, and murders without any remorse. While this is uncomfortable to read, the real shocker comes when you let yourself go to the story and you start agreeing with the actions taken. When you’re in the head of that character who is walking down the hall with the knife in their hands and you find yourself agreeing that the little boy must die to ensure there are no witnesses.

To be honest, I’m not sure what the reason is. They are all good reasons, but I also think they are the reasons I am drawn to horror novels every now and then. Whenever I want to shake up the norm and remind myself that these primal feeling still rest within my soul and heart.

However, there might be one other reason why I have an uneasy relationship with horror. A reason that, as an fellow writer, you might experience as well.
When I was younger, my friends and I threw a Halloween party. Part of the fun and games was a writing contest. Bring a story and read it to the group for praise and prizes. I worked hard and wrote a story about a killer who stalks and rapes young women before sending them to their death. It was dark and the motivations were twisted and gruesome. It had a satisfying ending, if not the happiest in the world. It was a good piece of literary work, in my opinion, and it definitely got an emotional response from the party goers. I thought it was a success, but was surprised at the response afterwards.

My friends who listened to the story, friends who I’ve known for years, looked at me as if I was a new person. A girl I’ve dated asked me later how I could think up something so dark. I heard rumors that some friends thought my character in the story was a representation of who I really wanted to be inside. I began to wonder if my friends thought I really wanted to kill them. And what could I say? I was just a teenager. What if these stories that I thought up really were the thoughts of some inner demon?

Maybe I avoid horror because I’m afraid it’ll show me a side of myself that I really don’t want to see. Maybe I do have demons in my soul that will see the words as an invitation to let loose on the world.

I’m not sure I have a good answer, but I do know one thing: I took the fear and suspicion of my friends as the highest praise I’ve ever gotten. Demons or no demons, horror is a part of me. Even if I only open myself up to it sparingly.

February – Love and Murder

Matt Jones The Writing Life Writing Tools No Comments

black-32834_640[1]February. The month that Greeting Card companies and Flower Stores wait for each year. The month where love and passion rule, and all things are possible. Where your true love holds you close and rips your heart out of your chest, still beating, to show you before you die. And why not? Every good novel needs some tension to balance the mushy love parts, right?

This month we will look at this balance and focus on the craft of writing a great love scene or a terrifying horror novel. We’ll seek out the secrets that have fueled stories told around camp fires for centuries. And we will look at why, when we are out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by whatever horrors our imaginations could dream up, the thing we inevitably do is create stories even more fearsome.

Both horror and romance work on playing with the readers emotions. They focus on the emotional response, a sense of longing or a chill of fright. They both focus on the passion that make us who we are. Even if you don’t write in the genre, we all want to elicit an emotional response in our readers.

So welcome to the Fictorians take on Love and Murder. Come in close where we can give you a kiss while we slide the blade home between your ribs.

Finding the Time for You

Matt Jones Motivation The Writing Life No Comments

2283676770_6b53f8b77f_b[1]Today is the first day of the New Year where many people will be doing something that they rarely do: actually manage their time to do something that needs to get done. It could be working out, taking the stairs, balancing their checkbook, or writing an hour a day. Somehow, they’ll have time to do it… and for many it’ll fade away in a couple weeks.

You can go to a dozen different websites and find a dozen different methods on how to combat the odds and stay productive as the year progresses, but there lies the problem. People are complex beings, and it’s very rare that the simple solutions are the ones that actually work. People can tell you what worked for them, but there is no telling if it would be beneficial for you as well. The real solution is to look at your life, decide what you want, and figure out something that works for you.

As far as writers go, the advice seems to be pretty consistent. Choose a goal and make sure you reach that goal every day. It can be time based, word count, or page count. The advice is simple, but you need to figure out what will make it most likely that you’ll follow through with that goal. Are you more likely to complete it if you get it out of the way first thing in the morning or before bed? Some people have a reward system where they allow themselves to play a game, have a treat, or watch a show after writing. Others spend an hour destroying people on the virtual battlefield as a method to relax before they write.

Even if you can’t do it every day, find a goal that works for you and makes you ready and happy to write. Some writers will write every day for 20-30 minutes during their lunch breaks. Others will go off to a mountain retreat and lock themselves away from the world for a couple months, emerging with their new masterpiece.

The main takeaway here is to know yourself. If you can make writing a habit, things will be easier. Some people will easily develop the habit and will feel lost if they miss a day. Others will have to fight the urge to do something else every day. Remember that you have friends and allies in writing who are cheering for you and waiting to read your novels. The one advice I can give you that I think that works every time is to never give up!