A Moving Experience

The deed is done. The truck full of my in-laws possessions is emptied. 7-9 a.m. at my house, 9-11 at my nearby sister-in-law's house, and 11-12:30 at the assisted living center where my in-laws now reside, happy to have a modest portion of their worldly goods at their side. Then, the drive to my other s-i-l's house to unload the rest of the "stuff" that she gets. Thankfully, the third s-i-l said to leave her meager portion at the second s-i-l's house. Got that? Then, it was a mad dash to the rental dealership to turn in the truck and an even crazier drive to get the #2 s-i-l to work, which is the same place as my wife. So, after slugging it out in upper 90-degree heat, I slump in the passenger seat of my wife's car. She says, "Well, let me tell you about my crazy day." I pass out. There's bliss in the eternal darkness of an exhaustive blackout. No dreams. Sweet bliss.

MMWUC - Your Inner Voice

At six p.m. Saturday night, I flew from Raleigh to Chicago then took a bus to Georke's Corners (Waukesha, Wisconsin). At Six a.m. Sunday morning, I and a friend drove back to Raleigh, NC in a 26-foot rented diesel-guzzling truck full of household possessions of mostly emotional value that my parental in-laws were giving away to their eight kids, including my wife, because the in-laws are now living in an assisted living facility and the old homestead is sold. 959 uneventful miles later, we arrived on my street and turned into my driveway at 2:01 a.m. After 19 long and noisy hours of driving, I got stuck at the bottom of the driveway. It's now 3:43 a.m., and we've just dislodged the beast. The Monday morning wake-up call. Listen to your inner voice. Three hundred miles from home I said to my friend, "You know this truck is going to get stuck in my driveway because of the small dip. The loading ramp will get hung up." After 300 miles of listening to him, "No way," "Can't happen," "Trust me," we were stuck, because I didn't listen to what I knew was true. Don't make my mistake and get your protag stuck at the bottom of the story's driveway because, you didn't listen to your inner voice about what makes sense. See you in the afternoon. I'm tired.

Will Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber Buy My Book?

Well, I've been trying to restrain myself from posting on the weekends, because last time I had a blog, it was the monster that took over my life, and my writing suffered. But I have to say thank you to everyone who congratulated me. It's been such a long journey to authorship, and I appreciate the kind words. I can't imagine how Jon Konrath and others manage. I wonder if Prince William and Katherine have a blog. "Knighted six people today, but my beautiful bride wore the same pair of shoes to two of them. I love her. She's so practical." (And Billy, she's gorgeous.)

Okay, back to the grindstone.

I Am An Author

I AM an author. Though the ebook version of "One Promise Too Many" is not in all distribution channels as of yet and the paperback version is two weeks or so away from availability, my first novel is available at Smashwords. Next up, "A Matter of Faith" coming in September.

Today, however, I rest, listen to the fat lady sing, let Jack Getze smoke a cigar for me, tip back a beer (it's supposed to be 104 degrees here today), and think quietly about the next book -- I have this Alzheimer's patient who has vital clues about a murder, but no one will believe him until he goes missing, and...

To Be Is To Fart

In the porcelain library, I'm reading a book, "Words of Wisdom - Philosophy's Most Important Quotations and their Meanings." It's taking me a long time to get through it. I don't like philosophy, but I've noted that philosophers lived long lives, that is, unless they killed themselves or offended the Pope and were disemboweled. This realization is making me rethink my natural inclination to have brain farts when I read long-winded philosophical arguments. Maybe I need to be more philosophical so I can live longer, maybe my characters need to be philosophical so they can have an enduring character trait. I can hear my detective, Roger Stark: "It's not the crime. It's the criminal." I don't know what that means, but it's a philosophy.

What philosophical gems do your characters spout?

MMWUC - It's My Party, And I'll Cry If I Want To

I'm having a book launch party. Why? Two reasons: (1) After busting my butt on ONE PROMISE TOO MANY for eight years to get it in publishable shape, I deserve it. (2) I need to be a marketing whore. I've googled book launch parties, and have asked for good and bad experiences related to the parties. Some party venues are out of my league, like renting a boat for a Chicago River cruise. Some have games not relevant to my book, like gnome tossing, though that does sound like fun. One caterer wanted $10K to do it. Not! I want to join Janet Chapman on the NYTimes Bestsellers list. So, I'll just do the best I can, have it at my palatial estate, call in favors from friends and family, hope the turkeys don't gate crash, and that someone comes.

Did anyone out there do a Book Launch Party? If so, how'd it go?

Letting Go

In three weeks, I'm supposed to birth my first novel, ONE PROMISE TOO MANY. I think I'm feeling like a parent getting their child ready to leave home for good. "I've read all the books on how to do things correctly." "I went to workshops and conferences on new and exciting ways to ensure success." "I talked to experts in all the right fields." "I have done all that I could!" The novel will just have to stand on its own merits for I can only encourage from afar, make introductions, open contacts new people, renew old contacts, and shout proudly, "I am an author. Hear my story's roar."

Oh wait, is that a typo on page 264? How could I fail my protag?

How did it really feel the first time you saw your book up somewhere for sale?

So Misundersood

My wife read part of my short story collection last night. Then, I was forced to sleep on the couch. "It's just a wild imagination," I pleaded. "It's not a psychopathic urge." Even Sydney didn't want to stay with me, preferring his cardboard box next to the oven. Sometimes writers are just misunderstood for no reason.
- - -
"Are the knives sharp?" Frank put on his coat.

"They could split an Adam." Johnny chuckled.

Frank looked over at Johnny. "Atom."

"Yeah, Adam."

"Whatever." Frank opened the door, and they departed.

After they dispatched Adam, Frank tossed the knives down the old well just as an escaping Higgs boson God particle from the CERN facility passed by. The explosion could be felt five hundred miles away.
- - -
Is your writing ever misunderstood by a loved one?

MMWUC - The Copperhead vs. The Carrot Top

I worked in the garden yesterday. Not shocking since I work in it every day. It's a nice break from staring at the computer. On the good days, ideas come together in a magical fashion. But that mental exercise can come at a price. The somnambulistic gardening work progressed while my mind played with the possibility of an alien detective on his home planet, which has different morals and laws than humanity, worked a murder case. I reached for a clump of badly decayed leaves bunched in the spring onion bed and grabbed the tail of a copperhead snake. I'm a red-headed, fat, tired, lazy, semi-old man with arthritis, gout, bursitis, cancer, poor eyesight, a bad cold due to cough, and a six-inch white man's jump, but Bob Beamon never jumped as far or as fast as I did. The battle with the snake lasted 2.2 seconds. I beheaded it with my trusty hoe. Now, some may say that the snake was just doing its thing, but he should have done it elsewhere. Black snakes, garter snakes, and even hog-nosed snakes I'll pick up and move out of the way, but poisonous snakes enter the yard at their own risk. Can't they read the signs I have posted? By the way, the snake gave me an idea to incorporate into the story.

So, the question is: So what's the biggest shock you've ever given your protagonist?

Birdspiration

My dreams often start off semi-normal then devolve into angry, nonsensical, and frustrating experiences, but last night, something different happened.

Most people know I have a 19-year-old cockatiel named Sydney who loves me dearly and rules the house with a strong beak. Well, Sydney has two pets. They are Frick and Frack, two parakeets. Frick is blue-speckled and psychotic. Frack is a bluish-shade of white. He's a bit less jumpy than Frick and nips a lot less. Still, neither of them are people friendly. No hopping on the fingers, no sitting on the shoulders, no interacting with Sydney. It's our fault really. For the first five years of their lives they were the caged birds in the room because the few times they got out, they refused to go home. Then, they were clipped. I hate clipping birds' wings, but sometimes it really is for their own good. And parakeets aren't the brightest birds. They've been known to die of starvation, because they didn't realize that food was just below the shucked seeds in their feeder. Well, about five years ago, I started letting them out more because I sensed that they were unhappy in their luxurious wired condominium. It was a struggle at first. They'd flop to the floor, then learned to fly here or there, leaving unpleasant little presents and chew on everything. I'd have to catch them because they'd be too pooped, er, tired to fly back home. But I didn't put them into their cage. I'd sit them on top their cage and let them go back inside. Finally, after about a year, they figured out they could fly anywhere as long as they landed back at the cage. They sing more, eat more, and in a way, they seem happy. Sometimes when I talk to them, they actually look at me like they want to hear what I say.

Last night I dreamed about Frack. I walked outside via the sunroom door, and a white streak flew outside past me. He flew around the yard, soared far above the tree tops, dove with abandon, did somersaults in mid-air, and glided past me chirping excitedly. This went on for a long time, and just when I thought I'd lost him forever, he cruised back into the house. He landed softly on top of his cage, crawled around to the front door and entered it. I stood in front of the cage as he took a long, long drink. After his drink, he jumped back onto his little bar and almost seemed to be smiling. He tilted his head to one side and said softly, "Thank you."

I was so stunned, I woke up. I have to admit, I'm a wuss. I had tears in my eyes over his joyful flight. Was my subconscious projecting what I wanted to hear, or can one really sense when birds are truly happy?

Wednesday's Just Another Spot On The Calendar

The opening scene from "Throw Momma From The Train" played out in my office this past evening. Everything was banal. Even when I finally got chocolate, the words dribble out. "It was the best of times, but I still felt crappy." It wasn't even a "dark and stormy night." It was hot and wet, or moist, or humid or something. Heat lay over me like hot things that weigh you down. So, I gave up. And therein is the lesson. Just like the old mounds candy bar commercial used to intone (with a certain degree of literary license): "Some days you feel like a nut; other days it's confirmed." I went to bed, because, after all, tomorrow is another day.

What is the wildest thing you've ever done to get the juices flowing?

This is a test.

This is a test of the emergency blogging capture device. This is only a test. If this had been a real blogging emergency, you would have been redirected to the previous blog on this site. However, since you are already here, you might as well read your Monday Morning Wake-up Call anyway. This is only a test.

Rihanna fire, Mila Kunis, Mario Lopez, Monica wedding, gas prices.

MMWUC - Coffee with that bourbon?

Mondays are hard. Never mind that you stayed up too late Saturday night trolling the bars, quaffing beers with the boys until Bobby fell out of the chair and into the lap of the girl who won the wet tee shirt contest (her linebacker boyfriend was not laughing with you), or sipping wine with the girls until the hair-pulling began over some guy in tight jeans that no one would dare approach. All that caused you to sleep late on Sunday. Breakfast, yeah right! You barely made it to brunch before it closed at 2 p.m. And so, your entire routine for the day was shot. Sunday night's rejuvenating sleep didn't come until 2 a.m.; Monday's shrill alarm at 6 a.m. Coffee, intravenously, now. Mondays are hard. For some, they are kick-off bliss for new possibilities. For others, Monday is a reflective dump of what didn't I get done that now I have to pile onto this week?

So, the question is: Does your protagonist look for new possibilities or look at the pile of stuff on his desk and say, "Expletive deleted?"

What the Bunny Said!

I'm naked in a vast courtyard surrounded by impressive, brooding Gothic architecture and trying to find the class I forgot about my senior year in college. It's the last day of school, and I can't remember where the class is, and then I can't remember what the class was about. Was it German? American Novelists Before Vespucio? Dissection of Icky Creatures? I just can't remember. My heart races. I jump on a bicycle...not a good thing do when you’re a naked guy. I pedal uphill. I wake up in a pool of my sweat...okay the sheets are damp. Somewhat relieved, I lean over and say to my stuffed bunny, "What if nobody wants to read my book?" He responds, "Kind of like throwing a party and no one shows up." My sphincter clenches tight. "Right, I did that once." Then, I really start to panic.

Does any of this happen to you? Or, am I alone in the universe with my stuffed bunny?

Would Lady Gaga Like My Book?

On the Internet Writing Workshop, CM said that Nancy Pearl suggested that readers choose books based on the following hierarchy (most to least common): story, character, setting, and language. I thought the correct hierarchy was: ISBN #, publisher, dedication, how cute/handsome the author is (I'm screwed!), and the color of the paper. I asked for feedback on this question. The final tally was: (1) recommendation, (2) story line, (3) genre, and then everything else. So, I guess if you have a great story in a popular genre and the right person (Sarah Palin or Bill Clinton or Lady Gaga) recommends it, your numbers are going to be good.

I've forgotten the point of this poll, but in sum, a good writer who wants to be successful leaves no stone unturned when trying to create a positive reading experience. Don't go naming your thriller FUNNY STUFF HAPPENS AT THE BEACH instead of WHERE THE BEACH BLEEDS RED. Everything counts when you're looking for an audience. Where do you line up on this very unscientific poll?

REMINDERS -- On Thursday, I'm blogging over at Ron Voigts' site. He's the author of the just released YA mystery novel, PENELOPE AND THE BIRTHDAY CURSE. Y'all come over and sit a spell. On Sunday, Bob Sanchez pops in here to teach you how to make pigs fly while writing.

MMWUC - How Big Is Your Stuff?

I suspect that this question is more easily answered by a plotter (the writer who plans everything) than a panster (the writer who lets it rip). Do you target the length of your scenes, chapters, and book?

The first book I ever finished, SECRETS, had five chapters of around 22K words each. Each chapter represented a major shift in the plot. I felt the structure helped the story, but I caved to conventionalism. Now, words are sequestered in 2000 (+/- 300) bit-sized chapters. It works, but for what might have been. I AM conscious of book length, trying to fit into the 60-90K range for newbies. I failed. "One Promise Too Many" is 95K; "A Matter of Faith" is 102K. This length also hurts me with POD pricing, but that's a story for another day. Now, I find myself tuned into the 2,000 word goal for chapters. Am I bad for doing so?

To what extent, if any, do you pay attention to the length of your stuff when writing or revising?

Freaky Friday <-- cliché?

My long-suffering wife is sometimes scared after I dash off one of my wild emails (the weirdest ones never get seen). "And I sleep with you?" she'll comment. On Wednesday, I made an innocent, snide comment about an article in Publisher's Weekly, and I finally ended up, a few email exchanges later, with my 25-word synopsis for a new novel that I almost feel obligated to write, because it'll hit all the correct high-selling genre groups in the article. I give you: INTERSTELLAR CHRISTIAN WARRIOR -- A classic thriller in which an alien cowboy, spreading the Christian message throughout the universe, is hunted by his vengeful love child with Talia Shire. There it is: classic, thriller, murder, revenge, love, christian, sci-fi, and western.
Critical reviews are already coming in..."Yo! Alien." - Sly Stallone
Where do ideas come from?

Tuesday Madness is Wednesday's Plot

Tuesday was a butt ugly, terrible day. My new Droid, with the hotspot I depend upon to reach the Internet, crashed for the second time in two weeks. Customer service is sending me a new phone and are mystified by the software glitch. "It shouldn't do that," the friendly technician said. The replacement arrives tomorrow. Then, really bad things happened to drag me down to Dante's seventh ring of Hell. No details, but I've been dragged through enough dirt, innuendo, back-stabbing, lies, half-truths, legal posturing (always by people who don't have a law degree) to plot my next book. It'll be PEYTON PLACE meets AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY meets WATERGATE, but will probably sound more like THE HARPER VALLEY PTA. Every two or three pages, Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne will turn to each other and say, "How dumb can someone be?" Well, maybe not dumb, but certainly misguided and insensitive beyond belief.


So, from where are you getting material and thoughts for your next novel?

MMWUC: Lesson's Learned

Whether you've been to the Writer's Retreat Workshop these past 10 days, are cutting grass, promoting your upcoming novel, "Naked and Hungry", or have just released your 5-star debut novel, "Penelope and the Birthday Curse," you've done and learned something. That's what life is all about. From one moment to the next, everything changes. Even if you're semi-conscious on your pink couch, drinking warm Rolling Rock and eating old pork rinds, while watching a C*O*P*S episode for the fourth time, and wishing for Tyra Banks to join you, nothing is ever the same from moment to moment. And so it is with your stories. If your story is not moving along, if your protagonist isn't getting closer to attaining (or failing to attain) his/her/its story-arc goal, that is, the quest that they're on throughout the entire story (and every story is a quest for something), then why am I bothering to read your novel?

How are you moving the story along? For my book, Detective Stark is cutting his grass, because it's long, and he ruminates about his latest case, making connections of clues that he can't do when his brain is occupied with the steady stream of life. For me, it's time to pick the garden.

The Mystery of a Mystery

I've been cleaning out computer files, paper files, nail files, and forgotten files this past week. Sometimes, I come across something I wrote a long time ago. It usually triggers a happy memory, shortly before I bury it again in another file label, "Not Until After I'm Dead." But one file I came across is an outline for a mystery, complete with some character sketches, and an almost complete outline. It's an electronic file, and I can't imagine someone sending me something so clean, if a bit incomplete, for a critique. But, I have absolutely no memory of having written this in 2005. I'm afraid to pick it up again and work on it, fearing it might actually be someone else's and all the work I do with it might be for nothing.

Has this ever happened to you? If so, what did you do about it?

"When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it."

Wednesdays to a week, are like the middle of a novel to a finished novel. The excitement of starting a week refreshed from the weekend has worn off, but the rush to the end of the week hasn't begun yet. In the midst of readying two novels for self-publication, that's where I am with a third one. The middle drags like pulling in a pile of seaweed on your fishing line at the beach. Lots of work. No joy. No pay-off. I should step into the story, and bitch-slap the protagonist like Humphrey Bogart (Sam Spade) to Peter Lorre (Joel Cairo) in "The Maltese Falcon." "Listen here Detective Stark, when you're slapped, you'll take it and like it." Maybe then he'll do something of value in the story. I just have to remember that "tomorrow is just another day." And, it is one day closer to the end of the week, and with each word I write, it gets me closer to the Black Moment, Resolution, and Dénouement. Gee, I'm feeling better already.


So what do you do when you find yourself flagging in the middle of the story?

MMWUC: To Whom Does Your Antagonist Turn?

Yet again, a line of thunderstorms so powerful and ugly looking that visions of end days passed through my mind. It rumbled and shock, lightening knocked out power to three major malls, and fear ran deep through Sydney's body, as he squawked, fluffed feathers, and sought shelter in his cardboard box next to the oven. And then, the sun peeked out. One mile north of here, they received four inches of rain. At my brother-in-law's four miles south of me, it was a torrential downpour. But, and you've probably already figured it out, I got nothing. Twenty-two straight days and several terrific downpours throughout the area, and I have nothing. So I asked God what he wanted. I thought he said, "First born." Sydney closed the door to his cardboard box.

So, when your antagonist has a moment of doubt, to whom does that person ask for guidance and how does your antagonist as for that advice?

Is It Really Friday Again?

Yes, it is. And I'm still plowing ahead, working on my books, trying to get them ready for world-wide consumption, and having a bit of a panic attack. There's a lot to do when you're the writer, editor, graphic artist, publisher, marketer, and just plan, er...as in what do I do next. My mental inbox of new ideas for new novels is starting to get filled up again, but the reality of wanting my current material published (yeah, I DO want to make a few bucks from it) weighs heavily. Fortunately, I've found final readers for the books who are now sharpening their pens, electrons, and wits to give me feedback. Maybe this weekend I can jot some ideas down in the electronic idea box I keep online for story ideas. How do you handle your overload of story ideas? Just do it? Give them away? Allow them to decay naturally?

Steve Jobs & Lady Gaga United

I'm up to my eyeballs wading through marketing options for my books due to come out starting this summer and through 12/21/2012, the fall of civilization, according to the Mayan Calendar. Social media (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.) are necessary time drains that I have to address. And then, a writing friend sends me this link to Lady Gaga and Steve Jobs of Apple and their potential joint venture to tie all the social media in the world into a cloud or mist or thunderstorm or something. We are all connected, at least, that's how some of us feel. And it is especially true for those who have disposable income and want to dispose of it in my direction once I figure out how to leverage social media to my advantage. But what about AtuAtuzuwatta in Botswana? Does he feel connected, too? Does he want to read murder mysteries set in Pennsylvania or North Carolina?


Can you make sense of this article? Or, is this the 21st centuries version of snake oil for which we are all gaga over?

MMWUC - Sydney Ate My Homework

Animals. My wife insists I must have a lovable/evil/faithful/treacherous animal in every story because there are so many pets and pet lovers in the world. People are drawn to pets. People will hate the villain when he/she/it hurts an animal...even more so than when he hurts the human protagonist. They are so vulnerable, helpless (well, except for pit bulls, alligators, and pit vipers), and often cute. So, after one book with only a couple of walk-ons by Rin-Tin-Tin and a hapless rainbow trout, I hereby promise to include an animal in every book from now on. Sydney, my pet cockatiel currently sitting on my shoulder, agreed and said, "Me first." Wise guy. We'll see. So do you consciously put an animal in your stores or do they just happen to wind up there because the story went in that direction? Inquiring guppies want to know.

Penelope And The Proud Poppa

I met Ron Voigts in January, 2001. We've shared a journey full of critique groups that came and went, rejections, disappointments, and finally, for Ron, a place in the sun. His first published book, Penelope and the Birthday Curse, is up on Amazon for your ebook consumption. Though it was first out on Smashwords (SW) two weeks ago, the sight of it on Amazon seems to carry a more official stamp of legitimacy. This is not a slam on SW, but a perception that I have based on Amazon's consider weight in the marketplace. Penelope is a YA/Tweener mystery that has enough adult humor and action to be an enjoyable read on the beach while creating a home for melanoma; during an eight-hour, weather-delayed flight on the tarmac in Riga, Estonia; or sitting in the dentists office, trying to decide if you should wait your turn or flee. Congratulations, Ron, and here's hoping y'all will take a look at a book that came within a whisker of being swooped up by several publishers. It's a five-star start to a promising career.

Writing With Your Leg

It's Wednesday, so it must be physical therapy day for my leg. I've been at it now for almost a month, and the leg is responding though I'm still stiff and in pain and can't go downhill and, and, and, well, it's a pain in the butt, literally and figuratively and monetarily. However, it's also helping and that's were I need to keep my focus, on the end game, not the daily pains and small gains in the interim. It's like revising. I am so very tired of revising and editing one of my stories that I could puke. Yet, each time I set the "finished" product aside for a month. I come back to it and find ways to make it better, more publishable. Each time, there's less and less red ink. When no one notices my limp, I'll know that the trials and tribulations of physical therapy will have been worth it. It's the same with the revising. When my final reader can only find tiny, insignificant little nits, I know I'll be ready to release my baby into the world of publishing, not just to limp along with the teetering mass of less than stellar novels, but at a full gallop leading the herd.


In this age of technology, would writers under the age of thirty understand the red ink analogy?

What Are Your Characters Reading?

The good Judge Susan Baker ( http://www.susanpbaker.com/ ) recently asked, "So what are you all reading this summer?" Good question. Some good answers popped up. And they increased, in an odd way, my anxiety that I'm not reading enough or possibly not reading the right stuff. But the real question is, as your protagonist fights your antagonist, "What are these characters reading this summer?" My studious Detective Roger Stark is reading "Crime and Punishment" while Faith Moreno sinks her teeth into "The Kingdom of Childhood". My evil turkey in "The Turkey Chronicles" is reading "To Serve Humans," a book he found made famous on the 1962 television show, "The Twilight Zone". Supposedly, we taste best stewed.

So, what is your protagonist or antagonist reading?

Scary Stuff

Changed the name of my blog today. I hope like heck that I didn't loose my followers (all four of you) or confused everyone else out there in cyberworld. Once my books get published, I'm hoping that this will make it easier for people to find me, read my thoughts without the need to mind-meld (did Spock even once use one of those handi-wipe towelettes that you find near grocery stores before you take a shopping cart to prevent picking up germs from someone who just had eboli or the flu or even the common cold), and, well, brand my name a bit. Perhaps the other 576 Bylinas in the world will find me now. So much to do; so little time, but I'm loving it. Just wish Mother Nature would back off on the late Spring heat and spread the rains around a bit more evenly. My tomatoes are thirsty.

Cutting Loose Your Babies

When are you done? When have you found the bottom of the error pit and are now just massaging words? When do you cut your baby loose? I think I'm looking for perfection and perfection doesn't exist. I've excised every typo so that I've gone through it twice now without MSWord or I finding one. No individual lines are unintelligible, at least I don't think they are. I've beat it with my self-help books and checklists, and fear flattening it to the point of dullsville, but yet I still wince at appropriate points (am I too much a weeny), get emotionally choked up at certain points (did I take estrogen by mistake), and can't find any loose ends at the end of the story (except those I manufactured for selected reasons). It has to be ready; it must be ready. But how do I know it's ready? Burping it doesn't seem to help. Ink just dribbles down on my shirt. Is there an acid test other than the obvious down the road, a rejection from an agent? I guess it's like a father after his son has left for college and turned the corner and driven out of sight: "I've done the best I can, and now I get to make his room my man-cave." I guess letting go does have some advantages.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

I'm looking at all angles to ensure my books sell once they start getting out there later this year. Right now, I'm obsessing over book covers. As we know, we are never supposed to judge a book by its cover; however, we do. We also judge by titles and blurbs. This is especially true when we are stuck in an airport and we need something to read prior to our 13 hour flight to Bhutan. So I made covers for my seven books to get a feel for what friends and other strangers like, dislike, or otherwise wish to burn me at the stake for creating. So far in my test marketing: (1) the favorite cover is also the most disliked, and this is by a wide margin over the competition (controversy good-boring bad); (2) humor is subjective, the one I think is very funny is stuck at the bottom; (3) iconic content representations seem to work better than collages, collages are to busy and slow down the decision-making process. All my titles seem to past the smell test, and the fake (and someday hopefully real, one-liner blurbs) are universally helpful. Test marketing continues, but I have to reassess my humor. The critical cover question is: "Do Yetis fall in love?" The response: "What's a Yeti?" Do you know what a Yeti is? Do you think they fall in love? Inquiring minds and book marketing whores want to know.

Rawalpindi, Pakistan Calling

It still amazes me how widespread the Internet is, and the level of connectivity with others in the world we can potentially share. Yesterday, I was viewed from Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Now, I've been viewed from that part of the world before, particularly India, because I have writing friends there. However, Pakistan is another matter, as was my hit from Mongolia a few years ago. But then again, maybe it's not so strange. Osama did some web surfing, as did his followers, so why not some second-hand book store owner in Rawalpindi who's only looking to increase his stock? He may have even googled the title of the second book I plan to publish early this fall, A MATTER OF FAITH, and thought it might be a religious treatise on how to acquire 17, 70, or 72 virgins or figs or whatever the correct translation of the Koran indicates. The book is actually a murder mystery wrapped in a question of faith. Whatever the case, it is unlikely I will ever get to that part of the globe to see things for myself. However, I wish this person would have left a virtual calling card. It would have been nice to know what's playing at the Bijou Theatre in downtown Rawalpindia and swap tales of taking dates to the movies. Would our experiences be the same? That reminds me of a story...well, maybe later. Have you ever left your virtual calling card somewhere exotic and had an interesting exchange of life's happenings?

Can Social Media Alone Market Your Book?

Attended a Saturday night session for about a dozen writers (after we were sure we weren't saved) seeking new ideas, a safe place to read, and companionship not of the four-legged kind (i.e., cats, dogs, horses, deer, rodents, and cicadas--although I guess they're six-legged). We ate great potluck food, yakked about the writing business, then read from some of our babies. Some people were published; some are ready to be published; some just needed acknowledgment that they have something that can be published in the future. But the most interesting thing to me, mostly because I'm pulling together my marketing plan for when I publish this summer, is this condensed thought: a great deal of the social media (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc.) only gets your books bought by close family and friends, if them. Real marketing needs to rise above just having social media. It is the active engagement of the social media married to word-of-mouth and just the plain gumption to get out there and be in front of people at wherever people gather that will carry day. Social media can't do it alone. True? False?

Skipping Centuries

My communication systems have arrived in the 21st century. After years of a 56K modem that rarely got better than 33.2K, I'm dabbling around high-speed Internet via a Droid 2 smartphone for a dumboperator. Yes, I'm pulling the plug on the landline and the eight energy vampire phones scattered around the house. Yes, I'm pulling the plug on the dial-up connection. Yes, I'm listening to Cat Stevens' Angelsea over RadioIO 70s Rock with 3bars. Also, goodbye to the digital rabbit ears and the four channels I get for DirecTV and 150 channels, of which I will watch about six. Yep, straight from the 19th century to the 21st century. Now, if only I can figure out how to answer the damn smartphone. Missed my first three calls. Too many features. Too many apps. And what the heck is a DLNA? I feel a short story coming on about a man so intimidated by the new technology, that he hides in a shack in Montana (or somewhere out west) and threatens to bring down society with a secret stealth weapon. Ah, the irony. Rebelling about technology while using to its fullest. Paul Simon "Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard". It's time to write, but the muse is downloading a YouTube video. Shushes me away. "Write," she yells. And so I must.

I'm Back!!

Wow! It's hard to believe that I haven't posted anything in over two years. Well, lots of good stuff coming up, so stay tuned as I launch project: Author.

Yep, I'm going over to what once was considered the dark side -- self-publication. Not that it ever was really the dark side, but that publication through the traditional path (agent-editor-publisher) was the validation I sought. Now I realize, the only validation I need is from the readers. If they buy my books, I'm validated. If they don't buy my books, I have to write a better book. Still, it would have been nice to have the pair of professional eyes giving the thumbs up or down (and boy do I have that over 500 times) on a particular novel.

So now, come with me and join the ride, as I reach for my ring while on the publishing carousal. First novel should be out in late summer, and I'll keep you posted along the way. I'll also try to clean up the links on this blog. There are a lot, and a lot with still good information.

Fish Humor

Two fish are swimming upstream. One bumps into a concrete wall. He raises a fin to his forehead and says, "Dam!"

Hello, again.

Hello? Anyone in there? I'm older, grayer, still unpublished, but my cockatiel, Sydney, still loves me. Still writing. Still critiquing. Still waiting to find a decent job in an economy that sucks worse than my misuse of action verbs.

The Click and the Dead

Countdown over. Should I have reached the conclusion, it would have meant the end to hummingbird feeding season. It also would have meant that I must not have a writer's soul by not feeling the pain of the absence of writing for nearly six months. As it is, I'm putting my chair into fighting position against the desk and firing from all pens. Bring on the vivid verbs, annihilate anemic adverbs, assess active adjectives, and look for muscle beach, iron pumping nouns.

Did you read the story about the protagonist who had no motivation?

Probably not. And it ain't happening here either.

God versus the Chicken

It's 7 a.m. I don't have to pick the garden vegetables, because I did so last night. Living large off the garden in summertime. To get chickens next or not get chickens is the question. Free eggs aren't free, I argue. Aside from the small cost to buy the original four or five chickens, it's the daily chore of scooping up the eggs while being pecked to death by a lethal weapon. While the poop is great fertilizer, I bet the deposits will be like Sydney, our pet cockateil, presents--distributed indiscriminately and often on my shoulder. I swear I can hear him chuckle, "I want more mashed potatoes!" Then there's the foxes, raccoons, and wild dogs. One more reason, they do not need to climb over or burst through the fence that seems so impregnable at the moment. And I know they will be named, and there goes any hope of a free Sunday dinner.

Nope. I have to draw the line at chickens once again and enjoy the guest bedroom for a few days will I chicken scratch a few more words on the topic of God's grace in my next novel.

Recorders versus Blogging

Hard to blog at 28.8 modem while downloading massive YouTube recorder concerts for your wife. The tropical storm fizzled and missed us. No large amounts of rain as desired. Now the furnace is turned on for the next two days, 100 or so. Time to hibernate inside after picking vegetables, chopping wood, pullling weeds, moving mulch, stacking concrete, running from moisquitoes, slapping at horseflies, shooing away deer, drowing squirrels, feeding fish and birds, and weedwhack the weeds. Hey, at least the late summer corn crop is growing like a weed. I cannot believe it, eight days planted and six inches high. Must be the potent squirrel poop in that part of the yard. Oops. Gotta go throw the laundry in the dryer and pretend I've written 500 words today. "Really, Mr. Barretta. It's all in my head."

The Mafia and My Garden Wall

76 days to go...Hauling concrete chunks from a nearby construction site so I can continue work on my garden wall is my equivalent to working out at the gym. I just wonder when I'm going to find an arm or a leg or a decomposing Mafia hit. Why do they always show up buried in concrete?

Snakes? I've seen a few. One or two brown haired rodents, also. Mice or rats or muskrats, I don't know. The wall is starting to take good shape after years of working on it. And yes, three days ago she approached me with the inevitable, "Can we move this thirty foot section of the wall six inches in this direction so I can put in more daises?" I'm beginning to understand the Mafia a whole lot better.

Come on rain. I don't want to water tomorrow.

Third Graders and the Playboy Centerfold

77 days to go...Okay, I finished Elizabeth Lyon's book, "Manuscript Makeover" today in between scoring Connecticut third grade narrative papers about the most exciting day in kid's lives. Can you say these kids have yet to live, well, except the kid who's been to the moon, Jupiter, and Pluto causing NASA to re-establish Pluto as a planet based on the space debris he brought back to earth. That kids been around.

EL's book has be almost excited to revise my three completed novels. Need to chose one and make a go of it. Her book is excellent, and it is dogeared worse than a teenager's copy of Playboy with Barbie Benton inside. Bonus points for anyone who can tell me who BB was without goggling the Internet.

Also cut all the grass along the road when I got home. Zen and the art of grass cutting. Did mine, the common area, my next door neighbor, and kept on going and did the guy's down at the end of the cul-de-sac. Then I cut my yard, weed whack a sensitive area, burned some invasive weeds in the burn pit, watered a new area where I planted corn six days ago. The corn is already four inches high! Thems some good seeds.

My foot hurts. A gout attack is in my near future. It is off to bed I go to dream about monsters, snakes, and clam bakes with a girl named Becky. (Don't tell my wife.)

Writing and Shouting

78 days to go...Man, that teleportation really messes with the ability to write. Anyone doing any writing worth shouting about?

Teleportation Achieved

93 days to go...

...I believe I've sufficiently recovered from my drive from Phoenix, Arizona to Apex, North Carolina to report that I drove the 2,236 miles in 38.5 hours. Why did I do it so fast? I don't know, but I told my wife I would stop once I got tired. That didn't happen, however, until Charlotte, North Carolina. That's when I found out that the car had a teleportation device button. Next thing I know, I'm home in the driveway. Now I'm mad at my niece for not telling me about this device. Now, my left wrist hurts. I'm not sure if it is from the drive or a lingering affect of being teleported those last few miles.
NOTATIONS
---------
* EATS: What a shock! Only three diet cokes and two candy bars consumed for the entire trip. That's an amazingly low amount of caffeine.
* TOLLS: There were no tolls along the roads I took, though I did see a troll under the Mississippi Bridge at Vicksburg.
* FASTEST SPEED: 82 mph while getting out of the way of a car approaching from behind traveling over 100 mph. Her curly blonde locks were corralled twenty miles down the road by the state police. Hope she shows up on C*O*P*S.
* WORST CITY: El Paso...Nasty accident and zero options to squeeze by because the town hugs the mountains/desert and the Mexican border. Runner-up, Shreveport, LA. One butt ugly town, twisty roads with quick speed changes; however, it is a small city and the pain is over quickly.
* ODDEST SIGHT: From a distance, the lights of Florence, Texas seem to flicker on and off. Once you got right up to one of the lights, you realize it is hundreds of wind turbines with their nightlights flickering off and on in an enormous display of pale yellow-reddish Christmas lights.
* ANIMALS SEEN ALIVE: Ostrich (hundreds of them), two jack rabbits trying to pace me, a huge alligator turtle trying to cross the Interstate, an armadillo sniffing for clues at the scene of a crime (dead rabbit), a hawk eating a rat on top of a cactus, llamas, alpacas,
* ANIMALS SEEN DEAD: The usual suspects (squirrels, rabbits, turtles, domestic animals) and an alligator.
* Texas never ends.
* The Mississippi was really high, but everything else looked parched and all rivers looked low.
* BIGGEST SURPRISE: How lush and productive the Rio Grande Valley is from Las Cruces, NM, until I left the river valley 100 miles later. Lots of produce, trees, and cows where nothing would be without the river.
* WORST DRIVERS: Atlanta...Yeah, I know that there are a lot of damn Yankees there, but the indigenous population has accepted the awful driving skills. Atlanta drivers are as fast and dude as anything I've seen around Chicago or Boston.
* PHOENIX-to-HILTON HEAD FUTURE TRIP FOR THE LEONARD'S (niece and hubby and kids): Go the southern route. The roads are better; the traffic less. Maybe you'll get a tail wind like I did to smooth out the ride. The northern route (I-40) is almost guaranteed a crosswind. Gas is generally cheap by 5-20 cents a gallon in Texas compared to the northern road. Passage through the major cities is fewer and generally better. As always, go through them during off-peak hours.
* BEST SCENERY: Toss up between AZ/NM border area and where I-10 heads away from the Rio Grande in Texas. Panoramic majesty for both. And I saw my first real mirage. I could swear the lake was there, but there were dust devils coming off the surface of the "water". A true indication that it wasn't water I was looking at.
* BIGGEST BUMMER: No alien encounters or hot, gorgeous hitchhikers. (The two ZZ-top look alikes under a bridge in Mississippi don't count.)
* BIGGEST REALIZATION: You CAN jog in the driver's seat to prevent blood clots in your legs if you're inventive enough, but expect other drivers to give you weird looks and drive far away from you.
------
...Hey, let's do this again sometime soon.
According to Webster's, soon is an adverb meaning "...really, not in this lifetime." ;-o

Road Trip

98 days to go...Heading to Phoenix in nine hours to drive a car back to North Carolina. (Doesn't this family ever drive cross-country in say, October! My mind is occupied by road songs and novels.

"Radar Love" by Golden Earring comes burst to the front for the songs. "I've been drivin' down the road, my hands wet on the wheel..."

As far as novels, "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac jumps in front of "Blue Highways" by William Least Heat Moon. Never read "Travels with Charlie" so I can't compare it. My character in "Turning 51" (223 rejections) takes a trip from Raleigh, NC to central PA to Boulder, CO in an effort to unravel a mystery. Yeah, I've done that route more than a few times. Lots of memories, but not any exciting romantic interludes with six-toed blondes with eyes of blue ice. That only happens in Germany, but that's a story for another day.

Got one to share...either novel or song?

P.S. Decided the southern route I-10, I-20, and I-85 since I've only hopscotched that area of the country versus the northern route I-40. I've been on every mile of I-40 from Barstow, CA to Wilmington, NC, and most of it several times.

P.P.S. Obviously this means no entries until I get back home. I know, I know. Disappoint is cluttering the pipelines of the Internet.

Scoring New Jersey

1oo days to go...Hard to believe. Better get cracking' soon.

Seventh grade New Jersey students are still trying to persuade me at work where they should go on their field trip, and I continue to score those papers. So where does a 7th grader want to go on their field trips when they think know one will ever know? Six Flags Great Adventure (I'm shocked, not), Dorney Park, Hersey Park, Franklin Museum in Philly, and the Science Museum in Newark, surprisingly large number for Ellis Island with a side order of the Statue of Liberty. Of course, the Jersey shore (or beach) gets many nods, Clementon Park, Stokes, Wildwood, Seaside Heights, Sandy Hook, but surprisingly few mention Atlantic City, except the 13-year-old that knew about the assortment of alcoholic beverages dispensed there. It is nice to see the Natural History Museum in NYC getting copious nods along with the Museum of Modern Art. NYC, in of itself, garnered numerous papers because, by gum it, it's just one fun town.

Some of the more geographically challenged youths opt for day trips to Washington, D.C. along with an afternoon jaunt to Mt. Rushmore. In fact, outside of the tri-state area, D.C. gets quite a few nods. But I won't slight Baltimore. It's aquarium gets mentioned often. Boston gets some nods, along with Niagara Falls. Some local colleges get the nod for a day field trip: Princeton, NYU, Rider, State College of New Jersey (which I believe used to be Trenton State where I spent three semesters in the dark ages).

Even more geographically (and time management) challenged were students expressing the desire for day trips to Disneyworld, California, Texas, Canada, Slovakia, Uzbekistan, Paris, Rome (multiple times), Italy (yes, I know Rome is in Italy), Greece, Guatemala, and Finland. The country of Africa gets mentioned once in a while. It's only a few hours away.

Smarter kids realize that they can't do these foreign trips in just a day. Persuasive students have suggested longer stays in Canada, California, Hawaii, Australia, the country of Europe, Portugal, Spain, and China. An enterprising lad thought a multi-week trip around the world would enlighten his classmates to the multiplicity of cultures. The teachers could pay for it all. I want a job on that staff.

Of course there are kids out there who are smoking the wackyweed a bit younger than my generation did. I've read to outstanding arguments for a trip to the moon, and one that made a passionate case for being the first school kids on Mars. (Not to mention the first people.)

There were many financially conscientious students who indicated that their schools didn't have the funds for a trip and that we should just have a nice day in the cafeteria or the field next door or the park down the street. They made me want to offer the school some of my meager funds to get these kids inspired to greater heights. These kids should go to the movies with the number of kids who suggested the movies were the correct field trip, and then bowling afterwards.

And then there were the more self-absorbed kids. "...to the MALL, and the school can give each of us $100 to spend." I'm surprised by the number of uninspired kids who thought the mall is an educational trip. Other uninspired educational trips included: 7th street (not sure what town), Burger King ("...so we can learn a trade..."), the skating rink ("...because it's fun to laugh at the kids who don't know how to skate and fall down a lot..."), a professional sport's game ("...because I love the [Phillies, Giants, Jets, Rangers, Yankees, Mets, Titans, Patriots, etc.]...") and I only noticed that one of these was a girl. Sorry guys, but 50-yard seats for a Giants-Patriots game in 2008-2009 isn't going to be had for $50.

It's been interesting, and don't get me wrong. Out of the 5,000+ papers I've read, I have read some brilliant essays by 12 and 13-year-old kids, written in forty-five minutes, that would have challenged any Pulitzer Prize winner to exceed.

"There is nothing more important than expanding our knowledge on a field trip to become better human beings and improve society."

Right on, kid, whoever you were.

MMWUC for June 23, 2008

101 days...I've been hiding from my writing computer. It stares at me. It looks lonely. It's off. Two more days of work left, then unemployment strikes at the heart of the wallet again. On Saturday, I fly to Phoenix to drive back my sister-in-law's car. I'm unsure of my route back. I-40 all the way or the southern route on I-10, I-20, and I-85. I'm unsure how fast to go. I once did Denver to eastern PA in 29 hours solo. I'm not sure that marathon driving efforts remain in my blood. Should I take my time and soak up the triple-digit heat of the southwest? Should I go through southern Missouri to Memphis in time to catch the crest of the latest and greatest Mississippi flood. (Yo! It's not the heavy rain, Army Corps of Engineer dudes. It's the funnel dikes and the lack of swamp/wetlands to absorb the excess rain to replenish those wonderfully rich flatlands.) Do I know anyone on either route with couches? Skippy's gone from western Oklahoma to Seattle. A rich millionaire wearing dirty overalls and a hayseed hat once helped me out in Missouri when a strong wind damaged my car once. Wonder if he's still there in Jonesboro? If he is, he's probably pushing 90. I used to know some people in New Orleans, but they're gone with the tide. I met a girl in Winslow, Arizona. Such a fine sight to see. Oh wait! That was the Eagles, not me. (Blogger is acting up. Autosave isn't working. Oh well.) I met a nice girl in Richardson, Texas (not far from Dallas off of I-40). It was just before I met my wife. I doubt that either one would appreciate me dropping in like a WWII paratrooper in northern France in June, 1944.

Maybe I'll just sing my way across Texas...El Paso to Beaumont. Should only take me a day or so.

As for the rest of your wrangling writers, let's make each word count.

MMWUC for June 16, 2008

One hundred and eight days...Elizabeth Lyons, sub-God, (God status if I get published) says in her book that I mentioned a few days ago to practice writing riffs (small little sections of writing). Okay, I will. Wanna know what riff writing is...get the book, you won't be disappointed. Or return tomorrow and see an example.

Otherwise, make time for your writing.

Blank Sunday

One hundred and nine days...my, how time does fly, or how flies the time. I ain't got nothing today. Waddya you got?

Are we there yet?

One hundred and ten days...

Still reading more of Elizabeth Lyon's "Manuscript Makeover". Can I find improvement in my "finished" manuscripts based on her words of wisdom? Yep. Do I find things that she's suggested that I've done? Yep. Brings up the question that I've addressed before at some time. When do you know you're done? How do you honestly know that you've accomplished the tasks? I guess we never really know and that's why people like the young woman that runs The Rejector blog continually gets queries from the clueless submitting the dregs of the earth as though the dregs were really National Book Award winning material.

Write on! Write on!! Brothers and sisters, amen. Write on!!!

P.S. Shannon...Have you written today? Get on with it!

13 Black Cats are under the Ladder

Where is eveyone today? Must be Friday the thirteenth that has them all spooked. Call me shocked. I saw no new advertisements for another "Friday the 13th" movie.
---
Jason uses his walker with deadly accuracy only to forget why he the elderly woman is at his feet and smashing his toes. When he remembers, it's too late. He's in his own worst nightmare on Elm Street relieving Halloween over again each night in his dreams. "Friday the 13th: 88 ain't Great"

Mulch Madness

One hundred and eleven days...

Yippee! My new pile of mulch arrived today. 19 cu yards of worm food and weed smothering delight. I know it has nothing to do with writing, but my wife has turned me into a farmer, so this is nearly as good as finishing a piece of flash fiction.
---
On April 1st, God smote Satan. Satan went to Hell. The damned wept; angels rejoiced. Gas prices still rose.

I Don't Like Spiders and Snakes

One hundred and twelve days...

Mosquito bites. "Umm. Just love to scratch them," Ned Flanders said to Homer Simpson. He can have them, along with the spider bites and poison ivy. I hit the trifecta the other night and now I'm scratching like nobodies business, but the silver lining is...I'll get back to you on that.

Rollcoaster Writing

One hundred and thirteen days...

Where is the love? Some of the persuasion papers I'm scoring at work from seventh grade students in New Jersey that they have to write in forty-five minutes are better than what I can do in a couple of hours with my dictionary at my side. But then again, I don't have a burning passion to convince my principal that Six Flags, Dorney Park, or Hershey Park are educational field trips to examine the extent of their knowledge of gravity, g forces, and the friction cohesion of roller coasters.

Oh yeah, and never forget about all the great and nutritious food you can get at those places that render the cafeteria food "...putrid and poisonous portions of poorly planned poop on a plate." Kid gets an A in my book.

Dolores and the Blond

One hundred and fourteen days...

No breeze stirred for weeks. Four weeks. Travis marveled how dust had accumulated on the porch without leaving in the same manner the minute particles had arrived. Ants marched single file across the sand dunes of dust in search of drops of sweet tea he'd allow to fall. He marveled at their persistence then sprayed them with a can of ant and roach killer.

Another line. A think lined of dark clouds lined the edge of the horizon. They quickly ate the sun, and the promise of showers edged closer until darkness became full and the distant bolts of lightning began with the faintness of the bug. Work had drained him and the promise of rain, the first streak of lightning, and finally, a low rumble that didn't come from the direction of the tracks to the east kept him in his chair.

He heard the first breeze before he felt it. The cottonwoods chimed a hundred yards away, and then the breeze swept across the porch, chilled a bead of sweat, and swept the loosest grains of dust off the porch. He reached up and flicked off the porch light. The house was dark. The breeze pushed again. He checked the chamber. Two rounds. He was ready for Dolores.

MMWUC for June 9, 2008

One hundred and fifteen days...

It's hot, sticky, icky, muggy outside. Find the a/c and fire up your computer. Stick your protagonist outside in the broiler and write about him/her.

Okay, weak, but I'm suffering from chocolate milk withdrawal.

Dolores and the Blond

One hundred and sixteen days...

Dolores sucked on the Budweiser bottle loud and noisy like a starving baby, even dribbling some of the nectar down her chin and onto her turquoise blouse. When she came up for air, she slammed the bottle down and burped triumphantly. Her long fingers, red painted nails with a spot of yellow in the middle (her signature), rose to her lips in an unspoken apology as though she were a countess and committed a faux pas at a state banquet. The twelve old men failed to notice; they feasted on the only other woman at the end of the bar who wavered on her stool with downcast eyes, young and supple, a redhead in the sea of gray, white, or peppered heads.

Quinton, the bartender, took away the spent soldier and a replacement stood at attention on the coaster. "After a month in the joint, you better go slow."

Dolores hesitated. Four weeks ago, the dirty dozen would have tripped over themselves to buy her a drink for a chance at a peck on the cheek or more later in the night when she was too tired or too drunk to care. She dug into the pocket of her jeans. Two crumpled dollars fluttered to the bar as she eyed Quinton. "After a month in the joint, I have a lot of catching up to do." He walked to the end of the bar with her gaze locked on his tight butt. "Yeah, I've got a lot of catching up to do." Dolores had no mind for long-term planning. Revenge suited her better. She milked the second beer for a long time...

Really, it's just a question of sanity.

One hundred and seventeen days...

It's Saturday. Do you know where your protagonist is? If your protagonist is not in jeopardy, he/she/it isn't working hard enough for you.

"Hot Fun in the Summertime" - Sly and the FS

One hundred and eight teen days...

So, I've put out a fair number of ideas to steal. Anyone take up any of them? If so, how's it going?

Near or over 100 for the next 3-4 days. Can't say I'm all that excited about that. It'd be okay if we'd get a thunderstorm every third or fourth day, but there's not a drop of rain in the forecast for the next seven days, and we've only had less than a half-inch in the last three weeks in my rain gauge. I guess the politicians calling the drought over was more political than reality. Come on, where's a good ol' fashioned tropical storm?

Waterworld Without Kevin Cosner

One hundred and nineteen days...

...and I'm behind schedule by a week.

I've been thinking about the future and writing. Yemen will be out of water by 2020 (NPR report a few years ago). Desalinization plant that Saudi Arabia is thinking of building on their side of the border is tentatively schedule to go on like in 2023 (Something I read from an online UN report years ago). Sucks if you live in Yemen, but I wonder if a proliferation of desalinization plants for the thristy corners of the world will off-set the rising sea water caused by global warming? (Rick skips the sensitive issue of its causes and cyclical nature.)

With the population and farming sucking up more and more of the available fresh water, I would have to think that desalination will have to start on some massive scale. Imagine central Australia watered and a breadbasket to the world. Imagine the interior African countries getting their water via pipelines from the ocean. Maybe Lake Chad (once the fourth largest lake in the world now the size of a large pond) will be filled up again. I'm sure I smell a corporate conspiracy and a different wave of water terrorism coming out of this as well as some hope in some far off desert country who discovers it has a 120B barrel oil reserve and bargains for the water.

Write on, writers.

Ice Cream Overload in Summer's Heat

One hundred and twenty days...

Afloat in an ocean of words, I am. Sam. Ma, I swam to near a swanky swan in summer swimwear. Moose Tracks ice cream has frozen my brain. I don't care. Are you even there?

If at first you don't succeed, try again darn you

One hundred and twenty-one days...

You have only 2-3 days left to read this for free. This Chronicle of Higher Education article holds in the middle a lesson in persevering in order to get your baby published. Maybe I should send out my flock of babies to another couple hundred agents.

MMWUC for June 2, 2008

One hundred and twenty-two days...

Write.

Need more?

Edit.

Still more inspiration?


Revise. Research. Review. Read and embrace "Manuscript Makeover" by Elizabeth Lyon. Run five miles. Rewrite your 25-word synopsis. Re-evaluate your protagonist's motivation. Read "To Kill a Bird That's Been Making Fun of You". Send me a chocolate candy bar. Write. Keep sending out queries--you aren't in the game if you're in the stands.

"Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away."

One hundred and twenty-three days...

RIAA picked the top 25 songs of the century. While I can't really argue against any of them (they are all great songs), it's disappointing that the Beatles didn't have any in the top 25. I found that odd considering that I remember reading an article a few years back. It stated that "Yesterday" was the most covered song in history. That alone should have knocked something out of the top twenty-five. But picking the top 25 songs is like picking the top 25 of anything. It is a difficult task and will never satisfy everyone because we all come to the table with our taste buds set for our own tasty treats. I don't know what my top 25 for anything would look like, but I know these would end up there:

Song: "Jungleland" by Bruce Springsteen
Book: "Ironweed" by William Kennedy
Movie: "The Sixth Sense" by whatshisname Night Shyamalan (of course, if you know anything about me, you know that "Casablanca" is the greatest movie of all time.)
Place: northern Wisconsin in the fall
Food: Chicken soup with kluskies

Do you have a top 25 item that you can't see the so-called experts leaving out of their endless lists?

"Somewhere, over the rainbow..." And the studio heads were going to cut this song! Sheesh!!

Shrubs, Closets, and Suspicions

One hundred and twenty-four days...

The oppressive heat of summer has arrived, and I still have fourteen more shrubs/trees to plant. But, I got the cotton in this morning. ("Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton...oh wait, I am!") I should write a story about a man that goes nuts putting in shrubbery ("SHRUBBERY!") obscuring his house and life from those around him leaving everyone to wonder what he does all day and why there is a steady stream of UPS, FEDEX, and US Mail trucks winding their way up his driveway every day. Soon rumors start, especially after some kids are injured while climbing over a fence and falling into a Fire Thorn bush. Two dogs go missing. A child disappears for an evening and an angry mob grows until she is found sleeping in the closet at her Grandmother's down the street.

"Mommy and daddy where yelling at each other again," she laments as the cop brings her home.

"It doesn't matter that HE didn't have her. He's up to something, and HE should be stopped." The loudmouthed man threw down his spent cigar the angry in him seething as much over HIM as his son who left home after an argument over a used soda straw.

The cops break up the crowd, but soon the neighborhood quiet is disturbed by the clatter of metal and a humming noise that often starts as early as six a.m. It goes on for two months and one night a Molotov cocktail explodes against a line of Korean Boxwood's left to grow up to eight feet in height, the popping of sugary sap sounds like tiny firecrackers on the fourth of July. Though it is extinguished quickly by the fire department, the homeowner is never seen.

And then it happens...

...writing about strange places to live, check out this daring woman with no where to live but in a strangers' closet. I wonder if that show that builds new houses for people will go international and help her out?

Just Watch Which Finger You Grow!

One hundred and twenty-six days.

This article describes an amazing new technique for regrowing human tissue. If you can't develop a plot out of this article, you aren't a writer or you believe Philip Dick wrote all the possible futurist (speculative fiction) stories.

Job or is it Job (the guy in the Bible)?

One hundred and twenty-seven days.

A government funded service offered to help me re-write my resume for better effectiveness for free. Better to have me fully employed I guess, instead of seasonally employed as I am now.

I thanked them for showing me how to use the TAB key to move the dates on my resume from after the job title to the right side of the page. This is really going to help strengthen my job search.

Maybe I can get a job there.

Orifice Outrage

One hundred and twenty-eight days.

Long night last night. Wifey with food poisoning. Rather disgusting. Got little done. Asked her to describe her feelings so that I could write them down in a story. The frying pan to my head only caused a small bruise. Never did get the feelings. But now I've got a few of my own.

MMWUC for May 26, 2008

One hundred and twenty-nine days.

Holidays can screw up your sense of what day it is. I knew without consciously realizing it that it was Monday as I drove to pick up two pick-up trucks worth of oak from a fallen tree at a friend's house. Still have to split it, but I'm sure there will be a 50 degree morning sometime soon. (He snickers at his own thought knowing full well that the 50s are not a number on thermometers in the South in the June, July, and August.)

In the afternoon, I went to the concrete graveyard near me to pilfer a load of concrete slabs from some broken sidewalk that met the sledgehammers blows without dignity. It's for the ever larger garden wall. Loaded up, I started my Ford Explorer and drove toward home, a mere four miles away, only to find smoke rising within the car. Oh great, now my car's on fire in the middle of nowhere. Long story short, I stopped the car and let it air out and flagged some guy on a bike who happened to have a cell phone (Yes, I one of the great unwashed without a cell phone.) Called brother-in-law, who is not familiar with the area, to get my wife and come to my stated location. It was a long wait. He went to our house, but couldn't find her. Went home. Never really understood this part. Changed cars. Came back to my house. Went back inside to look for her and couldn't find her. He leaned on the horn to see if she would respond. She didn't. Finally he went to the back side of the house and found my wife in the full sun with near heat stroke. "Didn't you hear the car horn?" "Oh, yes!" "Well." "Well what. I knew it would stop soon." (She sometimes plays Gracie Allen to my George Burns.) So they get in the car to come assist me. (I could have walked home by now.) "I think I need to puke," Gracie says turning a whiter shade of pale. "Not in my car," erstwhile brother-in-law says. Meanwhile, I'm wilting in the hot treeless plains of another developer gone mad PUD. "Come for the rural living." The sign shows a picturesque area of lakes and trees and a brick two story with 2.5 kids in the nearby community swimming pool. I'm always hoping that the .5 kid isn't being sucked into a pool drain like a Japanese beetle (who are arriving late this year by the way). Where was I? Right, I'm melting on the plains of destruction; brother-in-law is driving the car in which heat struck wife is threatening to regurgitate like a momma bird with a brood of ill-tempered Cow birds; sister-in-law is coming now in her car for moral support; thirteen motorists, two motorcyclists, six bikers have passed my propped up hood with my car doors open without stopping to check on the half-naked guy sitting on the curb and wrapped in a dirty sheet to keep the rays of the sun off of him. If fact, the only thing that seems interested in my are six red-headed turkey vultures whose circular pattern is down to the top of the telephone poles. I need to move, but I have to go to the bathroom so I'm concentrating hard.

They arrive. B-i-l checks under the hood. "I've suspected by now that it is the fan blower motor that is causing the problem," I kibitz with all the knowledge of a newborn speculating about brain surgery. He tentatively agrees. I start the car and drive home, the smell tolerable by now. They follow, and when we get home, I empty the concrete while B-i-l tries to see if he can get the fan blower motor out. He can't. Ford Explorers were built to incur expensive repairs. Tomorrow, I search for a inexpensive mechanic who can fix the blower fan on a 1992 Ford Explorer.

Have a happy remainder of the holiday.

End Days

One hundred and thirty days.

Is the world as we know it coming to a crash? I see the slow growth of a survivalist mentality around me, and I admit that my own ability to survive has taken an uptick in recent years, but it was not provoked by the ideas in the article.

So what does the near and long term hold for us in your stories?

Most of my future based stories show a future of increased polarization: technology-driven societies versus self-sufficient masses, true believers versus non-believers, and cooperative driven individuals versus armed hordes with the vast middle-ground sacrificed to either sides goals and all leading to a world-wide dilemma that ultimately reduces the overall population to half of what it is now...and cycle repeats again.

Early Bird Class at WRW08

One hundred and thirty-one days.

"I'm sorry, but I have a problem with my novel. I don't have a plot. I can't visualize my protagonist or the girl he must save. She's kind of like Molly Ringwald, but not so tall because she has to squeeze into a Magician's Box to escape from someone at sometime and go somewhere to do something for someone. Dialogue seems elusive and the scenes flat. I don't know where it really begins, but I absolutely know how it ends...I think. It's set somewhere where there are mountains, plains, oh, and a desert nearby, and there are blazing hot days and a blizzard that mounds snow higher than Dolly Pardon's (is that how you spell her name) boobs. I've tried to use all five senses, but have trouble with smell and sometimes hearing, although there is a fire-snorting dragon that you hear coming from far off. With those big floppy wings to keep them aloft, dragons will never be accepted to the Navy Seals program. Oh, yeah I forgot, there's two massive armies, and one's not human because they came here from outer space using teleportation device which is who they got the dinosaurs to help them. It doubles as a time machine.

"But my real problem is the 25-word TV-guide pitch. Can you help me?"

Wise John contemplates for a minute at the 7 a.m. Early Bird class at the Writers Retreat Workshop 2008 in Marydale. Writers enter the room as he does so dressed in various personal codes of dress. Some where PJs; others look ready for a business casual meeting. John rubs his semi-bald head, clears his throat. "How about: A bitter dragon battles olfactory obstructions while aiding Rick save the red-headed princess from aliens, dinosaurs, and humongous breasts in order to cure Mother Nature's insanity."

Rick stares at the chapel/meeting room/class room/dance floor. "No, I don't think so. That's 26 words."

Writers picky to the end, ah, I mean finish, finis, --30--.

NANOWRIMO, are you there?

One hundred and thirty-two days.

Memorial Weekend...The weather will be gorgeous. I wish I were at the Writers Retreat Workshop in Erlanger, Kentucky at the Marydale Center for the next ten days, but I am not. I will have to pretend I'm there, writing, resting, learning, drinking (did I write that?), hob-nobing with published authors, agents, publishers, and other wizards of the publishing world.

I will just have to hunker down with "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" and in-between social engagements and picking snow peas, maybe, just maybe, get some writing done.

MIA I am or was or will be

One hundred and thirty-three days.

Missing in action the past few days while trying to score seventh-grade New Jersey persuasion papers. Yeah, I see some new generation wise guys coming out of the school system up north in my home state in which I haven't lived for four decades. (Darn it, that makes me sound old.) "Hey, why don't we take our school field trip to Australia. We can brown bag it, and the entire trip will only cost $1,000. And don't worry. The animals are slow and friendly there, plus they have hospitals." This kid ever see the snake specials on Australia? Four of the top ten deadliest in the world, plus the #1. Secretly, I'm jealous. I want to go, but I'd have to mooch off of all the writer's I've met over the Internet for housing.

I was going to go into deep seculsion this holiday weekend and write until I dropped, but my social director has me lined up for other things. So many bushes to plant (don't worry Robin, your bushes are reserved on the side) and so little time to do it before the oppressive heat of summer arrives and turns the Carolinian red and gray mud into something just short of concrete. Maybe I can do some flash fiction.

The telephone pole didn't provide enough stopping power for her Nissan's engine, so she backed up and deflated the air bag with a hat pin. "Hat pin," she mummbled. "Who the heck carries hat pins anymore?" She trudged followed with the engine emitting a coughing noise. A deer jumped over the front hood with a spoon in its mouth followed closely by a raccoon without his mask. She shook her head, but it only hurt worse--the headache from the air bag took root. She weaved down the empty road until she saw the lights. "Country Kitchen. Here I come." She paused in the parking lot as the engine died four minutes after she turned the key. She glanced at the familiar cars, but didn't see Rupert's Oldsmobile. "Damn," she yelled, sinking to the ground. "I'm too late, he took off with Mabel. Oh, to be 76 and hot again.

A brown corvette pulled up with a deep growl. "Car problems?" She thought it was Omar Sharif. She patted her hair and rose from her Sunday kneeling position. "It just stopped," she said, a shy smile showed the new dentures. "Hop in," he said. She did. They roared off. "I had a date with this Mabel woman, but I guess she stood me up. How about the Radisson for the breakfast buffet. She swooned.

MMWUC for May 19, 2008

One hundred and thirty-six days.

To be in the business, you must have a product. Here's a cheer!

Go Write,
all day and night.
Hit those keys
Bring 'em to their knees.
Plotless prose
Hit it on the nose.
Go Write
Till each line's tight!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Okay, it's 6 a.m. time to go to the garden and pick those snow peas.

Secret Weapons for WW2 - Blue Herons

One hundred and thirty-seven days.

Another secret weapon from WW2 just revealed. When will the revelations end? This would make a great TV movie, but I have a hard time plotting this for a book.

After 14 years, a blue heron has discovered my goldfish pond with its 147 goldfish. Yesterday, he ate Tom, Dick, and Bartholomew, three large (about ten inches each) goldfish in about ninety seconds before the heron saw me watching him. (Not much meat on a heron, so I didn't pursue him like a hungry escapee from a Gulag.) Put two four-foot tall statues of storks out there. My supply of pink flamingos being low. It didn't sway him from returning. Maybe I'll sic my attack parakeets on him next.

Burn baby, Burn!

One hundred and thirty-eight days.

I know this has nothing to do with writing, but it is an interesting story about an amazing 107-year-old light bulb that has been burning 24/7 for all those years. Check out the explanation in the comments. Talk about a green bulb that would kick the damn energizer bunny's butt! Makes me think about the episode on the original Star Trek series when they found Vger (Voyager) which had been retrofitted by an alien culture to wipe out imperfect life forms but stops its incredibly long mission temporarily when it erroneously thinks that Captain Kirk is its pappy. (Makes me wonder how many children Kirk really had in the universe.) Shame they had to use the basic same plot in the first Star Trek movie.

But, what if an alien race had visited here in the past. What if they had a ship programmed to return here. What if they all died enroute. What if the seemingly benign ship misinterprets a programming message and starts to eradicate life on Earth. Would Hezbollah lie down with the Massad in order to create a counter-attack like in "Independence Day"? Or would there be a Congressional Hearing while the Earth burns to find out why Condeleeza Rice didn't create a plan to deal with this eventuality when she was in office? I'm thinking we send it the Texas Rangers to deal with that unruly alien computer.

Off-beat and Unusual

One hundred and thirty-nine days.

Okay, here's an exercise that might lead to publication since agents are looking for the off-beat and unusual. Combine the five top stories on "Odd News" for yesterday into a plot for a story. It will probably end up looking like a cross between Tom Robbins and Kurt Vonnegut.

* Michigan girl scout, age fifteen, sells 17K boxes of cookies.
* Nine-year-old girl finds twin in her stomach.
* Giant beetles seized at Pennsylvania post office.
* Ten-year-old college student amazes.
* Foul-mouthed cabbie fined.
* Man sues Jet Blue for being forced to spend flight in toilet.

After being fined for a foul-mouthed tirade directed at a bragging father, cabbie Omar Sharif mails giant beetles to Harry Sheepshead, the offending father. A postal inspector, Harry is nipped by one of the beetles. Heading to Atlanta to get inspected by the Center for Disease Control, Harry is locked into the toilet after his one arm sprouts a dangerous claw, killing the passenger next to him. Harry rants in the toilet that he needs more toilet paper and that he'll sue the airline. Meanwhile his genius ten-year-old son gets word of his dad's predicament, but is torn between saving the life of his nine-year-old girlfriend by performing a delicate surgery or going to his dad's side. Meanwhile, Harry's other daughter has just sold a record number of girl scout cookies. She has to chose between a shot at stardom on "The Apprentice" and a job with Donald Trump in order to raise money for her dad's situation or a trip to Paris with her troop and a chance to be Paris Hilton's assistant for two weeks. "Think of the shoes," she whines to her brother. "I think dad's missing the upside to the claw appendage. Red Lobster could pay millions," the brother suggests. Will dad come to his senses? Will the cabbie be fined yet again? Will the boy find love? Will the girl where Prada to Paris for Paris and popularity.

Screw the Volcano Jimmy Buffet

One hundred and forty days.

While the article is a bit over the top with more holes than a block of Swiss cheese and many of the comments are more insipid than a Barney Fife and Gomer Pyle conversation on nuclear energy, the list of places in jeopardy due to global warming could be used as a jumping off point for the next novel on the affects of global warming.

Jack and Janet Jones jumped at the chance for a once in a lifetime trip to the Galapagos islands. Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided that the decade long heat wave needed to have a signature event and allowed the entire land-based portion of the Ross Ice Sheet in Antarctica to slide into the ocean after several decades of creating and under-ice river. The resulting tidal wave wiped out most coastal cities along with the the twenty-five foot rise in the ocean level. Half of their twenty-five member party died over night and now the real fight for survival begins with the remaining members of the party and some seriously annoyed native species. Can mankind pull itself together? Can the Jones' survive? Can Tiny Tim make a recording comeback?

Global Interest

Wow! Hits from four continents (N. A., Europe, Australia, S. A.) in one day. Now, if only those penguins would learn to access the Internet.

Scrub Those Queries

One hundred and forty-one days.

Writing buddy, Ron, has alerted me to another place to test drive your query before having your dreams shattered unnecessarily. Query Shark, which seems to be the pet project of Janet Reid, seems like a gentler, kinder Miss Snark. (For a while, Janet was suspected of being Miss Snark. She has also rejected yours truly three times. Maybe now I'll find out why.)

Write on! Write on!! Brothers and sisters, amen. Write on!!!

"Bandits" by Elmore Leonard

One hundred and forty-two days.

Published in 1986, it seemed like everyone in "Bandits" by Elmore Leonard was a bandit with the good and bad guy distinctions blurred by each person's justification for their unsavory actions. The contrived plot had the messy Nicaraguan situation as the backdrop to Leonard's traditional mystery genre with the usual suspects: a likeable ex-con, two hot dames, a few quirky sidekicks, and a bad guy who really deserves justice. Character growth, or the lack of it, overshadowed the make-it-up-as-you-go plan to relieve the bad guy of some money. Leonard rendered the potentially rich New Orleans setting to slightly more than tourist guide references. Not his strongest novel, it still had the twists and turns along with the crisp dialogue that you expect in his stories. I'd like to give it a four, but I'm forgetting it already and senility is not a problem I have...yet. So, it is a strong three from me.

MMWUC for May 12, 2008

One hundred and forty-three days.

Chicago's O'Hare airport is a nice place to visit, but it felt like I was living there until I remembered that Tom Hanks movie, "Terminal", where he did live in an airport terminal. Setting...so important in a story. What is unique about your setting that will capture your reader's attention?

Monsters in the Closet

One hundred and forty-five days.

I'm in Wisconsin, the Badger state, the frozen north, the setting of my first unfinished 65,000 word novel that is the one that all novelists hide in the closet waiting for Silverfish to eat or that they burn in a fit of despair (I'm close) or that they hope will be the "I told you so novel" later in their career or that when they do pull it out once they've "made it" they remark how naive they were about what it takes to write a novel or how badly written it was.

Four days ago when I reread portions of it, it was poorly written, but, ya know, the plot still held together. Unfortunately, I still have another 70,000 words to go to finish out the complex plot. Oh, well. I'm good at delusional thinking.

Only one minute left on this computer, gotta go.

"Thank goodness," you whisper.

I heard that, smart aleck.

"Turtle Moon" by Alice Hoffman

One hundred and forty-six days.

It took ten years, but I finally finished "Turtle Moon" by Alice Hoffman, an off-beat magical, romantic, mystery journey that several characters embark on after a runaway wife is murdered and her baby taken. Some reviewers called this novel suspenseful and thrilling, but its beat sways to the lazy, hot weather in Verity, Florida, where emotions drip like the sap from a gumbo tree and relationships are as messy as the squashed turtles on the road in May. One must wade through a muddled beginning, but the story line eventually straightens out, clarifying the obstacles each character must overcome. Some wonderful moments and insights, especially concerning "...the meanest boy in Verity," kept this reader reading on. However, spread some pixie dust to believe the resolution of the plot, the murder, the kidnapping, and the redemptions. Through all this, it is a good read, and I anoint with a 4.

Fruitful Adventures

One hundred and forty-seven days.

My wife just returned from a trip to Paris. Once we arrived home from the airport, I held drag her suitcase into the bedroom for the unloading.

"What a bear," she said, unzipping the bag with a hard pull. "I barely made it to the airport in time." She turned the bag. I stood with a mixture of empathetic travel frustration and a selfish concern over the contents of her bag. She always brought me something from her travels. I'm a big kid, and she knows it. I'm easily amused, and just as easily excited. And even more so, easily disappointed.

She twisted the bag one last time and the three-sided zippered monster's lid was flung open. She grab a green grocery bag and held the contents in her palm like a softball pitcher struggling with an oversized ball. She smiled coyly with unparted lips, a dimple forming like a hint on her right cheek.

"The last one," she said and tossed it to me.

I opened the bag and grinned just short of a Cheshire Cat.

She undid the top button of her fitted, white blouse and pushed the bag off the edge of the bed.

"So," I said, flipping off the light switch, "is it time for the last mango in Paris?"

What Guys Know. Do Women Care?

One hundred and forty-eight days.

Esquire has an article about the 75 things guys need to know.

This article is loaded with ideas for stories, or rather, those little points in the stories that can make it touching or poignant or something like when some nasty villain's heart is melted for a moment when he snatches a baby from a captured princess and receives a smile from her because of the naturally impressive way he holds the child giving the good guy an opportunity to impale the evil villain. Tender moment then justice.

Other things that a guy REALLY should know...

* How to steer a car down a road with their knees at50 mph because they have to get their shirt off to...
* How to drink milk from the cartoon without their mate catching on to the fact they do so.
* How to hit a golf ball like Tiger Woods while drinking like John Daly.
* How to do laundry really bad in public so the cute redhead in the corner rescues him.
* How to wield a sword in case you encounter a really evil dude.

One Thousand Words is worth one picture

One hundred and forty-nine days.

MMWUC for May 5, 2008

One hundred and fifty days.

Write. Just_put_down_one_word_after_another.

"Hey there Little Red Writing Hood..."

One hundred and fifty-one days.

Thanks to Melissa, you now know that the Encyclopedia Britannica online is offering free 1 year subscriptions to anyone who "regularly publishes online." That means if you have a blog or a website, you qualify. Go here!

Yes, I have red hair and I write under a hood (actually more like a cone of silence) so that evil thoughts sent out by squirrels and chipmunks don't invade my writing. The hood makes the turkey's sad. They have so many interesting thoughts to send my way, and I often see them passing by giving me a hopeful glance, either that or there are a lot of good to eat bugs on the edge of my lawn.

"Blow me down. Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck." - Popeye.

One hundred and fifty-two days.

A twig snapped behind me as I stood at the edge of the vegetable garden. I whirled around.

"Crikey, a T-Rex," I mumbled too afraid to scream.

I remembered reading that the ugly brown and red, drooling beast with twiggy arms and smelly breath flowing out of his slobbering mouth have poor vision. I stood still as a naked mannequin in a downtown department store window on a day so cold that grandfather said we had to have someone watch the fire to make sure it didn't freeze. It roared like Jackie Gleason after eating a Thai pepper that Norton had given him. His yellow eyes stared at me like I was a tuna surprise, yet I did not move a nostril hair. He sniffed me like a florist in a rose garden. The foot-long teeth had yellowed over time and the urge to floss them with rope rose in me. Suddenly, the fifteen foot high beast leaned over into the garden and pulled up a row of my early surprise corn and chewed it up. He sucked up twelve stalks of okra, and the sound of satisfaction dribbled out of his mouth like Dom DeLuise at a breakfast buffet table.

"Are you going to eat those carrots," he asked, imitating a Sean Connery brogue.

I shook my head and moved aside just as he scoped up fifty or so carrots and relief overcame me. "You're a vegetarian?"

"Well, my cholesterol is a bit high," he said slurping down the last of the carrots, "I mix things up most days." He smacked his lips and bent over.

THE END

A Dinosaur Roars in Connecticutt

One hundred and fifty-three days.

What if there was an Earth-like planet that didn't get hit by a dinosaur killer asteroid? Would the dinosaurs have made much progress in the additional 250,000,000 years? Would Raptors evolve thumbs? And from where would they get their fossil fuels? Would there an equivalent to Madonna in the dinosaur world? Would Jesus have been a Brontosaurus. "Please, my brothers, pass the fern."

I'd write this, but it'd have to include a murder mystery aspect.

"Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport"

One hundred and fifty-four days.

Aside from already established links on the right-hand side of the blog page for help with queries and critiques, check out Elizabeth Lyon's youTube five minutes on how to write an effective query. I've broken bread with her at the Writers Retreat Workshop in Kentucky, and she knows her stuff as evident in her latest book "Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction writer Can Afford to Ignore" which is getting glowing reviews.

Watch, learn, grow.

Splat!

One hundred and fifty-five days.

Found an editing service wanting my business that had "acheive" misspelled on their Home Page, when writing about what I could accomplish with my writing. Should I use them?

Don't chase the dream; grab it; hold it; make it your own.

One hundred and fifty-six days.

MMWUC for April 28, 2008

One hundred and fifty-seven.

My wife's birthday. I bought her a ho-ho (yo-yo in some places) so we can split it since she's all worried about gaining weight. Then, she thought it was some statement about what Santa's can't say in Australia. I assured her, it wasn't. Aborigines have been there for 50,000 years, and that movie "10,000 B.C." has more inaccuracies than Mallards have feathers, which they groom each one every day to ensure their oils are intact.

Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and relax. Just write for ten minutes extemporaneously and see where your thoughts lead.

Yes, we have no bananas

One hundred and fifty-eight.

Back in 1923, George Kalke dialed the phone number of some girl he met the night before. He didn't get her, but ended up talking a blue streak to Mae Bulhalter, finally asking her out on a date to the Milwaukee Zoo. Throughout the day, he kept serenading her with the latest hot tune from Irving Cohn, "Yes, We Have No Bananas". My wife says her grandmother only married him when he promised never to sing that song again.

I serenaded my wife with "The Coconut Song" by Harry Nillson. You know "...She put de lime in de coconut, she drank 'em bot' up...". And so the saga of the serenading fruit lives on.

Hey Booboo! Let's go steal some picnic baskets.

One hundred and fifty-nine.

To the moon, Alice!

One hundred and sixty

Golllllly, Sargeant Carter

One hundred and sixty-one.

D'oh!

One hundred and sixty-two.