Demand

After a decade of blogging, and reducing the production rate of my posts to a great degree, I am finally in demand. I do not know what it means, but several other blogger/web sites are contacting me. They want to create some ties between my blog posts and their sites.

What can I say? I still get next to no comments. Perhaps I leave people speechless.

My book reviews have been acclaimed, in demand, and I have been offered an opportunity to evaluate books for a much higher fee. It actually works out to over $2/hr for my efforts. My star is surely rising.

The push is on to finish my short stories and get on to bigger novels.

I finished one short story and took a break; rewarded myself. Nearly four hours of battling over the felt, playing poker, and I walked away with a $30 profit. $8/hr. Of course I had to wait forever to get a seat.

In the world of self publishing all is not free. I could easily put out $2,000 for editing, cover design and a bit of marketing. Creating demand for your creations is not cheap. Perhaps if I were the only self published author out there I would have a pretty good chance of getting a following, but there are millions.

Selling a thousand units might bring you a small profit on that type of investment, but it is nothing when consider in terms of an hourly rate for all the wherewithal it took you to produce your book.

Demands on my time and efforts are yet immense, and still without financial reward. The yard and garden need care before the Winter hits full boar; those boars can be dangerous. The house is in need of constant improvements… and I never have the car to get out and buy what I need. When I do get the car I am usually driving my wife somewhere.

My wife and I are discussing how we can be free from our retail business as it throws off everything. It breaks any momentum I build in my writing and puts us on a cycle of late nights and late mornings.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanks for reading.

When November Comes Early

Or perhaps better said; when September comes late. This warm October weather is bringing us a good deal of raspberries, and the eggplant and tomatoes should keep pumping until the end of this week. (I actually wrote this October 14th, sorry for the late posting)

Writing! It is advancing.

Despite a lingering flu of some kind, a death in the family, ailing parents, the need to make money the old fashioned way and the general need to eat, sleep and bath, headway is being made. And let us not forget the demands of marriage.

There is an event in which I have never participated in, and have no plans to do so in the future, coming up next  week. It goes something along the lines of “Write an entire book in November.”

Writing in advance. How do you stop it?

I think writing and completing a book in a month an impossibility for all but a few in this world. A book takes much more time and effort than one can invest in a single month. Okay, maybe if you cut out the eat, sleep and bath parts of your month. And let us not forget the demands of marriage. A strong moral character would also be a necessity to truly do it all honestly within a month

But along the lines of the November event’s theme, it provides an inspiration to push and finish off this collection of short stories I am working on by the end of November. Yes, something polished, complete, that will not overly work a professional editor.

Thank you for reading. Happy writing.

Write On

Wow. I got back into my short stories and it is just flowing. I went over a finished story and to my surprise there were few to no corrections to be made, grammar wise or in sentence structure. And this story had been sitting for a few months.

Meaning? I am past the terrible twos, as those on “A Way with Words” have described, where you are just spastic in all your writing.

I guess that unless you are an outright English major your brain must relive all those traumatic classes in grammar, those sentence diagrams and burning eyed English teachers that made one’s life so miserable in grade school and high school.

Now that my brain has sorted it all out, things look all the more brighter.

I had set a preliminary target this year of going to the “Killer Nashville” writer’s conference. Circumstance did not allow me to arrange the trip but my determination is set, the resources available and the prospect of having piles of work complete for next year have all looking good.

I have mentioned this goal before; attending a writer’s conference. It is an opportunity to learn, to strategize, to network and possible snag an agent or publisher. I have realized a goodly amount of completed work will allow one to make the most out of such conferences, so I am not beating myself up too bad that I could not swing it this year.

Muncie Indiana, Louisville, Nashville, New York and Las Vegas are all cities holding events that may interest me next year. The nearer, centrally located conferences hold the greatest draw as they will give me a chance to visit my older brother.

Thank you for reading. Sorry for the lateness of my post. The garden, and the benefits the recent heat provided to it, kept me occupied. I am getting a bumper load of eggplant right now and just realized that the picture on my seed package and the actual eggplant in hand are not of the same variety.

The trials and tribulations of life.

I Love My Work, but more Star Trek?

I love writing, but have not done any writing on my upcoming books since my last post. I finished some major projects on the house and the garden kept me busy.

Most of all I was engaged in another form of work that I truly love. Not digging trenches, something I enjoy immensely, but drafting and design. Yes, some professional endeavors came my way and I grabbed them. I hope the opportunities keep flooding in but for now I am back to my novels.

Just as I organized my office to its highest degree of efficiency since forever, my wife decided to clean out the back closet. Now, I am not showing you here all the boxes and untold containers filling my office, the mess my wife created. What you see just a bit of that. I would never put my wife on the spot. I am simply showing you all the free space in my office in which I was able to work.

Actually, I jumped in to help my wife and everything was clean and organized in no time.

But then there is “Star Trek”.

I was following “Salvation” via Amazon Prime. Good science fiction is hard to come by, though this show is hardly top rate. It had some interesting perspectives, some highly flawed, and concepts that kept my interest.

So I go to watch the latest installment, available about five days after broadcast, and it was no longer free from that episode on. Well I had no chance of seeing it for free via broadcast because that show’s airing had passed and there was no warning of the change.

A gimmick, a cheap trick (not the band). Does CBS really think people will pay to see their shows when so much else is available for free?

Which Brings us to the latest Star Trek; “Star Trek Discovery”. It will be available only through their subscription site as I understand it.

So… let me see. Another Star Trek. Have you noticed how each remake/addition to the saga repeats the same stories?

The klingons on the war path. So original. Will there be Tribbles. You know the Klingons hate Tribbles.

They come across a world that duplicates some moment in earth’s history. Always, though the how’s have been changed to protect the innocent viewer.

A supernatural being judges the federation, the starship and its crew, against another violent species.

Time travel. We cannot forget time travel because it makes everything all better.

A member or members of the crew are caught in a phase variance and no one can see them. Or the old standby, duplicates of an existing prominent crew member. Alternate universes can never be overlooked, they pop up when you least desire them.

There will be a world that is not what it appears, a delusion, whether holographic or telepathic. And someone will be marooned somewhere. Red shirts beware; you are unlikely to survive.

Of course you will have the PC sexual undertones, moral dilemmas, good and evil, the potential of war ever present. Still, the ideal of the Federation expands across the galaxy, able to bring peace and unity where no one else has done before, …because they no longer have currency, legal tender, money, no more green.

Ughhh! I don not think so.

I really am settling down to write. No rehashed gibberish from my pen.

Thanks for reading.

Big Foot

It has become a busy Summer. I have missed my mid-month blog post deadline but hope to make up for that here.

Big Foot. Real or not the subject provides an unending investigation into the reactions of people when they encounter the fringes of existence.

How do people react to such experiences such as seeing Big Foot, the Yeti or some form of animated snow creature? Many believe such topics such as Big Foot taboo. They are afraid of being considered crazy if they tell anyone that they had seen any unknown creature. Big Foot believers claim there are countless experiences among the general public that people are too afraid to speak out about.

Then there are those people who claim long standing experiences with Big Foot that they would not tell people about at the time, for more altruistic reason.

Here again YouTube is an excellent source for the Big Foot experience. Several movies, documentaries, have been made centering around communities that claimed long standing encounters with the beast.

There is a YouTuber from up Ladysmith way, an area I am familiar with, that documents many testimonies and photographs.

I told my dad about this particular YouTuber from the north woods. It is not too far from the area where my dad grew up. I gave him a general description of the target beast. He simply said, mockingly, “We used to call those Swedes.”

While clearing a piece of hunting land I own up there, in the woods there, I have heard the typical wood knocks associated with Big Foot. I was there with my wife when she was hit with a powerful and repulsive smell, another experience associated with Big Foot. When I walked over the smell was gone. Our dog began acting very strangely, staying close at hand.

There is a small hunting shack across the rutted road (pictured on the cover of my first book) from my land. I was speaking with one of the owners when he suddenly changed the topic to ‘break ins’ of their cabin.

“Really?” I questioned, “Did they take anything?”

“No.” he answered, “Things were just messed up a bit.” Then he stood there looking at me as if he wanted to say more. Neither of us spoke for some time.

Then there are the unbelievers. They make many claims such as, “Why’ isn’t there trail cam footage?” There is. “Why don’t people find Big Foot turds?” They have.

You will find answers to all the doubters questions on YouTube if you search long enough.

Yet the majority of the population refuses to even consider the possibility that Big Foot exists. An interesting phenomena to understand.

“There are not enough deer to feed a viable population.” one millennial tried to convince her YouTube audience. Well… deer hunting has been bad in the North woods for some time now. And we have had typically cooler Summers and warmer Winters in the last decades. (large animals find it more difficult to keep cool than warm) I mean, I haven’t seen twenty below, nor common 100 degree Summer days, in like forever, unlike when I was young and such severe temperatures were more common.

Depending on your genre, taking in these types of observations of people and the public (and how the weather may relate), can only improve your writing. This is particularly true in science fiction where a world, a public is being created, or a people’s view of the universe is being challenged. (implications on religious beliefs requires a great deal of research also)

How real can you make your story?

And yes, there are aliens under the South Pole don’t you know. YouTube tells me so, and didn’t you see that TV show “Star Gate.”

Thanks for reading. The stories are progressing.

Multi-Tasking Blues

Get out of your multi-tasking blues. Do not do it. Leave it behind. Even Dr. Axe speaks out against it, in the name of focus. Contemplation and indecision rule when multiple tasks are set before you. Particularly if you are on your own, with no support structure to tie into. Sometimes it gets so bad I just go outside and start pulling weeds.

The garden is a work in progress. I may end up a farmer.

So I completely clear my desk, then lay out a single project to work on for the day. Whether it be my notebooks and computer for writing, or some trace paper for designing, the two processes will never again share the same space or partition of daylight.

The weekend retail sales business I feel holds both my wife and I back, but we need the money. It breaks my flow of thought.

It is actually easier for me to post here mid-month. The first of the month holds its own pressures and I have to just let it go.

I am working to illustrate the back cover myself for the print addition of the original Chuck Hammer. After that is out, nothing but new work; a volume of short stories to quickly follow.

Farming doesn’t sound so bad.

Thanks for reading.

Still

Sorry for the lateness of my post. The eyewear still isn’t right. I went back in today and the adjustment seemed to have helped but only time will tell. I have a lawyer waiting in the wings to put out Letters of Demand if I should need to get the lenses corrected yet again. Not having the proper prescription slows my writing endeavors tremendously, not having the proper reading vision in the case of my old pair of glasses. The progressive lenses are good when looking from note book to the computer screen, but I may get a second pair of no line bifocals, something more appropriate for sporting activities, something with those collapsible hinges.

But from life we can create original stories. (it took two months to get the eyewear I have now, see previous post)

A man, after dealing with millenials for six months (or a year), not being able to get a proper prescription for his glasses goes underground. He remakes himself, gets a job at the lab that kept screwing him and showers his fellow employees, all millenials, with praises over their ineptitude, driving the company to discord and failure.

Then on to the next target, and when his devious kindness drives someone to suicide he just cannot stop. Business to business, any company that has ever slighted him in the least, he goes. An investigator, put onto the case of a suicide by a family member, finds a few more deaths and links them to the man of the hour.

Eventually the man is in custody. Accused of killing through suicide by destroying people’s careers, the man responds, “All I did was tell them how great they were until they realized that they weren’t great at all. Is that a crime?”

He escapes and you have a fugitive storyline. Yes I am talking about a series. Part “The Fugitive” part “Dexter” part “Perry Mason” (because we have to find the real criminal. Let us say one of those suicides turns out to be murder and the man of the hour didn’t do it) and part “The Pretender”.

Then the investigator, digging deeper, finds many young millenials praising the man of the hour for waking them up and making them better human beings. Now we have part “The Incredible Hulk”, the series. The man wanders, having to face his own demons as with no place to rest, forced to wander, he cannot hide the torments of his mind in routine and familiarity.

$20,000 if any of you broadcast types want to use the storyline, and I will consult on and provide input for the storyline for the first season. If it is a success we will negotiate my fee for the following seasons.

Or you can keep making movies into television series. That will show them you are truly creative. I can do some of the writing also for an extra fee, but I am working on several stories much closer to my heart right now.

I have to try people.

So you can draw creativity from your daily life. Making old storylines (because they have all been told somehow before) original, creative and inspiring by putting your life’s twist into it and making it contemporary to the times. If it is really done well it becomes an eternal classic, when you connect with that universal experience we all share.

Thank you for reading.

Eye Wear

I have been making consistent progress on my books. Then, I went to the eye doctor and respectively ordered some new prescription eye wear. They made a big difference in the enjoyment, and the pace of my work in notebook and the computer. I shall have a major update next month.

But when I attempted to drive in my new eye wear the road was but a blur. I could not adjust the frame’s position on my nose to accomplish proper distance vision on my new progressive lenses. So back to Lens Crafters where the motto is “The customer is always wrong.” this is not just my experience but what my wife found via the Internet in reviews of the company. I wont go into detail here, but if they do not do the job right the first time just ask for your money back right away, or they will just keep messing with you. ( they are called millennials)

Going back to my old eye wear, as I wait for new eye wear from Meijer Optical, the strain is doubly troubling now and I have not accomplished much in this past week.

Definitely proper prescription lenses are important if you are trying to read or write. It had been six years since my last eye exam and I am now determined to get my eyes checked at least once every two years. It makes a difference in productivity no matter what you are doing at a desk.

Thank you for reading.

Across the Board

I did not finish my latest book of short stories. But I have made significant advances across the board. Advances on several stories, on much needed work on our home, some side endeavors including garden planning and we completed all our tax filings for 2016, finding ourselves better off than we expected.

With the tax burden off my mind, a soon to be acquired new pair of glasses (the protective coatings on my old glasses have begun to deteriorate) and some support from my wife to keep to my schedule and all should be good.

I went to a palm reader at the casino. The casino had a variety of fortune tellers free to their constituents for Mardi Gras. She was spot on about several things and accurate on everything else but most of all vary positive and bright. Made me feel I had a lot to be grateful for. Well,… she said my books would sell if I actually finished them. And also that I am a wonderful man.

Who knew?

Still Writing

Could I complete my next volume of short stories and have them out for editing by the end of the month?

I have a schedule. If I stick to it and write at night I may make it. then I will see what the consultants/editors will cost and I may need to be off to the poker tables to procure the funds.

Yes, I missed the first of the month post. That only means you need only wait two weeks now for my next. Stay tuned.

Happy New Year

The office is receiving a makeover and the daily schedule for 2017 will be heavily weighted with writing. My focus will be on productive endeavors in which I need to rely on as few people as possible.

Design, drawing and drafting will be a part of my weekly routine. I may share some illustrations for my upcoming books here.

I do not believe I will be posting a mid-month snippet.

Happy New Year everyone.