Brainstorms ~ Let's talk about what matters

Critical Life Issue #1

2011-12-16T12:26:00.000-08:00

It's hard to distinguish between critical life issues and ordinary mundane reality, but for the masses out there, I believe the fear of losing there home and job is so close to so many that it drives much anxiety and depression and foreshadows the mundane and becomes what's currently critical. Those on the edge may make very poor financial decisions, be taken advantage of, or just fail to respond and lose everything. Those that have been foreclosed, most likely from losing their job, have been checked out of this monetary-based society unwillingly. Without money, you have no voice. When you turn to the church with no money, it can even become a burden for the church. I have no solution or even a suggestion what to do except mutual support from friends and church.

Those that have the means and are clever about dumping inverted mortgages may be saving themselves but in the long run are log jamming the society. When any house suddenly stops producing income for banks and insurance companies, they find ways to flush the expense onto the rest of us. The standard of living in America for the average Joe will continue to recede until those institutions with money come to par with their expected ROI. At some level in our society money becomes sacred and is protected by law and business practices at the expense of those below this threshold. That's the reality they should teach in school. More kids would opt not to drop out if they realized that education allows them access to this upper chamber. Without this savvy, one becomes the pavement for others walk on. No one cares if you dye your hair green and rebel. You just become next year’s freak show. If our education system focused on current realities of how to earn a living, kids would respond and take notice and not want to drop out. Our education system is in a dream world of teaching ancient history and politically correct pabulum.

I recently had a water leak in my house and have been working with the insurance company. They are very reputable, as reputable as insurance can qualify for, but my broker confided that with these massive house foreclosures things like homeowner insurance has become a slippery slope, because the pool of premiums that keeps cost averages correct for their formulas to work is being undermined. When I come along with a claim, they have a jerk reaction. They fight not to pay you more than in the past, while you have to fight to be paid for every line of benefit in the policy. But policies are written by lawyers, so the language is deliberately vague to protect the insurance company.

So what I'm trying to relay here is more than ever, for this generation of adults, we have to wake up to the fact that financially, the whole nation is fracturing. To avoid falling into the cracks, one has to read all those papers stuffed into filing cabinets and normally ignored and become aware of where our financial liabilities are and start to sandbag around our families. Otherwise, we will be swept away by those that will defend their wealth to the death when they come looking for our money.

This idea of re-educating to jump start into a new high-tech career is so foolhardy, especially when you're 50 and above. It's an act of desperation and people need to be warned on how much to sacrifice to make it happen. If you find you have a knack for this new area, fine. I taught at National University for several years and I experienced over-and-over again people working two low-end jobs to pay for this very expensive education only to fail or find that as a waitress, maybe computer programming was not their forte. The school took advantage of their ignorance. But what do you do. The only viable industry in America is financial services. Learning to become a programmer is a death sentence. All those jobs went offshore decades ago. The youngsters brought up on computers are enough to fill our techie needs. Financial services define the new order ever since the Clinton years, but no one in education shifted to line up American citizens to exercise their talents in that field. Manufactured goods is large, but much of it owned by foreign companies, and the rest in other countries. We as a people, failed to see the rug being pulled out from under us. So to deal with Critical Life Issue #1 as a middle aged family is becoming a disaster. The young have resilience. They will start new companies and work their buns off bringing back success, hopefully by generating valued items to sell and not financial rhetoric to baffle people out of their earnings on ponzi schemes. If not, they have the means to move to a country that is doing better. There in lies the rub. This is the country with the best opportunities!

To list critical life factors to advise and guide people out of the darkness that concerns our future stability, one has to spend some time on how to become financial sound. We criticize and sneer at money, but when you create a huge delicate superstructured society, maybe the most sophisticated in history, money is the mortar. We could all live in a cave and cook over a fire and boast of our philosophical purity, but really, money has a lot of beneficial savvy. Trouble is, we as a nation, have not focused on teaching our children to coup properly in the presence and power of money in a responsible manner. It’s hard to find a teenager that can even make change.

For Whom the Belly Groans

2011-08-21T09:24:00.000-07:00

Well, when you're 66, you can write any damn thing you want. Nobody can fire you. A group of elderly writers were conversing on the dignity of how they used to write their columns within strict guidelines of ethics for their time. Everyone avoided opinion, only stated the facts. I had to speak.

Today's journalism is nothing but opinion and editorializing. I call it the blog mentality, the Wikileaks zeitgeist of our times. We tell all, because no one is embarrassed by anything anymore. The term scruples, pshaw, it sounds so Victorian. You have to shoot the public in the face to get noticed. And being noticed is more important that ever with six billion people on the planet to compete with. It is now acceptable to bend the truth. The believable lie gets you the attention you seek. Pardon my boarding house reach.

We go from Reader's Digest to Wired and beyond in our taste in news stand literature. In fact, the more grossly exaggerated and laced with "lies" the better. Many of us really think the blather-bloated scandal sheets at the grocery store checkout to be worthy, must reads, only just below the NY best sellers. And they are in sales. This is the relevant writing of our time, because it reflects our confused state of mind.

Does Rupert Murdoch run your life? Of course, he does. He even wiretaps your phone. He knows more about you than your priest.

Most of us "seek professional help" like getting a tune-up for your car. It keeps the engine running in a world where someone is pouring sugar in your tank everyday. It is exciting to be running around with your hair on fire yelling, "Look at me. I'm a redhead now!" We live in a time of complete neurotic behavior. We relish best selling authors with 1,000 page tomes, but abbreviate life with texting. We drive thousands of miles a year, but rarely go more than a few miles from home. If writing seems scripted, it is in a world where some of the stupidest sitcoms on television become the most watched and imitated cultural events that get discussed around the water cooler.

Really people, get a grip. Especially you writers out there. We need to hear the truth. We crave reality over false platitudes. Our psychic will turn on us if not properly calibrated with the truth. The challenge before us is how to deliver this information directly into a vein.

Author Angst

2011-07-30T21:27:00.000-07:00

Authors today have to wear many hats. In fact, not only wear them but have a degree in each function represented by those hats.

It was once only being a reclusive typist with a way with words, but now the author has to know how to build a website, create a brand, issue press releases, develop a marketing strategy, develop a target audience, besides writing a Pulitzer Prize winning query letter. Now, technology has slammed another brick on our foot.

All the XHTML, XML, CSS alphabet soup that sent your head spinning is now obsolete. These small handheld devices don’t like the old stuff; they only digest digital meals written in HTML5. So, just as you worked your way up to the plateau of your learning curve, another curve is thrown in front of you.

Well, get cracking. You have to redo all your Internet presence so it will show up on an iPhone or iPad. Current digital wizardry is like Harry Potter getting stuck with a punk wand while in the brazen stare of Lord Voldemort. Trusty old Microsoft Word has turned into a jigsaw puzzle and outputs file types that e-book distributors gag on. Your next book has to be carefully stylized to pass the vetting process of upload conversions to ePub. Major players like Adobe’s InDesign is fast becoming the go-to layout program. Have fun with its learning curve.

Authors need to incorporate so they can hire a staff and function, not like a small business, but a small-cap business. You need lawyers, nerds, editing and marketing experts, media promoters, and publicists that have holdings in Dubai. You need backers, brokers, and world class poker players. But most of all, you need a walk-in closet to hold all your hats.

Order, Order, in the Court

2011-07-14T09:02:00.000-07:00

One of the ways writers get new ideas is to watch the drama that takes place in our courts, and this last couple of months has been a windfall of character studies. What I find remarkable, besides the tragedy of playing out people's lives in the media, is the fact Americans don't have a clue how our justice system works.

The reason there's a blindfold over Lady Justice's eyes is our system doesn't actually profess to provide justice, but strives to perfect the rule of law. In other words, the legalese has to be precise, the justice comes out of the rule book not a sense of justice we feel when serving on a jury. The judge's instructions often lead the jury into never-never land, because of how the rules have to be played out.

If a serial killer is on trial, his past crimes are not allowed to sway the jury's verdict for the current case on trail. All that slaughter in the past is benign and could hurt the defendant's current situation to convince you he's really a sweet guy.

If the defense attorney plays by the rules and the prosecution leaves any tint of doubt, then the jury has to acquit. Ever wonder why we have so many criminals on the streets, crazies that commit crimes over and over. It's really hard to nail a criminal down, so they all plead innocent and snicker at the justice system. And if you're a clever man with money, oh baby, its rather easy to buy a certain level of justice.

It's not all bad. If you break the law, and what you did is in the books, you most likely will go to jail. But the clever man does something totally evil and deceptive where there is no law written about it and always gets away with it the first time. That's how the economic meltdown occurred in the first place. Wall Street sharpies created financial instruments that were highly unethical, but there was no law against it on the books. We see the injustice, the law only sees from behind the blindfold.

The main reasoning behind blind justice is it's better not to punish the criminal than to prosecute an innocent man. I think that is admirable, but does it work? If the penal statistics can be believed, bunches of innocent people get locked up all the time. The only thing saving their bacon these days is DNA testing. The blindfold test didn't do them any good.

What I would like to see is well versed writers that have studied our legal system come up with a better adjusted legal system for the 21st century and beyond. It needs to be better, and maybe the facilities for holding criminals wouldn't be so chocked full, if the legal system provided stronger deterrence against committing crimes in the first place.

As far as the tragic drama of a court room - that's what feeds us writers. We could never dream up such fantasy on our own.

California Drives Another Stake

2011-07-09T08:36:00.000-07:00

As we spend millions upon millions to develop an educational system in Afghanistan, we cut millions upon millions in the education system in California (and other late great States). We preach the virtues of how education is the defense against poverty, crumbling economic situations , and political unrest. Education is the cornerstone that all other things depend. Yet, we don't seem to comprehend that these situations could happen right here in California by disregarding our own preaching. Education clearly ranks lower compared to other political agendas.

Actually, educating children to the level of fighting poverty, enhancing economics, and bringing together people to support their country is cheap. The one-room school house did it and really all modern educational systems can be done with modest funding. Local neighborhood taxes did the job for decades. But when Big Government and corporate greed turned the spigot, huge sums of money started to flow. Not even the Mega-Lottery could generate enough to plug the holes and feed the massive administrative bureaucracy. The problem is not the educators or the students, it's clearly the massive load caused by the free-loading bureaucracy. Why don't we cut that instead of education? Why don't we practice what we preach? The corruption in Kabul has the same taste here at home.

When a new school is built, it has multi-million dollar buildings and a campus like it was an independent country. Where I grew up there was one football field that was shared by rival schools, and it was built by the city. Each school doesn't need totally separate world-class facilities for all activities. This is the product of bureaucracies being duped by architects an administrators willing to funnel huge sums of money to build these structures. What is relevant is facilities that enhance teaching, but not works of architectural greatness. Save that for the monuments to politicians. Their egos demand it. Teaching children to think, read, and understand the world around them doesn't need galleries of empty hallways and landscaping that runs into the millions. It's really silly.

Not all schools have had the light of grandeur cast upon them. In fact, they have had to suffer a lot of neglect. Why? Where is all this massive administration when you need it? Every district has well paid administrators. Why can't they do their job? What do they do - hire people to do studies, increase benefits and salaries for their own. Oh, now I see the problem. Yes, we have been way to easy on administrations enriching themselves at the expense of the jobs they were hired to do. Disgusting. Welcome to Afghanistan West. May all your schools have dirt floors while the administrator vacation on the Riviera.

Why do books for schools cost millions upon millions in an electronic world of e-books? Why do students lug backpacks full of books back and forth to school each day? Because someone is making a huge profit off of them, that's why. The only backpack I ever saw as a child was on a Boy Scout hike. The source material for a course can be put online for all students and it cost zero for them to access and it doesn't degrade their posture hauling dead weight around everyday. This is something administrators, if they were doing their job, would have thought of before the crisis emerged. The point is they didn't. It had to be pointed out by the media.

You're going to see a lot of backpedaling now that the crisis is upon us, finger pointing, and I told you so - like I'm doing. The trick is to sort out the BS and get kids back in schools where the teacher loading is such that a good education can be realized not politicized.

My interest in this is purely selfish. As a writer, how can I sell books if my audience can't read them? I need educated souls to be a writer.

Switching Horses in Mid-Stream

2011-06-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

Life used to be a bit more mechanical and easier to understand. The same cycles would come around over and over. If you fell off the merry-go-'round, you just waited and your spot came back and you climbed back on, but today mechanics have shifted into this ethereal world of electronics. Relationships have ratings like TV shows. Leadership is bought and sold to sway the ship to a different port. If you swim out to meet your ship that's been diverted, I'm afraid you might drown before you find it.

It's like life in America without a car. With the exception of places like New York City, you can't even have a job without a car, get groceries, or get medical help. There are no house calls, friends walking over, or even the ability to cross a road on foot. The landscape has changed.

My challenge to you to get your mojo fired up again is to stick you finger in the light socket of this electronic age and use your God given writing talent to load up Amazon with a thousand Kindle short stories. I know you can write them.

What's going on here is close to the Bolshevik Revolution for writers. Overthrow the imperial class that have sucked the wealth out of writing in this country like a dry sponge with their lock on who gets published and/or distributed and take advantage of the level playing field called the Internet.

I wouldn't even try to publish a paper book anymore. It's expensive and a dead-end in this down economy. But it doesn't make sense to put it into an e-book and climb aboard the bandwagon of worldwide, 24/7 sales availability, and marketing and distribution that Amazon provides for zero dollars.

So there you go - get cracking and write some short stories. Maybe this is more motivation. I'm doing the same thing as fast I can, so catch me if you can.

Winning

2011-06-14T13:39:00.000-07:00

It’s open season for contest buffs again. I just heard about an e-book contest for authors to compete for a website to list their e-book and a link to Amazon for purchase. Oh goodie. You also get a sticker to use to market with. Big whoopee. Well, after hundreds of thousands of dollars are dragged in for this contest, the owners can easily give one person a few thou. Winning! You can get that same recognition and nation-wide dispersion telling people about your book and receive feedback from those that are interested for free on FoxandQuill.com.

I know it’s hard to resist these fast-track operators, and it’s true that one person will get a dinner and hand shake, but there is no guarantee that throwing your money at these contests will do you any good at all. And this one was more than twice the cost of the average ones I’ve seen. The lure of the author contest is like the lure of your local Indian casino. They are the ones making the money not the few braggarts that happen to win a pot. Those that keep going back are guaranteed to be fleeced based on mathematical odds. If these schemes had the authors in mind, they’d be $5 tops to cover mundane expenses. The reason the cost is so high is to limit the numbers of entries that they can handle and get the same gains.

What does work is doing the hard work to build book trailer videos, interviews on local TV and radio, giving lectures to groups that would be interested in the topic of your book. You build momentum from local to regional, expanding the number of people that recognize you. If your book or e-book version is great, it will gain momentum on its own and you will be chasing it.

You can place your bookcopy on Amazon Kindle for free, the world’s largest distributor and marketers on the planet. If you really want to make some progress, go that way and make money, not spend it. Winning!

Goodbye California

2011-05-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

I just read and article by Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome , and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern where he discussed the decay of California ethos in the back country that has been caused by policies in Sacramento and the massive acceptance of illegal aliens that have basically set up small city-states within abandoned regions spotting the major agriculture areas in California caused by the impact of misguided governing. Here is my response to the people on the article's email list:

What we should glean from this tirade is politicians don't solve problems, they discuss causes and if elected, promise to make them go away. We have relied on politicians to deal with issues we don't want to touch, don't know how, or if we did, would be arrested by our own judicial system. This article talks about effects. We are just now becoming aware that cause AND effect go together.

Diversity is worshiped in this country as the great future builder, the answer to social issues, but in every other country in history, this is the very thing that broke nations into city-states and later to warring nations. In American, if you aren't interested in the American culture, but came here to plunder, you are no better than a pirate or insurgent invader. That's why legalizing aliens IS relevant. Being invested IS important. Diversity is best represented by legals on one side and illegals on the other, preferably a border. Absorbing dislike and non-compliance for our system is not acceptable. It signals we don't care. If you want to impose your value system on us, go ahead. If you proceed to obtain citizenship, you become American and your cultural background is respected, but flag-waving diversity is anarchy to most scholars. What we are, is afraid to face the effects of these causes.

During the Vietnam war, Mr. MacNamera disbanded the Southern Air Command which resulted in no attention given to the southern border. The southwest has always been ignored by the rest of the country. I come from New Mexico and the New Mexico magazine jokingly has a piece at the end of each issue called one of the 50 is missing, documenting cases where even the central government in Washington officially loses New Mexico all the time. They think it is part of Old Mexico. Students that apply to Harvard are turned down because they aren't taking foreign students that year.

Ignorance is rampant in this country at the highest levels. The last recognized statesman (woman) prior to Hillary Clinton was Henry Kissinger and he was German and that was 40 years ago. We tend not to be aware of other cultures and live in a commercialized bubble of elitist luxury or the attempt to gain it for our selves as job one. Nothing else is on our radar. The only reason we care about student test scores is because we are rated low. It's all a sports game. We don't have a clue why this is happening, we just want to be "number one" and go have a beer.

What this article points out is we are way down the road of the crumbling away of American values, if we could even list a few - let's see, what are they? Unfortunately, we let Hollywood and gangsta-rappers define too much of our ethos. Many laid-back nations in history are gone and are no longer players. As the rich get richer and have better things to do than worry about peasants, the problem gets larger. The "nation" is outraged at low academic test scores, but don't have a clue that third-world children filling the schools where English is a secondary language, don't do real well on tests aimed in a different direction than they are going. It's not the kids fault and if you talk to them, they are bright and smart with lots of enthusiasm. The number of these kids is so great, one couldn't possible expect superlative scores on these tests. If you add to this all the kids from broken homes, divorced parents, single parent homes, lack of core support that the "norm" has, you could better understand, of course we have lower scores. So how do we react - blame the teachers, fire the teachers, and add more bureaucracy. That is just plain stupid and demonstrates ignorance of the cause and effect.

I have a daughter that has taught elementary kids in California for years. She is also fluent in Spanish. The one way to improve the first generation Americans from Spanish speaking backgrounds, whose parents don't speak English, is to be able to communicate with these kids in Spanish and to communicate with the parents in their native tongue. The concepts are conveyed and the students move on. But the cultural and emotion connections have to be laid out first. It does not mean that the system caters to moving to all Spanish and doomsday will result. That is yet another example of rampant ignorance bordering on stupidity. You can't effectively teach anything if the message doesn't transmit to the learner. Once on the path to catching up with those that soar in school because they understand the language, real progress emerges. These kids are bright. This isn't diversity, this is compatibility and acceptance of our system not an independent state. But what did the bureaucrats do? They dropped the grants for bi-lingual teachers. They walked away from a perfect solution for many problems and yes, better "scores." Why? Because politicians only cater to the loudest voices (you know - that old song I have to be re-elected). Who were the loudest voices - ignorant Americans.

The verbs teach and learn are separate words for a reason. If you aren't willing or have a different agenda, you can teach your guts out and the learning won't take place. Stability of a nation depends on the educational system that binds our ideals together so we can unite in our efforts and nation-build together. Diversity is the basis for tearing down with the intent to re-build into something different. You know...united we stand...remember than one?

If you think diversity is just different types of pottery in Pier One Imports, you are dim witted. Diversity means I don't accept your value system and intend to change it into mine. Wake up people. We want and need to bring foreigners into OUR system legally not bend over backwards to accommodate values that are incompatible with everything we stand for. If they can't deal with that, then they need to leave. You know - you are illegal so the judge says bye-bye. We have the way and means, but lack the muster.

Seeing the Trees in the Forest

2011-04-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

Looking at the forest of words before me, I search the underbrush and thickets to find value for the reader. As the 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style emerges from behind corporate sized computer cabinets, filled with all the latest modifications to the mother language, I hesitate to rely on my past experience to find my way through the saplings and poison ivy of this new forest. The language is filled with new species of flora. The needles on the pines are particularly sharper, the rustic colors are becoming more ghastly, and the snarly branches harder to navigate.

There seems to be a pattern of crudeness creeping into our speech that in turn bribes the written language into corruption. There is a hollow ring to sentences that are full of technical terms that in themselves are whole disciplines of science and engineering. Even if we recognize the word and have a vague idea of its meaning, we have no understanding of where the word comes from, the nest it hatched in, or the beast that was borne from its use.

Language now has a chemical corrosiveness and a metallic taste. The floral patterns of pastoral grace have given way to I-beams of corporate desire. Romantic moonlight is replaced with daylight tungsten set at 5400 Kelvin filtered through nylon coming from soft light boxes. Beauty is in the eye of the photo-graphic designer, layering skin and tones to give us optimized good looks. The words that follow to describe and record all of this are ledgers not prose.

We are deceived by acronyms composed of acronyms all designed to further encode our world. The language of our times is fragments into primary particles like with the physicist’s cyclotron. We smash words together, break them apart and text the results with swollen thumbs on tiny broadcasting devices, telling our life’s story minute by minute, second by second. Our poetry rattles like a machine gun. We store words and pictures at such a rate as to fill canyons with diatribe, yesterday’s news, and our ever burp, gulp, or grunt.

Words are a human’s way to communicate thoughts, build on ideas to reach greater enlightenment. I fear by the time a 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style is conceived, there’ll be no words, just strings of ones and zeros, pulses of light, as humans stare into light bulbs, dazed and bewildered. We will have succeeded in breaking down our language into its basic elements, but our ability to converse with the spheres lost in a forest of time. We won’t see the beauty of the Milky Way; we will only see pin points of light. When asked to describe the event, we will text OMG 2G2BT IDBI :).

Social Insecurity

2011-04-22T15:33:00.000-07:00

I've contributed to Social Security since 1962. Now that's is time for the system to pay back, all I hear is the politicians telling me, sorry we ran that train into the side of the tunnel and it ain't coming out the other end. Thanks. I sat down and calculated the value of the money placed in their hands. If instead, I would have had it to invest in the simplest of savings account, I'd been worth a little over $2 million dollars today. Somewhere along the way, even the most trusted servants in their zeal to better themselves have dropped the torch in water. We wonder in darkness now as a result.

Spin the Bottle

2011-04-17T14:20:00.000-07:00

Why don’t people relate cause and affect? We see politicians and TV pundits develop all sorts of believable lies and thrust them onto the public in hopes of creating a new world order or getting a group of people to follow their deceptive logic. Many times the sad conclusion is to follow them off a cliff. If they are really clever, you follow the imaginary leader off the cliff and the soothsayer is left unscathed at the top of cliff quietly saying, “Suckers.”

It’s hard enough for some to relate even more direct examples like beating your head against the wall because it feels so good when you stop. Really? What I’m getting at with this article is the vast majority of us fill out the broad bulge of the bell-shape curve of intelligence and are a long ways from the sharpies at the high end of the curve where their numbers are slight as well. But we have to become curve shifters. We have to wake up and understand cause and effect. We don’t have a father-figure government anymore that is there to protect us. In fact, they are busy taking advantage of us. Otherwise, you will always be poor, disadvantaged, and last in line. Why, because the ability of the sharpies to take it all away from you has never been greater.

Just look at where you are right now, 2011; put a map-pin on your board of life. Four hundred individuals in this country control over 30% of the total wealth of the country. Nearly half of everything you make goes into public servant’s salaries - some of it, of course, goes into services they perform, but really, how often do you see them doing something for you? Most of that money is consumed by them personally. Where does this leave Joe American out in the Great Plains facing this vast economic shifting and shell game being played out by the sharpies?

There is no basic human skill more relevant to success than understanding cause and affect. When you observe activities and actions of others around you and don’t pick up on the affects being generated, you are not hearing the water rumble in time to avoid going over Niagara Falls (without a barrel). When public servants vote themselves in huge benefit packages and salaries, so greedy that they exceed the revenues coming in that they manage, you have to be an idiot not to realize you are being taken in by a con-artist. But you see this in the news every day.

When Congressmen take in millions of dollars in contributions by wealth industries to adjust the law so that entity doesn’t have to pay taxes or shifts great opportunities in their direction, or turn the other way when they want to create indiscretions, most of us in the middle suffer.

When jobs are sent overseas and industries closed in this country, this allows these unworthy landlords to register their companies in countries that don’t levy taxes, we don’t notice that also allows them to not pay taxes here, their country, America. You can bet a lot of money goes under the table to these dubious sponsors. That’s cause and affect wearing a disguise. These people aren’t Americans; they are thieves working the neighborhood. The effect they should be feeling is deportation. Let them live in the Third World Country they are so chummy with.

The politicians have been pandering to this behavior for at least 30 years, maybe 50, and we haven’t been observing the affects. All that money that slipped through the cracks could have rebuild or better put, maintained our infrastructure, shored-up a valid educational system, or a million other wholesome activities for a healthy America. No, we didn’t make the connection. We sat on our hands.

You either figure out the cause and affect of things or lose your ass. Take that to the bank.

Gift Wars

2010-12-13T09:43:00.000-08:00

What's going on in your neck of the swamp? I've been swamped, so to speak, with the holidays, grand kids, and general mayhem with the church music program and the onslaught of Santa Claus and his band of gift givers. I'm never ready for this holiday. I have no idea what "meaningful, thoughtful" gift to give anyone, and if I could, it would be way beyond my means to buy it. I look at it as another form of taxation levied on us by retail merchants. The wife takes all this more seriously and covers us for the obligatory gift per near relative and various close non-family members and the immediate family. Of course, if you expect to get a gift yourself, you have to invest in multiple gifts outgoing. It's almost like drawing fire in a gift war. Someone fires the first volley and the next thing you know is your bank account is gone, and you receive a neck tie as compensation for serving you country, a badge of courage you can wear on your dress uniform. The critically wounded that over spend on others are now subject to losing house and home to the tacky wrapping paper wars. Yes, I've had enough Christmas for a lifetime. No wonder people load the eggnog with whiskey. Chuckle, chuckle...it's not that bad, but it's fun to write about it.

Actually, we bought a real tree this year. I'm still gift-bound and helpless to figure out what to get people. I narrowed it down to one for the wife, that's it. What I like most about the whole affair is the orange icing on the Pillsbury buns on Christmas morning. The kids have fun being buried in new toys, but after the camera flash burns wear off and your sight returns, I'm ready to move on to New Year's. I just want to make it into the next year. The current year is like a heavy anchor you just want to cut away. Yeah, 2011!

Author Day 2010

2010-11-06T21:49:00.000-07:00

Today I gathered my kit and went to the Oceanside Library to nest with the other authors and poets in hopes the mother eagle would return with a morsel by someone buying a book. Fingers plucked and pull pages open, some ah'd at the covers, but to no avail. I came home with all the books I left the house with.

Then the time came to give my 10 minute speech. My blood sugar level had flat-lined. My old fear of eyeballs staring me down rose its ugly head again. I had forgotten to bring my glasses that allow me to read at a distance where my face wasn't buried in the page. I had planned to sing a song too and the distance issue was bothering me as well. Oh well, 10 minutes go by fast.

I mounted the stage, did my talk, nose on page, and was about to sing my ditty, when the host said, "We have time, tell us about what you're doing. Do some Q&A."

Ah, okay. What to talk about...ramble, ramble... "Okay, now sing your song," came from stage left. I don't think people realized, my song was pertinent, it was about Author Day, it had a purpose, it just wasn't a random tune to fill the last 5 minutes of my time slot. Actually it was, but I though the crowd would like the irony. Problem was, the song needed to be dedicated to one of the romance novel writers to connect the meaning and allow the song to work, but alas, they had all gone home by then. Note to self: get scheduled earlier next year.

At that moment I realized my throat was as dry as the Great Mohave Desert and the sound that came out was like fingernails on a blackboard. Two bars into the song I realized the guitar's B-string was playing in a gamalon tonality about a quarter pitch off. The cacophony ended soon enough and my 10 minutes were spent, I retreated to my perch to gag down a half bottle of water.

The song was a parody on the song "Killing Me Softly" instead of "...with her song," it was "...with her book,etc." It was fairly witty. The crowd was truly appreciative and got what I was doing.

I really don't know why all of a sudden speaking in front of fellow authors frightens me so much. Maybe it's the editors that you know that are among them that are poised to criticize and ridicule to flex their superiority.

I ended the day a wreck which should have been a quiet day of listening to boring speeches about things I've heard about over and over to lull me into peaceful slumber, but instead left me wondering why I continue writing at all. I envy the proud couch potatoes that can sit for hours gazing at sport events one after the other, killing an entire day. No, I wouldn't trade places. Any anguish I might have suffered, even at my own hand, just makes me a stronger writer. So Author Day was a great day.

I feel better, much better, after a couple of beers and an ice bag on my head.

Things to Think About While Staring at the Ceiling

2010-11-01T21:42:00.000-07:00

Deadlines do get you off the pot. The lack of mercy in editing is like a death of many small cuts. I am hoping that if I write enough and read the dictionary each night before I go to sleep, the words will spew out in a more perfect form, requiring less editing, but I doubt it. Everything in life has its dual, the Ying-Yang of it all. Editing is the evil twin of writing. It is inescapable. And that’s just the grammatical, technical side. Editing for logic, content, and dramatic effect – well, I don’t even have a clue about that. I just write what sounds good to me at the time. If I improve over time, it will reflect some kind a personal maturity, but maturity has a dark side – you lose you ability to be innocent. I am a verbal improviser, like a jazz man, playing his heart out in hopes of reaching out to someone with a riff they can dig. I will probably never write anything significant, but it will be fun to read.

The old adage of “You must be a good reader to be a good writer” makes sense, but who has the time. I do read in the background, but there are so many distractions, I don’t really make the time to be a studied reader. I have a limited repertoire of literature on the shelf. If I have time, I write instead. One area I find inspiring is short stories. They are little capsules of joy. You can get the whole plot in one mouthful. If I get writer’s block on a novel-sized project, I back off and write a short story. It seems to refresh the air and gives me a breather. Then it is easier to get back to business.

One of the curiosities of reading deeply about the subjects you plan to write about is the idea of bleeding someone else’s ideas into your own story. I live in fear of doing that, because my short term memory isn’t all that great and I am a great mimicker. There are whole species of birds that do just what I do. The last thing I want to happen is have a chunk of a project have to be rewritten because I unconsciously scribbled a bunch of ideas from someone else’s book into my plot. Have you ever caught yourself doing that?

Well, the chances are lower than you think. We are all built differently so the randomness of our interpretations protect us, but taking a great idea and revamping it into your own interpretation, well that’s a virtue not a sin. Even Einstein said it, “If I can see over the wall, is because I stand on the shoulders of giants” or some nonsense like that. You’ll have to look it up. I’m too lazy.

While I look at the ceiling, slumber finally reaches me. Maybe tomorrow I will write the perfect novel.

Pretzel Logic

2010-10-15T09:19:00.000-07:00

We live in a time where bankruptcy is a strategy for success; politicians hide tax increases by calling them fees. We redefine words to take advantage of each other. How is a writer supposed to deal with this? If you can't depend on the dictionary to supply a viable meaning for your thoughts, then how can we actually communicate or even think?

From computers we get codes. After all, everything that you can do with networked electronics is the interpretation of ones and zeros. The clever demons amongst us are playing us for all we've got by manipulating our codes.

Business majors go to Harvard and Yale not to make America a better place to live or protect our economic future. They go to learn how to merge companies, strip off redundant administrative departments and harvest those people's salaries as booty.

Churches that preach purity of souls are filled with pedophiles and homosexuals and probably have been since the first crucifix was nailed to a monastery wall.

We live in a time of awareness of just how crazy mankind has become. We are a nation of peace-loving warriors. We export guns, missiles, and perverted movies and call ourselves the cultural center of the universe. The one reason aliens aren't seen is they wouldn't be caught dead in our wacked out world that we have created. They moved on to more sane planets a long time ago.

This may be the result of the rat maze syndrome of crowding animals together to a point where they lose their sensibility and are illogically defensive and become crazed. We have become so crowded we are altering our own planet. Go to Australia for the wonderful sunshine. Yeah, and be fried because of the hole in the ozone layer "down under."

What I'm saying is what use to be firm ground is now quicksand. Axioms of intelligent thought have now become the basis for fraud claims. We are at a juncture where we need to redefine ourselves, because old benchmarks, touchstones are now breaking down. We have outstripped our usefulness and have become a burden to our own existence. What will we do? How will we cope? Where will we find the resilience to survive our own designs?

The challenge for future writers is to capture the essence of this new reality and find accurate definition of same. Persuasive lies have become reality. Spin doctors are just witchdoctors—word warlocks. The truth is remolded from liquid thought. Ingots of the new world order have to be stamped for validity backed by the vanguards of humanity. This lofty goal may only be possible by gods or angels.

When you sit down and talk to nerds, the common theme is mankind is the weak link. Machines are far more desirable. People are the messy variable in the equation that ruins the recipe. Computers and code are pure, not mankind. The wish is to replace people with machines. Scary? It's not a joke to the Vulcan mind of youth.

Were the Mayan's right? Will we collide with the wall of doom in 2012 and be flattened into stardust? The writing on the wall should be cataloged, analyzed, and researched for truth. We need a glossary of terms that matches our redefinition of ourselves. When you write you have to come up with fresh ideas, plots, characters; but what's new under the sun? Everything.

If you can understand the pretzel logic of our times, the zeitgeist of what's happening now, you have the lyrics for our swan song.

On Writing...

2010-08-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

Yeah, sometimes I think being a writer has all the skill level of passing gas effectively. Think about it. Some just blast it out, break wind, and it gets the job done. Us writers have to elude to the act, subtext the event so it's silent, unseen, but nevertheless deadly. We add the drama, the angst of trying to hold it back, but in the end, we are all just bags of wind.

Unemployment Woes Begone...

2010-08-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

In the past, this nation showed its resilience to economic downturn by calling on its most organized element - the US military. The PWA and CCC were put together to keep the economic situation from sliding the nation into the abyss. Today the military is too busy and too bureaucratic to be of any use unless it redirects its energy from fighting an endless war with Islam.

We seemed to have lost our ability to correctly assess a situation and act accordingly. It’s clear to intelligent people anywhere that you can’t sustain a welfare state with sinking revenues caused by unemployment figures that rise. The tax dollars coming in are less than the benefits paid out. The spiral to total financial ruin hangs in the balance. Elementary engineering economics (seldom taught in college anymore) makes that clear. This burden is further being exacerbated by the idea that debt is free.

With the great divide being created by the wealthy distancing themselves from the working class, less understanding of how to cope or even to care enough to try, broadens the gap. Our government has become our royal family and all those attached depend on the stability of the empire are dragging the once great machine of America into mediocrity. The middle class of America is facing serfdom.

We have all the talent and the resources to reverse these trends if we care to. I believe even those hanging on to unemployment benefits will finally realize with 20,000 college graduates joining the ranks of the unemployed each year, the chances for the more elderly ones that lost their jobs grows dimmer with each graduating class. So where is the answer? It lies with reinventing the working class so some day they can reestablish the middle class. Is that a good thing? Yes, even if the rich don’t want to share, they need to understand they are standing on the backs of a well established spending middle class. The whole thing collapses without that commercial consumption. In fact, America is the golden goose for the world economy. It would not be wise to cook it.

We have the ability to start government organized, military disciplined projects that can create massive job opportunities overnight. We’ve done it before, we can do it again. It only requires a trust in the government. So how do we create trust in our centralize assets in Washington when they have demonstrated over and over again how unworthy they can be? We have to stop supporting wars that are based on remolding civilizations centuries old into our image. It blinds us from realizing we have alienated a huge portion of the human population on the planet. We should fight our enemies not all their neighbors and friends. We get the job done and leave. We need our military back home to correct the mess we have created in our own backyard. We need to establish projects to correct the sagging infrastructure. We need to bring home the electronics industry from foreign lands. We need to stop teaching dribble in our schools and start teaching how modern technology works, how banking works, how legal order is established - all lost skills graciously pushed to offshore entities. A great country is not a service oriented country. A great country is a leader in manufactured goods that motivates economic growth. Who really wants to be some other country’s servant?

We have to rearrange laws, codes, and business practices that allow outsiders from taking advantage of us. Our universities provide much of the research in new technologies directly to foreign sources, because of money lines. Our most valuable businesses, including food distribution, are owned by foreigners that don’t have our nation’s interests in mind. We allow foreigners to come to this country legally or illegally to have babies to establish a beach head to bring in whole lineages of people that come to take advantage, and not necessarily to have respect for our values. Everything that Thomas Jefferson feared most, we are carrying out by spineless rhetoric spewing out of politicians entrusted with our Constitution.

There are vast new industries coming into view with green technologies. We talk about it, but it’s the industrial might of Asians countries that do something about it. They come up with wind, solar, and hybrid cars solutions way before we can wade through all the ghastly bickering that regulates us into a straight jacket. No one wants to give an inch. All of these tendencies have to be cast out like last night’s garbage.

The answer to unemployment is to motivate those out of work to create their own businesses, to join for their own common good, to approach those with business savvy - chambers of commerce, Rotary clubs, business conferences of all sorts - to create new jobs that never existed before. Going back to where we were is ridiculous. We need to grow a whole new crop of Americas that can form a tax base large enough to bail out the country this time, and not the other way around.

We need our politicians to turn from their luxurious lifestyle and help out. We need the government to bring together skill sets too vast for the common man to muster. We need our military leaders to keep the path clear, to provide the organization to get a grip on the current situation. If we fail, a dark pall falls over all people who love freedom. Freedom is not an automatic right, it’s a privilege granted by a compassionate government. Those that think human civilization doesn’t need government to guide them are grossly naïve. Only barbarians can live without the rule of law and order that government can provide. We just have to make sure our government is for the people and not against them.

Gentleman Writer

2010-07-25T11:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, retirement is the bomb. I worked for 40 years making other people rich and that bugged me, so I stopped doing that. I started writing after I retired in 2005 and fell in love with the feeling of being inside a story looking out. I've always had a rich imagination, so finding a topic wasn't an issue. If you are an English teacher, you would have been horrified by my first draft. My next door neighbor is a retire professor emeritus from Rutgers University and took an interest in my first story. He read and edited it. Every page, every paragraph bled like a major farm machinery accident. Red marks splattered everywhere. He made the statement, "It's an interesting story, but it's unreadable." It took two weeks to type in all the edits, but he did launch my "career" by pointing out I needed to reread everything pertaining to grammar and vocabulary.

I spent many years writing specifications for government projects, which amounts to destroying the English language. So it was hard to gain enough skills back to do novel writing justice. Still my writing depresses me to tears trying to iron out those pesky editorial errors.

One of the problems with being over-the-hill, sliding down the slippery slope of age into the abyss, compounded by lack of income is having the financial strength for luxuries like editors at my beckoned call. I have begged, borrowed, and feigned urgent need with close friends to read with the intent to earmark boo-boos. I self-published just to maintain control over the editing process, which in my case, amounts to new editions with crisp corrections a couple of times to get the gremlins to scurry back into the crevice between pages and hide in the binding . Only the earlier buyers would know the pain of the ill-gotten verb or misused noun landmine.

Writing is my solace, so in music. Trying to remain active in musical circles and running in circles trying to construct a novel keeps me saturated with duties. Someday when the writing skills improve and the playing skills turn into arthritis pain, I will settle into a steady stream of metaphoric rhetoric. The challenge is staying ahead of the Alzheimer demons.

Ebooks Don't Scare Me.

2010-07-20T10:45:00.000-07:00

I embrace technology. It paid the bills in my 30 year career in the workforce, so I don’t have a negative bias toward ebooks. In fact, I placed my five novels on Kindle the first week it was available. Where the rub came in was dealing with early attempts of Amazon to painlessly upload the book-copy. Their guidelines were directed at mainstream programmers rather than authors. But, to my surprise the ebooks started selling and have ever since, not in major numbers, but more than I can sell on my own of the paper version. The latest version of Kindle’s upload software is very easy to use and the book-copy goes in nicely. I recently lowered the price to see if the volume would increase. It’s all good. You, the author, can manipulate all the factors that provide your work to the public including discount coupons, pricing, and version corrections. I don’t know anyone that’s written a book that hasn’t been embarrassed by typos. Ebooks allow you to edit those errors out and republish a new version in minutes. No publisher will do that without a major brouhaha. No library will accept a revision of a novel. It just isn’t done - not until now. Lately, you can even increase your royalty amount from 35% to 70% of the sale price! When has that ever happened in your writing career or even received 35% in the first place from the middleman? The way I look at it, one should publish a paper version in the off chance the book will gain recognition on a grand scale. There will be those that will want to own a paper version. Reserve that privilege for those that will purchase an autographed copy directly from you. The scarcity and the mystic of the author’s signature just add to the allure. The fact that ebooks allow you to be read by every educated person on the planet, even at $5 a pop or less, is much more relevant than a book signing where five people show up. I say hurray for ebooks. They can only make authors more accessible and open many new ways to reach readers. After all that’s the point, reach readers, not by what medium.

Today's Dribble

2010-06-21T13:30:00.000-07:00

I must say for the record, San Diego's weather this year has been splendid. We aren't of the charts hot, nor cold blasting wind off the Pacific right as you get the grill out and are about to cook burgers. It has been great writing weather. The mind is clear, the sky is clear. It's easy to forget the naysayers out there that the planet is in peril.

Get Me a Job!

2010-06-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

I have a lofty perch to look down on the economic woes I see around me. I'm retired. I have in-laws, friends, and even old adversaries out there looking and looking for jobs. Here's the way I see the future: America cooked its own goose. We are so in debt, forget about the magic job that pays year 2000 salaries. People are going to have to create their own jobs, build businesses, and tell the politicians to get the hell out of the way. We are going to have to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps now. I'd say take your talents and peddle them into some kind of service or product.

On the Road Again

2010-05-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

Writers and readers - the June issue of the Fox&Quill is coming. Be patient. I'm running around Colorado right now getting stocked up on fresh air. I'll be back June first to publish, so get ready for the first week of June.

Yahoo - just found gold...!

Peddling Prose

2010-04-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

As I look into my crystal ball, straining to receive some glint of knowledge, some pearl of wisdom about the world of writing, all I see are swirling smoke trails and chards of mirrored light. I’m left with the dichotomy of learning the ropes that become spaghetti and pull apart when striving for a reliable foundation. Let me tell you what I mean.

We have the Chicago Manual of Style, the Strunk and White Elements of Style, and Roget’s Thesaurus, and dozens of how-to writing gospels, but the major best sellers are the ones that break the rules. We have scholarly masters that tell us never use cliché, yet every great story is full of them. Admittedly, crafted to look like a spanking new version, but many are just old hats skillfully placed. What is the virgin writer to do?

The baseline for publishing is to get an agent, who nurtures the young writer and becomes the sales conduit to a publisher. We all know from experience that agents are really hard to find. Maybe they don’t even exist! They are so deeply buried within the forest we just can’t see them for the trees. They seem to be part of the dead letter department of the post office. All you get are rejections and returned manuscripts.

Then there is the dilemma of fame. Most new writers don’t have it. How do you become famous enough to show on the radar of those mysterious agents that really don’t exist? Books deals rain down on the famous even if they don’t know how to write! They hire a ghostwriter to carry the load. Maybe that’s the secret—just ghostwrite, the box canyon for the creative mind.

So you want a career as a writer. (A question without a question mark…) Well, it is naggingly suggested to write magazine articles. Be a stringer. Get the experience and you will develop a following. Sure, that will pay the bills. If you’re lucky, seventy-five dollars here, a hundred dollars there, on a project where you pour many long hours to create an article packed with your best stuff. When you look at the ROI, you gasp when you see a negative index. The longer you do this, the further into the red you go! (Notice I used incomplete sentences—a real baddie, but all effect writing has them). All the rules dissolved into a jelly mess and the logic of what you are doing defies any economic sense.

How can you reconcile being a writer? When does the pain stop and the satisfaction begin? Is it meant to just be a starving artist existence or the creative genius that is only recognized after they’re dead? There are a few outs as they say in poker.

Become a corporation, an investment broker, a venture capitalist. Somehow you have to be vested in some kind of economic benevolence. You have to be financial stable enough to walk into the woods and fend off the wild beasts hidden in the dark places and still be able to breakout the other side unscathed. The ones that can’t probably died off already as one of those endangered species that was never recorded. Maybe a tattered book of poems remains for someone to pluck from a second-hand store shelf, wondering who the author was—nice work. You have to be ready to prime the pump with cash and suck enough opportunity up the pipe to draw a drink from; then you can make a go of this occupation. Once opportunities start to flow, you have to keep pumping that handle until you drop. Otherwise, it all falls back into the depths where it came and you are there, slumped over at the well’s edge exhausted, watching your aura fade away.

I have to conclude that seasoned writers have suffered the slings and arrows, are the brave hearts that throw themselves into the fray, but survive to become stronger because of it. Real writers have scars on their backs. When he says, “Call me Ishmael,” your face drops open and pales as you stare into the character’s eyes. This is going to be a good read. You just have to keep writing until your style bleeds through and the stains of your agony form a pattern that readers find appealing. Readers are a devious lot. They have no mercy. Just when you’re on a roll, they pull an ace from their sleeve and pull in your profits. Your aim should be to create your own legacy. You have to build a wall with your work, a body of work that can pull the chains through enough time that readers and critics alike will accept you like a bastard child at the table of the wealthy established elite. They still look down their long noses, but you are getting a hot meal despite it all. You have to design and sew your own flag and plant it in the terra firma of your convictions. You are what you write no matter what the nutritionists tell you.

April Showers or in this case Earthquakes

2010-04-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

As we approach mid-April, southern California shakes like a bowl of Jello. I have to look for the good in this. My lethargy lessened when shivers of fear ripple up my spine. My pace quickens and I tend to pay more attention to detail.

We lay wait for the Big One. We watch the horizon to see if the great ship of Los Angeles will sink or just roll over on her side. It's time to pay our respects to Mother Earth. She is not pleased. Something is naggingly pulling at her apron.

Sell the Sizzle

2010-03-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

Book fairs seem like a good idea, but are only useful if focused on a few authors period. And their books better suck. If a used book store is anywhere near where you are selling - forget it. If you are at a street fair - forget it. If you are part of a craft fair - forget it. If some lady is selling children’s book within five miles - forget it. The point is, if you are not famous enough to draw a crowd on your own - forget it. It's a cart and horse logic issue. Become recognizable first.

Books have their secrets locked inside. When someone comes up to where you are selling, they are more interested in the fact you wrote a book and they are probably looking for advice on how they could write one too. They will pick and flip to be polite, and then walk away. If your book could do a song and dance routine, then maybe you could make a sale. Musicians are lucky. They hammer out some songs and tell people they’re on the CD and today they’re selling at a HUGE discount - sales are made, especially if a pretty young thing is doing the selling.

The more complex and interesting your book is, the harder it is to explain it. The thirty word blurb is about all you get before their eyes glaze over. That’s why how-to books sell 10 to 1 better that fiction. They sell themselves - like the ShamWow. The title itself tells people if they buy the book it will improve their lives. It really doesn’t matter what improvement you’re talking about. If it improves your sex life, makes you money or will save a marriage, it’s a guaranteed sale to many gullible people. They have a garage full of them and give them to Goodwill six months later.

If you’re a fiction writer, like me, you have to be creative with the selling technique. I will guarantee improved sales if you make a book trailer and have it running continuously on a laptop computer sitting on the sales table. Don’t say a thing. You open your mouth and the magic dies. You add tee shirts with logos from the book, even better. You will sell a tee shirt and a book.

What you find is, due to the nature of a book’s contents being inaccessible without a long sit and read session, you need to be famous and that’s the draw or you have to gimmick the sale with a dozen carny tricks or you can’t break through the interest threshold to make a sale. Sell the sizzle not the steak.

How do I know this? Don’t ask.

Author, Inc.

2010-03-07T09:38:00.001-08:00

Greetings. If you’re in the San Diego on 22 March, I'm giving a talk on the Internet and the wired author at the SD Writers and Editors Guild meeting (http://www.sdwritersguild.org/). It's such a mind boggling challenge to be more that just a writer in today's world. This electronic monster called the Internet and computers in general have shoved authors out into the limelight where websites, social networking, marketing strategy, and presentation coaches are standard fare. You have to be Author, Inc. If you can find the energy, learning how to tame the beast can only be to your advantage. That’s why I lecture on the Wired Author.

Ghostwriter's Haunts

2010-03-01T09:39:00.000-08:00

I was blown away by the stats that try to show how many of the best sellers are ghostwritten. I won't quote numbers here, because there is no real way to tell, since the whole point of ghostwriting for the rich and famous is to stay anonymous.

Here’s my question to the authors out there: Are there works you know of with credit given to someone famous for writing a book that was actually written by a ghostwriter? I’m not talking about Sarah Palin, Bill & Hillary Clinton. I'm curious about someone like Winston Churchill or Hemingway.

Self-Morale as a Shield Against Rejection

2010-02-09T13:47:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of chatter among writers when it comes to agent rejections or rejections from publishers. Rejection will always sting, but you can create an effective shield against its effects.

If writing is the only thing you do in your life, and rejections send you into tailspins of depression, then you need to pump up your self-morale. How do you do that? Expand your universe.

When you write, write great stuff, whether it's an email, a note to a friend, or short stories to pass time. Get involved with groups - readers, writers, guilds - anything where you can achieve a victory. You beat rejection by winning many small victories.

Take your writing to the streets. Give lectures, go to meetings and tell people a story. Measure the response. When you gain a victory, like when people come up and say, "Hey, I enjoyed your talk," go out and buy a chocolate sundae. Don't just write one book and sit on it like a big egg, waiting for it to hatch into some grand exotic bird. Farm you craft in many fields. Take your stories and tell them fifty different ways and present them in front of as many people as you can. If they are accepted with respect, you have defeated rejection. You know your work is good. If rejections come, you can say to yourself, "Hey, Scrabbleworks Publishing Company, your loss, fool.”

Instead of always having to walk around with a stiff upper lip that makes you look like you had a bad facelift, building wall of thick resentment in your mind to thwart off rejection blues, or lose friends because you're a sourpuss all the time, do an end-around play and defeat rejections with great self-morale.

The Writer's Loft a la Cox

2010-01-22T10:13:00.000-08:00

Yeah! Cox Cable finally got the show on the air. Here are the times:

Jan 30th at 5pm, channels 23 for South County and 18 for North County
Feb 12th at 7pm, same channels

TimeWarner is sticking with Thursdays at 5pm, channel 19.

DelMarTV.com streaming - check schedule.

Let me know what you thing about the show...

DelMarTV - January Schedule

2010-01-07T17:13:00.000-08:00

Here's the lineup for "The Writer's Loft" that can be seen on the Internet over DelMarTV.com for January:

Friday, January 1, 2010
9:00 a.m. Writer’s Loft: Crow’s Nest
8:00 p.m. Writer’s Loft: Book Builders

Saturday, January 2, 2010 6:00 p.m. Writer’s Loft: Wordsmiths

Monday, January 4, 2010 11:00 a.m. Writer’s Loft: Book Builders

Friday, January 8, 2010 8:00 p.m. Writer’s Loft: Book Builders

Saturday, January 9, 2010 6:00 p.m. Writer’s Loft: Wordsmiths

Monday, January 11, 2010 11:00 a.m. Writer’s Loft: Book Builders

Friday, January 15, 2010 8:00 p.m. Writer’s Loft: Book Builders

Saturday, January 16, 2010 6:00 p.m. Writer’s Loft: Wordsmiths

Monday, January 18, 2010 11:00 a.m. Writer’s Loft: Book Builders

Friday, January 22, 2010 8:00 p.m. Writer’s Loft: Book Builders

Saturday, January 23, 2010 6:00 p.m. Writer’s Loft: Wordsmiths

Monday, January 25, 2010 11:00 a.m. Writer’s Loft: Book Builders

Friday, January 29, 2010 8:00 p.m. Writer’s Loft: Book Builders

Saturday, January 30, 2010 6:00 p.m. Writer’s Loft: Wordsmiths

You just click on the "DMTV Live Streaming" in the gray box, then click on the "Open Stream in Media Player" and wait for it to load. Plan to match up with the scheduled time (PST).

The Writer's Loft

2009-12-15T13:34:00.000-08:00

Check out my TV show on public access in the San Diego area and beyond via the Internet. Cox cable uses Ch 23 or 18 and TimeWarner uses Ch 19. Also, DelMarTV.com streams the shows. There are still shows in December. Here is the schedule for DelMarTV.com, which can also be viewed on the ATT U-Verse system. Each show is 30 minutes long:

Thursday, December 17, 2009
5:00 p.m. Writer’s Loft: Crow’s Nest
Friday, December 18, 2009
9:00 a.m. Writer’s Loft: Crow’s Nest
Saturday, December 19, 2009
7:30 p.m. Writer’s Loft: Wordsmiths
Thursday, December 24, 2009
5:00 p.m. Writer’s Loft: Crow’s Nest
Friday, December 25, 2009
9:00 a.m. Writer’s Loft: Crow’s Nest
Saturday, December 26, 2009
7:30 p.m. Writer’s Loft: Wordsmiths
Thursday, December 31, 2009
5:00 p.m. Writer’s Loft: Crow’s Nest

The TimeWarner slot is Thursdays at 5:00pm. They also have Ch 130 on some networks that air the show. Next week is Episode 2, 31 Dec starts Episode 3.

So what's this all about? In my desperation to get into video to promo books and do book trailers, I befriended a fellow that does public access TV. He wanted to air a show about writing, so I came up with this theme. You can’t promo for sale on public access television, but the networking possibilities are endless. I am really enjoying bring to the public shows about writing. What a dream.

Episode 1, The Crow’s Nest – introduces the show and the idea of getting inside the writers mind by visiting the place where the author works his magic – his loft. It includes my loft and fellow author Erica Miner.

Episode 2, Wordsmiths – visits Richard Lederer and Alan Russell, two local San Diego authors. They talk about their lives and what they write about. Lederer is a language expert. Russell is a mystery writer. Both provide a fun listen .

Episode 3, Book Builders – visits Robert Goodman, the proprietor for Silvercat book services. He designs books for clients. The inside critical parameters like font choice, layout look and feel is matched to the book content. The cover is matched carefully and holds the back and spine information to attract a reader. All good stuff.

Episode 4, Stringers: Freelance Journalism – visits LinDee Rochelle, where we follow back in time from a great magazine article she did to how the job came into being and the fact that it led to writing a book.

We will initially do six episodes, but could continue, especially if there develops an interest, so check it out and let me know if you like it.

Long Time, no Blog...

2009-08-17T10:51:00.001-07:00

Sorry, I was on another planet for the last couple of months, no really. Life forms out there aren't so bad. We all have our pluses and minuses, but for the most part, the aliens I met were civil. Here on the Blue Orb, not so much. Are people going nuts? Global warming, economic meltdown, El Nina – again!, the cola wars are blurred by too many variations on a theme – I’m confused. There are more new jobs in government than the private sector, these government types think laying-off teachers is the best way to pay bills, only about five authors are being published by the Big Five in New York – what are they thinking? We are stagnating into carbon formed blobs with no imaginations.

Ethics are driven by political spin. Truth is bartered. One man’s fact is another man’s lie. Sitting on Mars, I talked to an old blues player on the Valles Marineris Delta, and he told me to chill, there is a reckoning coming. You humans are passing through puberty. You all just need to get laid.

Well, he’s probably right. Anyway, I can’t be bothered by all that. I’m trying to get a new book out. It’s in the final draft with worker bees going over and combing out the bugs. Oops, no offense bug people. This is going to be a sad one, full of plot twists and consequence for the protagonist. Struggle and redemption are the themes – oh, and who murdered two people in Las Vegas last summer. Then there’s the jewelry heist of museum quality gems that belonged to Louis XIV. “Benny Plays the Blues” is a tale about a New York sax player that gets into hot water in Vegas, is obvious to everyone but the reader that he is a murderer and thief, but has to run for cover only to run into more trouble. Did he really do it? Maybe his laid-back demeanor is fooling the reader. He is definitely headed for disaster. You can’t run from your future. Cool.

Book Signing and Reading in June

2009-05-29T15:42:00.000-07:00

NEWS FLASH Location: Sally J. Griffin senior Center, 700 Jewell Ave., Pacific Grove, CA (Monterey Peninsula)
Phone: 510-796-4364 or 831-375-4454
Date: June 10, 2009
Time: 11:00am and again at 1:00pm

NEWS FLASH Location: Milpitas Senior Center, 540 S. Abel St. MilpitasAlso: San Leandro Senior Center in the afternoon
Phone: 510-796-4364 or 1-408-586-2775
Date: June 11, 2009
Time: 10:15am and again at 12:15pm

NEWS FLASH Location: The Groves, Dublin, CA Book Signing
Phone: 510-796-4364 Date: June 12, 2009
Time: 02:45pm

NEWS FLASH Location: Book signing at Good Eats, 217 W. Winton Ave., Hayward, CA
Phone: 510-796-4364
Date: June 13, 2009
Time: 10:15am and again at 12:15pm Titles: Orphan Records, A Dark and Stormy Knight, Harmonics, Of Beryl & Alabaster

John Wolf
JohnWolfBooks.com
FoxandQuill.com

Uranium Tipped Arrows

2009-04-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

I was reading about how technology is displacing so many traditional industries like newspapers, books, book stores, libraries - the list goes on. It's like Cupid is shooting depleted-uranium tipped arrows to improve penetration he loves us sooo much. Technology is becoming a curse, not a cure. Don't you think it's ironic that our soldiers in Afghanistan are being badly damaged by their own ammunition, just being near the stuff – sad as it may seem.

Focusing more in the literary vein, there is a lot of buzz about electronic readers blowing paper products out of the water. Sit down you tree huggers and stop screaming, yippee. Listen, the toxic disposal of electronic equipment is much scarier than the loss of a replenishable tree. But the combination of technology paradigm shifts and the effects of a down economy are taking a toll on traditional media. What would you do without paperback books, that warm fuzzy pulp that lines your shelves?

The tsunami of Kindle readers forming a wave on your beach is not far off. As a writer, I really don’t care, as long as my books are read by someone, somehow. But what’ hurts is the impact to the stores. I don’t want my whole life to be online. That’s resigning to solitary confinement in your own home. I like the smell of Starbuck coffee in the air when I run my fingers down a row of books, looking for the next in a series from my favorite author. I want to read a flap or two, ruffle the pages, smell the paper dust, and gaze at the cool artwork on the cover. My advice is to buy a used book store now and start storing up. People are going to go nuts for the antique known as a book.

I envision disposable book readers. You buy them from a vending machine, read the eBook, and recycle it when you’re done. Technology is the great leveler of anything that gets in its way.

John Wolf
JohnWolfBooks.com
FoxandQuill.com

The Unlearned

2009-02-12T19:33:00.000-08:00

Teaching and learning are two separate actions. The teaching can be standardized into curriculums or "schools of thought." In the past, great institutions were identified by their particular take on what should be taught. This produced centers of excellence for particular interests. Students could choose a vocation in alignment with their education and probably receive the best advice and guidance in that particular endeavor available within their society. The British are brilliant at doing this.

In America we compete for dollars on every campus. We attract dollars in the form of students by mainly having a valued sports program. All colleges are ranked by their sports teams’ recognition. This has nothing to do with education or being taught career skills. Parents are rampant about getting their kids into colleges, any college, just get that "sheep skin." They don't see the forest for the trees and will pay any amount thrown at them in desperation.

As a result, the colleges don't cater to those that come for an education; they cater to a collection of barbarians. The campus life is a screaming joke. If you want to start life with an alcohol problem or a drug addiction, go to college. If you want to have a valued career...what do you do? So many Americans spend half their lives trying to find themselves, mainly because the launching pad slung them way off in the weeds and they had to wander back into civilization and start over again.

Learning, the other side of the coin. I once had a very wise couple (both PhDs in clinical psychology) tell me that an educated person is one that has learned where to go to get information and with that information, teach themselves. If colleges focused on the skills to seek and find information and gave you a taste of what's out there, the student would take it from there. Just listening to inspiring speeches from the experienced scholars can be life changing. Then if there were follow-on schools that specialized (vocational schools) in some particular discipline, young people would be anxious to learn and would become highly valued citizens. Notice that would take a minimum of administration!

Every college I've been connected with, including the one I'm teaching at now, has the same dumb concept that undergraduates must average a 2.75 grade point and graduate students a 3.25. There is no consideration on what that means just do it. Generate crap exams so enough students do poorly to guarantee this desired outcome, which is based on standards to gain credibility certification. Artificial standards based, not on humans, but idealistic statistics that match a political agenda. We mold our children to become political animals from the very first semester in college. You have to push down the competition by any means available to make sure you land on the high side of the curve. This is totally bogus.

I taught in the Air Force Navigation School, it was a true vocational institution, where we taught until each and every student could achieve 100%. They were all A-students or they were dropped out. The delimiter was time. You had to achieve in a reasonable amount of time. We couldn't have a critical skill not be learned or that lieutenant would be a danger to himself and those around him. These are the kinds of programs that you grow in; you are motivated by, and are proud of when you make it. All education should be so designed.

We just don't get it in this country. We are total conformist to commercial marketeering. We eat, buy, and do what the rock stars, movie stars, and sports figures do and have no clue as to how the real world functions. Parents don't get it, teachers don't get it, and administrators are on another planet. We all want to be petted and loved, then everything else will come to us. That's a very Christian attitude - sit on your hands and let God run your life. Bull feathers. Our ancestors were guided by the ethics of their religion, but had the common sense to invent, manipulate, and accomplish by using their heads and not living a life of excuses.

John Wolf
JohnWolfBooks.com
FoxandQuill.com

2009-01-29T08:24:00.000-08:00

You notice how hard it is for the rich to lose a grip on all that money. They just throw it around amongst themselves but it never really leaves Washington. Did you know the government already spent 1.2 trillion dollars at the end of last year to those that will manage the corruption of the financial industry this year. That's the group you want to work for. Most of that money was kept secret, in fact, all of it is still being kept secret. The contracts are now public record with the beneficiaries and the amounts given blacked out. So, my question is, who will get the next trillion dollars to police the ones policing the original white collar criminals. We are in a tailspin of corruption from the top down to us. This 819 billion is peanuts compared to the money fest going on behind the scenes.

Here's another question of the hour. Why are the Chinese buying up all our debt? Who would want to buy a totally corrupt country that manufactures nothing, so there is no material wealth, has no exports, and only complains about everything from pollution to politics and can't pay back their debt in a hundred years. It's stupid. What is going to happen is the burden of our debt will fall on the Chinese people when we forfeit, and why not, their a Communist country. Why should we do them any favors?

No there is no way to understand what's going on. These people are so consumed by programming their Blackberries and scheduling cocktail parties to even notice the rest of us are dying out here. What care in the world doesn't a rich guy have for a family thrown out of their house because they were so stupid as to take out a loan that would balloon into payments they would never be able to pay, has credit card debt to the moon so they could buy a lot full of SUVs at $65k a piece, HD TVs all over the house, 7.1 surroundasound stereos, college funds at Ivy League schools, a pool in the back yard, and a house that's 5000 sq ft that they can't afford to furnish. Frankly, I don't blame the politicians for ignoring our little problems. We brought it on ourselves. We are commercial junkies and have no control over our own greed. How could you expect those in government to be any different. The only difference is we just ran out of money before they did.

John Wolf
JohnWolfBooks.com
FoxandQuill.com

The End of the Line

2008-12-19T22:12:00.000-08:00

Can you feel the heat of 2009 approaching? I can - no my house isn't on fire. I just think the New Year will be great news, a breath of fresh air. I see Wall Street moguls dangling in the breeze in their Versace suits. Wool smells so bad when you’re burning at the stake. How dare they place bets with our money and laugh in our faces when the pot was lost by cavalier, foolish action. I really hope the attorney generals order their troops to line them up and show no mercy.

Well, that’s behind us now. How about the writing? I strayed away from traditional publishing once again. The torture of dealing with yet another insider controlled conglomerate situation produced a sour taste in the back of my throat, so I self-published my fourth book.

This is the one I talked about last summer, the one set in India. It seems to me many things are drawing us to that great massive country and its endless history and intrigue. I was so impressed just placing word after word with olfactory imagination filled with curry aromas. The brilliant cotton colors, the soaring Himalaya, how could you not be excited about telling a story in this setting.

What’s a story without a murder? This one is a mystery, because everyone surrounding the victims are puzzled as to who it could have been, even those that were scheming to swindle money. You can’t get blood from a turnip or a dead man. Yes, I said victims - the last relative of one of the wealthiest rajahs in Indian history and her half-brother, at least the legends about him would say he was very rich. The one about the alabaster queen and the cursed crystal of beryl that held secret messages in its dark veins running throughout an otherwise perfect gemstone is the legend that this story unfolds. This story is so old it spans the breadth of a continent from Kashmir to Xian, China - the other end of the Silk Road.

Camel trails that crossed forbidding desert are now spanned by little turboprop airplanes, a shiny white with Chinese characters on the tail that say White Dragon. The intentions are the same - seek out the wealth and take it for your own glory. The cunning plans of a gypsy people stand to protect the legend and the history of their cult. A young man and his sister discover they are in the middle of the legend. Now can they survive the competing greed to take from them the only chance to hold on to the legend and avenge their family’s great loss?

It takes a team of two sleuths that have the skills to unravel the mystery and connect the dots from London to New Delhi, from Kashgar to China. One Rupert Donaldson and his buddy James Hathaway. Put your traveling shoes on and hold on to the seat. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

The After Trash of the Election

2008-11-07T20:16:00.000-08:00

Wow, what an event a couple of days ago. America is back in the saddle again - hope is the watchword, but what about all those political candidate signs. Most are made of plastic and metal, so burning is out of the picture. Is there a recycle center for political signs? It matters not, someone will find a way to recycle them.

I've been so consumed by the burden of watching the issues and sliding down my own slippery slope of personal finances that doing any writing has come to a halt. Then Adobe announced a new product - Flex. Keep a careful eye on this Nerd revolution. Web based apps that can be built by the average guy and placed on your desktop that run in Flash - the browser plugin with horsepower.

There are so many RSS feeds out there with gobs of data, you can find out about anything, but how do you display it so it is fun to watch. One can write a program in Flex, push it through its companion program called AIR (both open source software) and pick up feeds and display them in any number of ways with style and grace. The whole thing boils down to a Flash file that the browser opens, but it's not a movie, it's every button pushing, snappy interactive thing that's ever been on the Internet. Way cool.

So what's that got to do with writing? Nothing, but it is so cool that I've wasted two months learning about it and all nighters trying to write code. I think my next novel will just be code. Why not. It tells a story and it's antimated.

Go Nerds.

Someone Stopped Me on the Street...

2008-10-15T16:12:00.000-07:00

Publishing is really the business of making a person famous enough to sell pulp to the unsuspecting. The fact that it's your baby is of slight concern to the world of business.

You have to approach this with an open mind and realize upfront that YOU are the marketing plan, YOUR bucks float the promo, sales, and YOU have to generate the buzz for your book when you self-publish. Bottom line.

Traditional publishing is the optimum situation if you can get the attention of an agent and they are in thick with major publishers to hawk your book to. The only downside is it is so competitive you might die before the world ever sees your book.

The upside of self-publishing is you have a beautiful bound volume in your hands in a few weeks, no questions asked. Now, the question is how much are you willing to spend to promote it?

Think of everything after the book file is in the computer as marketing and positioning. Your book will be on Amazon - that's part of the deal, which is a good thing. Many self-publishing houses do that nicely, others have schemes to deal with it. Amazon has a hidden charge of about $25 a year if you go to them directly. Of course, their marketing gimmick is to get you to publish with BookSurge, their group, to avoid the fee. To get into the big box stores requires registering with Ingram (and others), which is a service all the self-publishing houses offer. This transfers a copy of your digital file over to their database where they print it out for places like Barnes & Noble, etc. That's just way the system works. Don't ask, but what about... They aren't listening.

Websites, blogs, radio spots, TV interview slots, or any other methods of letting the public know that you exist is the main game. Since traditional publishing has screened its authors via agents and they have decided that your product has a chance on the market, they will do two big things for you 1) have nationwide distribution poised for sales behind a small prime-the-pump run of x-number of books; 2) They will provide some level of promo. That might be a series of signings scheduled, interviews, but unless you're already famous, it will be limited. Then we all sit back and see if it flies. Yes - great. No, don't come back to us, please.

Most new authors don't realize just writings a book of whatever is going to be received by the public with open arms. Get that notion out of your head or you will spend fortune and be ready to jump off a ledge.

Go to some conferences, talk to local authors, join some newsletters that track publishing like Dan Poynter. Get the facts. Shooting in the dark won't work. You'll just shoot yourself in the foot.

OR you can try some poems out on the folks of Fox&Quill, my little website for authors... I think one piece of advice that always plays is start locally and become know as a poet, etc. Do readings. Let people know you are a player. Then, if you self-publish you have people that are most likely going to buy standing around when your first box of books arrives to sell to. If you sell a lot, then the major publishers ears perk up. There is no shame in proving your work can sell and then launching into a deal with a major publisher.

If you just get a book printed, there it sits. What do you really want to see happen? Ask yourself the tough questions. If you are a serious writer, then always be on the lookout for an agent. It only makes sense. If you really want a book in hand to test the water, then spend the $500 and impress your friends, but don't expect a lot of sales. How far can you throw one of your books, is about the size of the sales region we're talking about here.

If your brother runs a chain of major bookstores, then forget everything I said and go that route. It's all about can you draw in sales - that's it. What you write, whether Nobel Prize worthy or how to clean a bicycle is irrelevant. That's the part you personally pine over, but books are like pies, how many can you sell and keep selling??

Beauty, Debate, and the Cost of Stupidity

2008-09-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

This has been a confusing recent past. Sarah Palin, in like a lioness and now... just another pretty face. Presidential debates... ho hum, and the financial world-class dive in the ring. Where to start?

I was so impressed with Lady Sarah, not so much anymore. She’s still a hockey mom. The debates left me thinking Obama stole second and third base with the news McCain suspended his campaign - can you do that? - to run off to Washington and sit on the sidelines and do nothing, because he didn’t want to be stuck with the label of causing the next Great Depression. In fact, both the Democrats and Republicans did things that accelerated the demise of American banking. The Republicans deregulated the banking industry and took the restraints off crazy entrepreneurs to go wild. But the Democrats gave us the CRA ruling that bribed banks into lending to people who couldn’t afford loans. Duh, what could go wrong here?

We now know Mr. McCain is a liar. He told David Letterman he had to cancel his appearance on his show (an hour before airing) to get to Washington to bail out America, but instead, he goes across the street to do an interview with Katie Couric. When he gets to Washington the next day, he backs into the shadows - not very leader-like.

Then Wall Street explodes. This is nuts. Seven hundred billion dollars to patch a hole in a sinking ship - give me a break. The Treasury could give every person in foreclosure in the country a tax-free check for a million dollars and they could all pay off their mortgages. How many is that? About 700,000 families. If you refine the math to actual mortages, which would probably be less than a million dollars, the Feds could bailout a bunch more. Or, if that many people aren't affected, the 700 billion number could come down considerably. But the bailout would be focused on the those that need the relief and not another maybe-it-will trickle-down policy that doesn't have a good track record. Looking at it more realistically, if the bailout reduced the debt owed for all the foreclosure loans to a figure where the families could actually pay their monthly bills, the overall cost of this bailout would be minimized.

People of America wake up. The Ponzi schemes are running amuck in Washington. Why give a pirate more booty, a sharp sword, and a free out-of-jail card all in one haul. Start with the people of America not the slickies that are constantly looking for another dull Senator to bribe into yet another self-serving get-rich scheme off tax payer’s dollars.

I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, close Washington and make it a museum and move the seat of government to Denver and flush the 545 seats that make up our union and conscript people to replace them that have a talent for running large organizations.

Go Fly a Skype

2008-09-18T10:01:00.000-07:00

Skype is a super concept for contacting people at a great distance. I had a student in California that checked in with his sponsor in China every day, etc. But, my point concerns the undercutting of the PSTN, better known as the phone company, which supports much of the long distance digital traffic via their lines. Why? Because they own the right-of-way across those great distances and charge ISP providers for its use. At some point the two costs converge and you bite the hand that feeds you. The question is, where is that point, and can we pass it and still save money? If your ISP provider raises rates to pay the PSTN increases, the value of Skype sinks. But, I must conclude that we will all probably be better off.

There is still a gorilla in the room that we are ignoring, and this is the real threat. One of the reasons phone rates are high and confusing is the government taxes the piss out of landline telecommunication companies, the PSTN. They always have, so it is something the PSTN can't get away from, except to pass it on to you. If future revenues are threatened by systems like Skype, how will the government react to this trend? After all, their paycheck comes from your tax dollars.

One of things government has regretted ever since they unleashed the Internet and let it run away is not setting up a tax structure for its use on day one. The overwhelming backlash every time they try to slip in a tax keeps them at bay. But if the PSTN cries foul competition pressure, due to cheap undercutting of their business using Internet tactics, they could get their day in court, which is a government agency in itself. This could open a door to get back into the concept of taxing the Internet.

I would like to hear from savvy ISP CEOs about this issue. What are the facts and how can we as users avoid triggering a government interdiction mission? Here in California, the State government is trying for a second time to railroad in a bill to tax downloads from the Internet. Yes, there is a backlash, but people have to pay attention and write their representatives. It seems politicians are more frequently using our right to vote against us by writing up deceptive propositions, hoping to get one voted in. Then you get the big surprise when they tell you, “Yes, you did vote to have your Internet service taxed, see.” They hold up the proposition tally and smile.

John Wolf
JohnWolfBooks.com
FoxandQuill.com

Books about Nothing

2008-09-15T16:05:00.000-07:00

The bookstores are awash in books about politics. It is surprising that so much money is spent by the public to become informed on issues that do nothing about.

I have to assume that eventually, when the couch needs replacing that we are lounging on, we will, as a people, spots and all, get up and let the cat out. The best way to get the ruling class to do something is stop buying the things we don't need, ease up on travel, and stop voting in huge spending bonds. Because when we do that, tax revenues dry up. That will bring panic to any plump politician. Be a no-tax bitch about everything and vote out old taxes. That is like invading their personal stock of Cuban cigars. They will have to come out of their caves and face us. Then maybe we can deal the issues that affect the people.

The diversity lily pads shouldn't be a problem, and I'm not talking about racial diversity, I'm talking about vested interests by whatever the mix of individuals that oppose the American standards set by the forefathers. We harbor groups that hate the mainstream, don't like little villages with picked fences, because they came here to get rich and modify the plan.

We have home grown Neo Nazis, we have street gangstas, rap-sters, urban gorillas that isolate and conquer with drugs. Our legal system doesn't have a law against them. They form tyranny groups from within, which is exactly what Thomas Jefferson foresaw as the only threat to our future. But we tolerate it. We have nations within our nation. If any one or more of these groups gain power, they will take action, breaking the country down.

We also have the not-so-rich, but have a wealth of attitude. The government owes me, I want MY share, the freeloader that has been tolerated for years, taking money out of our pockets from taxes to keep them happy. We share a mermaid of services with these folks, but they don’t pay. They demand to go to the front of the line. I'm waiting for the pendulum to swing the other way. I'll be applauding from the sidelines.

What makes me disgusted is it seems to be on every street corner now. Years ago it was in someone else's backyard. Now, I have to drive around it, step over it just to get to the grocery store. The employers aren't helping much either. Why not provide a retirement fund to help people in their old age? Why not want to provide healthcare so the employee can stay working? These things can be planned into big companies to where it doesn't affect their bottom line. But you can't do it when the CEOs take all they can get.

An MBA is a dirty word in my book. We train executives to merge, downsize, and take all they can get. I'd rather deal with the Russian mob than a smart MBA graduate. Here's where the rubber meets the road. How do we get the society as a whole to care about each other enough to pull in the same direction?

It’s one thing to take care of those with special needs and quite another to freeload when you should be contributing. Once you hit the point of no return, where more people are living off of tax money than can be taxed, the democracy fails.

None of these fancy books by every lobbyist, media anchor, or celebrity on the block have one bit of advice on how to clear up the problems, bring the society together, or provide an alternative. It’s all blah, blah, blah.

Falling Arrows

2008-09-13T12:34:00.000-07:00

As writers we are living in a very dynamic time. Each day I turn on the TV to another massive hurricane, flood, or earthquake. Mankind is being cornered and the arrows are in flight. Will your cozy mystery about a sleuth finding a serial killer be relevant in the wake of the real time movie playing out before us? I think not.

If you survive your tomorrow, start writing about it. You are the observer that sees beyond the sound bite. You aren’t squeezed into a two minute time slot or tethered to lamppost in a Category 5 storm commenting on the high winds. You are capable of bringing the world the human story like no other group of people. Write your hearts out and bring your critique group to tears.

If you ever were in want of a plot, a storyline or setting that would be the backdrop for your breakout novel, just stand on your toes and look around. We have the Russian Empire reemerging, monthly biblical sized disasters, social unrest, the American Dream being sold down the river by politician bent on spending for wars, families being crushed by shabby deals perpetrated by unethical loan officers, major financial centers duped by mutual funds filled with fraudulent underwriters, the African continent being dissolved into human tragedy, and who can count the greedy CEOs out competing for the longest yacht. I can’t think of a time when mankind has been more self-indulgent or self-destructive. We are even taken the planet down with us.

If you can’t find an exciting topic to write about or a human story in these times, turn your pen back in. You need to find another occupation.

Dialogue vs Narration

2008-09-05T11:10:00.000-07:00

One of topics discussed in writers conferences and the How-To books from the staff of these events is the “show the reader, not tell the reader your story” spiel. The why is left to the virgin writer to figure out. It’s like that “obvious to the casual observer” bit that your physics prof at college used. Well, you need to know what causes the problem and how to approach the fix.

Narration dulls the spirit of any fiction. It can't be avoided entirely unless the story is only a rocket blast of dialogue, but it should be tamed so it doesn't drag the plot. Dialogue is the magic bullet in all action, thriller, or personal feeling stories. Dialogue shows the reader by opening up life and letting you participate in the protagonists struggles.

Can you imagine how quickly a story about Einstein would melt into boring documentary as a narration, although, there have been several very heart felt stories written about him in first person and third person dialogue showing you his life. Sorry, I seem to hitting on physicists in this piece.

Editors will also tell you that a story has a momentum, a pulse, a feeling of undulation that makes it more powerful. If not there, or erratic, it throws the reader off or may cause them to put down the book and do other things. To me, a lot of this is editor paranoia, the fear of low sales, but the point should be looked at as a writer and changed if you feel it too.

So, how do you control the fast pace of dialogue and the slow stretches of narration? Think about it five minutes and you can answer your own question.

By paying attention you realize the two oppose each other, therefore, balance them for effect. When you need to slow the story, use narration or internal monologue. When the story's excitement is what you are striving to achieve, use dialogue with minimum interference of attributions. Arrange scenes to minimize characters present so the dialogue can fly.

Check out any Michael Crichton novel (Jurassic Park, Prey, etc.). When the characters are being chased by beasts or bugs, the dialogue screams, rarely stops for breath, you’re on the edge of your seat and eyes bulging. But you can’t sustain that or you’d give the reader a heart attack. (I’ve actually had to stop reading and get a glass of water. His stories scar me to death.) Notice - go on, read one and see what I’m talking about - he skillfully places a narrative chunk that slows the pace by explaining things, sometimes with passive dialogue and some just narration. But it sooths the reader, and at the same time it sets up the reader for the next slap in the face action.

This rollercoaster ride is why people are thrilled with his stories. Like great composers that work music into a constant undulation of sound and rhythm, writers must learn to do the same.

What is your approach to Writing

2008-09-02T19:53:00.000-07:00

My method of writing starts with a title (I used to be a songwriter, so that's natural). I have to have a premise to write a story, but that's not a problem since every day or two lightning strikes me and I write down the message from the angel in my possible stories file. I then construct a scene, some kind of place, a stage if you will, to run the characters around on. By this time the main character is apparent. I love names, so the name has to fit the character. What is happening here is a building layer-by-layer process. The burst of writing is exciting for me. I go until I hit a fork in the road at neck break speed. Diet Dr. Pepper with pomegranate juice - my idea of a health drink, fuels the process. Oh, and Snicker bars.

This fork usually has a boogieman in the woods with a bead drawn on me. I sometimes have to pause and contemplate a lot of navels to break the spell by outlining possible outcomes. By this time I'm in another world. The story has sprung a life of its own. The story owns me and I just try to hang on.

I love the computer, because of the instant access to many references. If I hit a wall and don't know what something is or the "real" definition of a word or who Mary Queen of Scot's husband was - that sort of thing. I start the Wiki-this-or-that until I have a million Notepad files of information. Probably enough for several more stories, but we must be disciplined and return to job one.

It takes me about four months to write 70,000 words and do a couple of rewrites. Six months tops. I don't go beyond that size because if you self-publish, the cost of the book gets too high.

I don't write and drive at the same time. I don't own a cell phone, and the kids in my family are gone and married off, so the distractions, are as you might say, all my own doing. The last story I put aside, since it’s not published yet, I've been sitting on it to see if something else will hatch. I have a couple of folks reading it for a reaction. It's like water witching to see if a spring can be found. This time, I got so antsy; I started another story and am about two-thirds of the way through it.

I find it a pleasurable diversion to get interrupted, because it's not healthy to spend so much time at a computer. I never worry about coming back to it later. I've even stopped in mid-sentence and come back a day later and picked up where I left off. In fact, these stories can become a neurotic issue, invading my dreams or instead of humming in the shower, I'll stand there staring at the wall in another world planning out how the next chapter is going to go. It's like a seizure.

I don’t know if this rattletrap is of any use to anyone, but it is my typical pattern. I can’t storyboard a plot and have it work. I have to let the story talk to me, like a refugee that just crossed over a wall from a war torn region, staring up in desperation - you gotta believe me. Of course I do, I amaze easy. I’ll listen to any demented muse.

Sink or Swim

2008-09-01T08:41:00.000-07:00

With all the discussion about the elections and government in general, we have an insecurity that has developed from what we’ve seen in the past, but let’s look at what’s happening in New Orleans right now. Two million people were successfully evacuated. That’s impressive, and this time they registered them as they left so their families can find them, the levees are holding, the pumps are running, it’s all good. The hospitals evacuated early and the sandbags went in before the storm got ahead of them. Hoorah for New Orleans! The politicians and the government functioned admirably.

There is going to be destruction from this storm, no doubt, but the embarrassing lackluster performance of the past has been averted. What I am saying is maybe we should give the politicians and the big government agencies applause this time. Thanks - job well done.

John Wolf
JohnWolfBooks.com
FoxandQuill.com

Spellbound

2008-08-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

Did you hear Sarah Palin's acceptance speech for Vice President? No? You missed a historical moment. Erase those Olympics videos, get the TiVo ready, this woman is going to be hot- well, she’s already is that, but the Republicans have pulled off a triple whammy with Sarah. Her son signed up for the Army on September 11, her husband is a oil blue collar union guy, she cleaned out corruption in Alaska, she is a oil advocate and green energy promoter, and, and she blew Hillary Clinton out of the water AND will take her women voters with her to the elections. Genius!

Oil - the ultimate slippery slope

2008-08-24T15:23:00.000-07:00

More sadly, Georgia is just a pawn. I believe Russia will use this invasion as a lever to try to get us to remove the missile sites in Poland. At least their ego would be stroked. They suffer from penis envy and harbor the same attitudes that Germany did after WWI. They feel humiliated and would like to see the old empire put back together again. As they gain the power to be powerful, they will do as their leaders egos direct - ours did. Mr. Bush had his little war totally against all logic. Why, because he could.

I didn't realize until just recently how Russia's oil has sparked such a huge rebuilding that is parallel to Shanghai and other places in the Middle East where this oil money does amazing things. Of course, another strong motivation is the competitive nature of mankind to take advantage of the situation. As speculators shoot the price up, only those with large quantities gain. While America stands in the bog of its self-righteousness, the rest of the world really doesn't care about polar bears and spotted owls. They see the opportunity to knock the big guy off his block while the prices are high. They are more green with envy than caring about a greener world. They want it all just like we have had in the past and our dilly-dallying around with no oil reserves we are willing to use or drill for to keep the price down has given a green light to all those that have the black stuff.

We are just now starting to realize, he who has the most barrels of oil on the dock wins. Oil just doesn't fuel SUVs. It is essential in thousands of industrial processes, medicine, and plastics. It really is a stupid policy to avoid oil because it's gooey. Find ways to deal with the polluting aspect, but don't assume that pumping from someone else's backyard is keeping us clean. This short-sightedness is going to flush our standard of living down the commode.

Wealth and knowledge power nations and while we do things to devaluate our dollar and watch others take advantage of that, and at the same time, out of foolish bragging rights, taut our knowledge to the world - see what we can do - they look, listen, and use that knowledge to walk away from us. Giving away modern technology to foreign nations is equivalent to giving them the keys to Fort Knox. The value of our nation will be diluted to the backwaters of history. At some point, places like China won’t need our markets. They will have market aplenty in their own backyard.

I find it appalling that we don’t notice that country after country is taking our technology and using it to become powerful nations. It’s just not China. Japan and Korea are still hot spots. India and certainly the Middle East in countries like Dubai, not to mention Russia. It took Japan less than twenty years to go from feudal nation to a modern industrial giant. The next in line will be even faster. The lessons are already in print. The blueprints are for sale. The means to these ends are generously on display on the Internet. If you have money, you can buy power. You can even build an A-bomb from how-to books. You just need the money to build the equipment to separate the chemicals.

We pride ourselves on putting our future in the hands of God. We believe in faith, what will be will be. Balderdash, remember God made oil. If we can't see how to cleverly deal with the world, the world is not going to sit by and share its knowledge with us. It's going to run over us with it.

John Wolf
JohnWolfBooks.com
FoxandQuill.com

Mother Russia's Abortion

2008-08-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning (15 August, 2008) to the speech by Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili defying the Russian invasion into his country. I was so impressed by a western political leader standing up for the ideals that we that are farther west are so proud of, but only give lip service. This man has balls. He points out the fact that barbarian behavior has not gone away in the world. The warrior class is still here. The sick minds that brought us misery for the last 100 years are still trying to justify their madness by forcing their will on free people. It’s time to put down the éclairs and lick the chocolate from our finger tips and give this man applause.

The red, white, and blue of the Russian flag is fading back to blood red with the hammer and sickle once again, which really captures the moment doesn’t it. The hammer and sickle is not an agricultural symbol; it’s a means to maim innocent people.

Most of this aggression is fueled by honor. From Ivan the Terrible and Catherine the Great to Putin the Angry, it’s all about Mother Russia and the glory of the State. Phooey, there is no honor in arrogance, no honor in being a bully. What the West realized after WWI was honor equates to masculinity at the State level and that causing humiliation lit the fuse for WWII. Helping German rebuild after the war was probably a wise move to avoid another angry backlash in the future. Unfortunately, masculinity also equates to getting even. We need a sign.

This same day the price of oil is dropping, the value of the dollar is raising, the stock market is up, and the price of gold and silver falling. If I were an astrologer, I would see something relevant in these stars aligning.

I feel that free people everywhere can be motivated by this unlikely man in a tiny country to see that his country’s situation is really a microcosm of the world situation. Are we going to let the barbarians corner us again? I believe it is time for the West to embrace the Ukraine and all the other neighbors around Russia to send a clear message - thugs who run countries are going to be replaced.

This time America needs the world to stand up and not just let us face this monster alone. Europe has to see the long shadow forming from the east. We have our hands full with other barbarian souls in the deserts of the cradle of civilization - what a misnomer that is.

That’s my opinion - what’s yours?

The Day My City Burned – Firestorm 2007

2007-10-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

Here I sit determined to issue my November newsletter with detracting flashes of orange and red fireballs lapping at the windows, blasts of heat from marching flames, bent on a relentless attack of the citizens of San Diego County. Fires surged for miles and miles, starting in the rolling countryside of Ramona, California, a lovely place in the peaceful foothills to retire and grow horses – so we thought.

This is the second time in four years that wildfires mocked our usual casual disregard for earthquakes, the nationally known California malady. It seems that when high pressure centers over Nevada it casts and evil spell over Southern California in the form of high velocity, hot winds from the east. Once we reached 4% humidity or less, the brush explodes. There is some sinister plot to all of this, some shadowy specter that delights in fire, like some crazed arsonist. This time the fires broke out in several places from Malibu, through San Bernardino, down through the back country east of San Diego, all the way to the border of Mexico and beyond. It had orders to march to the coast and burn everything in sight, driven by hurricane level winds.

I sat for hours staring at the TV, watching the evading army’s front lines advance into our lands and reflected on various cultures that have had their Huns and Cossacks burn their way through their villages over the course of history. Certainly the Poles know what it’s like. So have the many in Afghanistan, Iraq, and most of Africa. The fire bombing of Japan in World War II was terrifying for a culture that lived in wood and paper houses. The people of Dixieland when Sherman marched to the coast certainly felt the horror.

You know the event unfolding before you is serious when it can be seen on Google maps drawn from satellite images in outer space. When smoke and ash reach out into the Pacific close enough to Hawaii to hear Ukuleles, it’s big. Sometimes it overpowers you and tears well up, fear catches in your throat, and you ask yourself, when will it end?

The amazing bright spot in all of this was the reaction of the citizens of San Diego. They said to themselves as they awoke to smoke filled eyes and a horizon lined with flames, we are not going to let this become our Katrina; we will not stand by and watch our citizens suffer. The evacuation centers were a model of what can happen when those that made it through unscathed, reach out and help their neighbors in need. The outpouring of food and common needs to comfort was remarkable. Even teachers, musicians, and hospital care givers arrived on the scene as those displaced poured into parking lots of the evacuation centers to be there for the children and older citizens that arrived with a dazed look in their eyes. Dozens of semitrailer trucks with common brand names painted on the side, circled their wagon around their people, all donated from private sources, not the government. Maybe mankind has some hope yet.

Is it a coincidence that each time these fires happen, it occurs in October, on the eve of Halloween? I don’t mean to scare you, but I don’t think so. Remember the big fire started in Witch Creek Canyon. Halloween is evil’s celebration dance for rotten deeds done to the innocent. When I hand out candy to those pint sized, cheerful little demons this season, I won’t forget that the specter is watching from a limb of a tree, leering down saying, “You may have foiled me this time, but October rolls around once a year – beware.”

Quote of the day...

2007-09-24T08:28:00.001-07:00

John Wolf quote - "The thing I like most about being over the hill, is the view from here is so beautiful."I've been trying to get people to go along with my offbeat view of life for a long time. Most don't get it. It's sad in a way that humans are so serious about their significance to the universe. I'm more like my dog; I just enjoy being scratched behind my ears.

Conjecture 6

2007-09-16T10:48:00.000-07:00

I will be selling my books at the Conjecture 6 conference in San Diego, Sept 28, 29 & 30th at the Crowne Plaza Hotel (the old Hanalai) on hotel circle. Come out and see me and get an autographed book.

The focus of the conference is Alien Cultures - concepts and visualizations of how space alien beings might look and act based on scientific reasoning. The lectures should be rather interesting.

Since I hearld from Roswell, New Mexico, this could be an opportunity to talk shop with the aliens themselves.

See ya there.

How Do Writer's Become Topic Experts

2007-07-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

Getting in tune with the universe you want to write about is critical to being believed, but you really shouldn't become a heroine addict, just to get the lifestyle down pat. Anyone writing about current times, or the past, must do their research to avoid ridicule by readers; but you can be successful, within an acceptable margin of error, by reading what others have written about the subject, life style, or locations. Or you could do what I do and place your story in the future and invent your own history.

It certainly is a challenging endeavor to get close enough to lives portrayed in a story to be believable, if you haven’t been through it yourself. One way to gain insight without actually doing the backbreaking work is to talk to those who have. I suggest you do your family’s genealogy. Interview all the older folks you can, especially those closest to you and your parents. They will be the most forthcoming with a meaningful discussion. When they mention they use to be a typesetter on a local newspaper to earn money after high school, pursue that topic, and ask the detailed questions that give you information that you would have to otherwise get your fingers burnt to find out about. Write down these golden nuggets of information for future reference. Compile a glossary of “How it’s done” terms. This is also a good way to prevent future writer’s block. When you wander through your notes, visions of these people pop to mind and inspire fresh ideas.
You don’t have to believe in reincarnation or better yet, be able to remember all your past lives to gain this uber-knowledge, beyond your actual experience; but you can hedge your bets with good old fashion forensic approach to the subject and become an topic expert.

Big Switch UP

2007-07-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

The current news is the Wolf Tracks Music site has been renovated, replaced by JohnWolfBooks.com to be more specific to visitors that come searching for the adventure tales. "Orphan Records" and "A Dark and Stormy Knight" are in second editions now. I really appreciate the terrific support people that have read the books have given me. I have learned from it, and I have responded. This, of course, influenced the writing in the third book, "Harmonics," which is getting nice reviews both on Infinity's site, BBOTW.com and Amazon - thanks guys.

Where do we go from here? I woke up in the middle of night with a new idea for a story that will be a contemporary mystery. I was inspired by a name that came to me after finding out what the words meant in Swahili. I had to write what this guy would be and what he might do – he will be a crafty antagonist for sure. I’d love to tell you about now, but then what would be the point of writing the book?

If you get a chance, checkout the latest Fox & Quill issue on the new site at:

http://johnwolfbooks.com/books/FoxQuill/index.htm

I have been placing some short stories in various issues. The August issue will have a story about the Orbiting Space Station you might enjoy. It even gave me the creeps reading it. September will have a story about issue at the Mexican border – it’s not what you might expect – hee hee.

Beat the Heat

2007-06-08T16:58:00.000-07:00

With all the doomsday prophets talking up global warming and another massive, deadly hurricane season approaching, I have to get jittery. Here in Southern California the days are smoothing out to our usual 70 degree days and upper 50s, lower 60s nights. The sea breeze pulls in the delicate fragrance of Eucalyptus oil as the long slender leaved trees push back gently. I don't know about you, but life isn't fun if you listen to the news. I conserve, I don't indulge, so cut me a break. I trust Mother Nature to take care of herself. If that means a major slap-down of the human race - you go girl. It's not like we don't deserve it. At least the wars would stop for awhile as we all figure out how to grow a garden and dig a latrine. I just published my third book, a science fiction story told from the point of view of a bass player in a rock band in the year 2162, so, hey, maybe we will get there. I'm too busy trying to plan a marketing season to worry if Barnes&Noble is going to be hit by terrorists tonight. Before the dog days of this summer get here, check out this new story. It will get you through the hurricanes, the terrorist, and any pirates coming up from the Caribbean. Here’s the path – “wolftracksmusic.com/books” The story is called “Harmonics.” Have a great summer – turn off the news.

Rest easy, the Palladium Queen has landed.

2007-06-05T11:33:00.000-07:00

It's been along time coming but my new book "Harmonics" is on the street.
Here's the cover:

If you are wondering, you're looking at Jarkard Station on Mars, an outpost for the Planetary Products mining company and tourist destination for cruise ships from Las Vegas, baby.

The story has more than one plotline, but focuses on the lifestyle of a rock band that plays this gig on the run to the Red Planet. The drug of choice for these rockers is DNA shifters that gives you odd skin textures and hair patterns. It's so much cooler than current trends. We're talking 2162, not that far in the future, but music is mostly synthsized for psychological compatibility. This is the story of the only rock band in the universe that still plays vintage equipment and songs from the 60s, 70s, and 80 from a couple of hundred years ago.

What the tourist or the band expects is stowaways that are going to wreck their day, being that are on a mission to go home. Home being Mars. Yes, there was life on Mars, and it's coming back!

Hope you enjoy the new pile of pulp. Let me know how the story hits you. If you want the book now, go to the publisher's site (www.BuyBooksOnTheWeb.com) and key in "Harmonics" or go to my web site and start clicking buttons ("JohnWolfBooks.com"). There's a bunch of excepts and bio blurb there that's new to this issue.

Later,
The Wolf-man

Starting out 2007 with a Brand New Coat

2007-04-30T16:08:00.000-07:00

The web site got a major makeover, due mainly to buying a book on style sheets - wow. That's the way to go. Also, I was fortunate enough to lob onto a copy of Adobe's new suite of software to develop web sites - wow again. I spent a lot of time learning the basics of Photoshop. That took a conference and a couple of books as well.

Take a look for yourself - Brand New Coat for the site at:
http://www.wolftracksmusic.com/books

Also, my fellow authors that publish with Infinity Publishing are getting organized. We are link-swapping on each other's sites to establish a broader Internet base and serve the readers. There is great diversity among those listed as Noteworthy Authors.

Also, the Fox & Quill newsletter/eMag/blog-like publication I do from the web site is back. Instead of a massive emailing, I let the readers come to the site and peruse the newsletter. Commenting back is supported. But the main concept is, this is a place where authors can vent, provide valid observation, and participate within a community of fellow authors. Come on in, the water's fine.

This has also been a busy year teaching at a local university. I have been doing classes online for a while now. The fingers, oh the fingers, I don't know if my hands will survive all this typing, which is the curse of death for a writer!

Books: Two things to report. "Orphan Records" is in second edition now. I added a chapter to explain a rather large train wreck. I originally left it to the reader's imagination, and then I got called on the carpet and ask to provide the details. It really is a major wreck. I also cleaned up some character descriptions to make a couple of dudes more accessible. There were several adjustments to sentence structure. It's all a big learning curve for me, and hopefully, provides a better read for future readers. (Now I have to go around and swap books in various libraries - Ugh.)

Also, the third novel is just about to hit the streets. It's called "Harmonics" and is about a band of rock 'n' rollers that play a cruise ship gig. They run into some dramatically difficult problems. You see the cruise is from Earth to Mars and back in the year 2162, and a couple of stowaway mutants are on a pilgrimage back to Mars. These guys are the original inhabitants, who genetic makeup on Earth was modified by DNA shifts, nuclear events, and other ill-fated experiences that left them in a genus that was originally found on Mars, at least a million years ago. Now they want to go home and stake a claim. But there are humans in the way. See the conflict? The band just wants to play, but they become embroiled in the venture. The actions is back on Earth in Las Vegas, the departure point, on Mars, where Planetary Products doesn’t welcome competition, and during the flight out and back without becoming space dust.

Let me know how you like the new coat for the web site.
Wolf-man out...

Booking Signing coming up

2006-08-31T10:37:00.000-07:00

I will be at the Rancho Penaquitos Library on Saturday, 16 September at 1 p.m. Be there for an autographed copy and discussion on the writer's life. To get there take hiway 15 and get off at Black Mountain Rd going north, up two streets to Paseo Montalbon, turn right. Then up two streets to Salmon River, turn right and go past the police station parking lot. The library is a reddish colored, angular buidling on the corner. Hope to see you there.

High Adventure in the Middle Ages

2006-08-31T10:22:00.000-07:00

Life goes on with my second book, "A Dark and Stormy Knight." I know, it sounds funny, but people liked the name, so it stuck. This is another sci-fi adventure, but with a twist. It is set in England in the middle ages when England's Elizabeth was not keen on marriage. Who could help her? Afterall, her father was Henry the VIII. A time traveling knight, dispatched from the Universal Time Office was sent to make sure history played out according to the master plan. England must have its heir to the throne. Our knight is determined to help Mary Queen of Scots have her day in court - unfortunately that was a court for treason, but England did gets its heir, no doubt from the adventures of this clever knight. Every form of evil is there to stop him. Will his mission succeed?

Check it out at: http://wolftracksmusic.com/books

Cyber War - low body count

2006-03-05T10:00:00.000-08:00

I've written an action novel that has a major cyber war as a central theme. Check it out and let me know your reactions. http://www.wolftracksmusic.com/books/index.htm