Into the New Year

Like an old car with a weak battery, I'm hard to crank over when it's cold outside. Once I get started, I can run with the best of them.

The past few weeks have been taken up with research for the books I'm working on and doing the agent hunt dance.

When I get away from the keyboard I've been helping a neighbor repair his barn roof. Which is not exactly the type of activity most people engage in during the winter months. It's more of a spring, summer, fall kind of job, which you don't want to fall down on. Tied to a safety rope while sliding across the 45 degree slope of a 60 year old barn is not a leisurely situation. Sure it's not mountain climbing, but then I'm not living in the mountains.

I'm running roofing screws down through crusty tin and corroded aluminum panels, securing them to weathered wood which is more rot than wood in some places. It's a good thing that I'm not too heavy at this time in my life.

Anyone else might go through the roof. Which as those of you who have experienced the vertigo, acceleration and then abrupt deceleration of any fall knows that it's not how it happens, but what lies between you and the ground that can hurt you.

It's good, old fashioned, physical work and it pays off in keeping me sharp plus giving my balance and muscles a work-out. My 80 year old neighbor appreciates it and it keeps his barn roof together.

Getting my mind off my writing brings me back to the computer refreshed and ready to get on with the project at hand.

Out With the Old and in With the BOLD

People who know me will tell you that I can be a bit, let's be gentle, intense, to say the least.

I have little time and less than enough patience for the routine, much less dull in life. Which is why I chafe at the amount of time and effort it takes to get an agent or a publisher for my writing work.

To say that dealing with the old school version of the publishing world is tedious would be polite on my part. I know that it has good reason to be the way it is. Truly there are many who would want to be published so as to reap fortunes and fame. Myself, I just want to write.

After years of doing other jobs, some of which I was good at, I realized that living your life while doing something you don't love is not a life. It's a job.

So, on into the new year.

Where I will rev up the marketing campaign.

You've been warned.

Have a Happy Holidays, for whatever reason you celebrate this season.

 

The Write Life

The write life is the only life.

How can you not communicate once you learn the form?

I spend many hours per week writing and researching my books, screenplays and other expressions of my thoughts.

Now I have to do that which I do not enjoy, but is a necessity.

Marketing my work.

I've been researching agents, agencies, publishers and the various new forms of publishing available to anyone with the urge to write. Then get it out to the public and hope for it's acceptance as viable entertainment.

To paraphrase Elvis, "Too much talk and not enough action, I can't get no satisfaction."

Wait, there might be a touch of Rolling Stones in there...or did they copy Elvis?

Either way, it's time to take action.

Variety is the spice of Life

And trying to decipher what people are doing in Hollywood or any of the other entertainment capitals of the world is a job in itself.

I've been to the Big Apple, tried on Tinsel Town, worked in Europe and came back here to the hills.

Why?

No matter what, your life is only as good or bad as you make it.

I've done a variety of jobs in my life. All to the best of my ability. Why do shoddy work?

When working for companies or even doing odd jobs for local people, I keep one thing in mind.

If we make a deal, then I will keep it. Sure there are times when circumstances intervene and projects are delayed or outright cancelled. These can be adjusted for and arrangements changed to meet the problem.

It's when I do a job, then get short-changed by someone who thinks that they're conning me that I try to politely deal with the situation.

It could be something as simple as finding out why they think like they do or as complex as trying to enforce a written contract.

If you take my time or my work, that's theft.

No matter how you do it.

Return of Thor (not the movie)

Thor, as in the dog, has returned.

Which to most people doesn't matter, but it's a big deal with my friends and his friends.

He's a popular dog. If allowed to run for political office, he'd win.

Thanks to all the folks at Hardin County animal shelter, Hardin Animal Rescue Transition Team, J&J Tractor Supply and all the good people out there who helped me look for him.

There's nothing worse than a German Shepherd who hates thunderstorms and runs like hell trying to avoid them.

He's calmed down now that's he's back home.

I guess I'll have to put bars on the windows, otherwise, he goes right through them.

We all have our fears, storms are his.

Mark Twain aka Samuel Clemens on Slavery of all types

It's amazing what is written in some books.
Hidden away to jump out at you.
Literary ambush.

I expect to find a sci-fi tale of time travel into the past (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court) but discover that Mr. Clemens has hidden discourses on the stock market, employment, social attitudes and military matters in the book.

Would you be surprised that he's spent many pages on the various forms of slavery?

Mr. Clemens would be disappointed to see our current conditions.

In which slavery has been taken to a new level.

Economic bondage for the majority.

Can I get you a loan for that bauble you desire?

You'll just love the arrangements and it'll only leave you indebted for life.

Slavery without the chains is still bondage.

Colbert Nation vs Amazon Bezos

Oh boy, now they've done it.

Amazon has picked a fight with known authors, like J.K. Rowling and Stephen Colbert.

What were they thinking?

It was OK when they were not recognizing (and paying royalties to)  minor players or even lesser authors like yours' truly, but going after a major power player like J.K. Rowling?

Woe unto thee Mr. Bezos.

Have you crossed the line into territory where you'll not win?

This is going to be interesting, to say the least.

Too bad we can't get the poor workers at Amazon to realize just how bad they're being treated and do something about it.

Mr. Bezos and company may have bitten off more than they can chew this time.