When the Thrill is Gone....

    You're excited about the book rolling around in your brain. (For me it's more like a bag of rocks in a dryer on HIGH) Notes everywhere, an outline maybe fills the pages of a spiral notebook. Compelling images of characters and their plight, or, hero escapades  play and replay in your mind. [You've done your research so some expert doesn't call you an idiot when the book comes out.] Finally, the moment comes when you sit down to begin composing your breakout novel, the book that will make you a household name and put an Escalade in the driveway.
You are inspired and thrilled to be a writer.
You wonder if it will be good enough as you slog through the sentences, paragraphs and pages, but you press on. The family, in the next room, is listening to Wheel of Fortune. They have no idea what the agony of artistic endeavor does to a future bestselling author such as yourself. But, in their ignorance, you love them anyway.
Your drifting. Back to the writing Einstein.....
Are you adding the elements the writing books and blogs and author vids you've read and watched tell you to? Have you practiced enough? Is this book practice? WHAT?
Commas. Dear God, watch the commas, and SHOW Don't Tell!
Make sure you ratchet up the tension like Donald Maass says in his great books on writing fire and creating breakout novels.
Right. Got it.
Modifiers, verbs and adverbs. Ok, I was absent that day.....
AND you don't want the story to appear too amateurish so you read aloud and look for rhythm, or rather LISTEN for rhythm. Gotta have rhythm....Side margins, double spacing, oh yeah.
Do I need cover art with some good looking young guy with killer abs and a haircut like the singer from Def Leopard, on the cover? Sure. Even if it's a story about redoing the driveway? Absolutely.

Bio. ( for the back cover)
 Can I use a photo of myself just after I woke up or do I need one that makes me look like an accountant with a "edge"? How about the one I took awhile back, you know, with a hip three day growth and pissed off look? Works for me....

Moving right along.

Occasionally, as you labor at the really noisy keyboard you peek through the grungy blinds to see if the news crews are stationing themselves in your yard yet, in anticipation of the book of the decade. Nope. Not yet. But they will.....
Hour after hour, day after day you write, and write, and write. You try not to go back and revise the previous chapters, but you do sometimes. Some mornings you dread sitting down at the computer, you just don't feel the "mojo" and no one will notice anyway, right? Yes, right.
Sometimes you wonder if you'll pull this off, if you have what it takes, then you read a runaway bestseller and think to yourself: Yeah, HELL NO..... 
Not knowing what else to do you plow forward through rain and sleet and hail and snow. (cue the soundtrack from the film Exodus please....someone...)
As the words and chapters pile up, you sneak a look by reading what you've written thus far and realize this novel is taking form, shape. A story, a really good one is unfolding from your finger tips.
Suddenly one day you understand. You get it. Yes, it's work, maybe even hard labor. But something now pulls you forward. Something else.
Someone from the living room yells; "Watermelon Festival in Iowa!" in answer to a "phrase" puzzle on WOF. Pat Sajak, in the background, almost sounds as if he's even interested in his own show.
You smile and refocus.
Forged in the furnace of fire you are.
When your daughters psychotic kitten leaps onto the keyboard erasing 3 hours of work in an instant and then you twist your knee trying to catch the little sh....darling...to rationally discuss the matter.
Yes grasshoppa......Forged like iron you will be.

True, the initial thrill is gone....but it has been replaced by a steel will and confidence borne of determination, a new and better kind of thrill. The willingness to do the "work" is something you now are a partaker of.
For love of the game....or craft....or art....is why you do it.  Not the thrill. Not the thrills that you once did it for, anyway. They are now gone. You don't even look in the rear-view anymore. Your lazer gaze is now fixed on the writers road, ahead to the horizon. You grit your teeth and smash the gas pedal.
The awareness that you may be way to theatrical crosses the mental field of vision like a rabbit darting across the interstate, but you dismiss it, allowing yourself a little useless drama and paying no attention to the puffs of fur coming from under the back end of the car as you zoom onward.
Amused, you sculpt the novel of your dreams, word by word and page by page.
The thrill isn't gone....you smile knowingly.....

You know where to find me....

LUVU

Indie Bookstores, eBooks and Google Books

I've been looking into, (since Indie Book Stores will always have a place in my heart and upper billing on my activist list,) into the idea and upcoming trend of IBS's having an eBook list for readers who may still want to read and buy their books via the various "reader" formats. Here's an example: Book Hampton You can find them on Twitter too: Book Hampton on Twitter
The folks at this venerable store in one of America's most beautiful spots tell me they are on the "list" for Google Books and hope to be "live" by summer. As, I'm sure the book sellers in your area might, or at least should be. You may want to inquire as to when!
I feel strongly about this because maybe like you I do not want to see the brick and mortar bookstores get plowed under by the digital wave sweeping through the publishing industry and this may be the way to help keep them alive, while being genuinely price competitive. And, the real fact of the matter is that they don't have to be. Online it's a matter of buying from your book seller and of course, pricing. Right - we all get that, but if we have a choice the let's make the choice to support indie book stores too!
Google, believe me when I tell you, from what I've researched, plans to give their vendors the ability to give Amazon a run for their money in every index. If anyone can do it, it's Google Books. The major publishing houses are no doubt planning their new market models as we speak and will plot their continued 80% market dominance. Count on it. Amazon, well, Amazon will always be Amazon but so is Barnes and Noble, legitimate competitors in the eBook marketplace and having the vision and foresight to launch their own wildly successful reader, the "Nook", which is doing very well. You can also get these readers for your PC or Laptop if you don't have a reader yet. Google Books already has the downloads on their page for ALL the readers in the upper toolbar, including PC, as choices for the book buyer.
Many top selling authors are already publishing in ebook formats, including the traditionally published ones, including updating their backlists to re-enter the sales march. A good example is JA Konrath JA 's website make sure you click on "blog" in the upper left sidebar and scroll down to his wed. March 2nd posting. VERY GOOD INFO! He's also on Twitter: JA Konrath on Twitter  He is an "indie author", as is Amanda Hocking Amanda Hocking , another indie superstar, in terms of sales and trail blazing for ALL authors.
Here's the link for Google eBookstore : Google eBookstore Most of the authors I searched for are there with either direct links to a sales checkout on Google or a link to a list of sales sites like B & N, Amazon, etc. The list is growing on Google eBooks for store fronts that offer all the books and authors you like, hopefully soon your fav brick and mortar bookstore will be there too so you can buy and read books how and when you want to and still support indie book stores.
I also love the idea that in your Google account, it will store all your books so you can access them on any device anytime anywhere. Like I said, I think Google has a good plan and I expect them to grab more market share very soon but the thing is, for me, this vision also includes ALL the ways we can buy books. Since in my area there is no indie book store I have been using B & N online and at the store in the mall and may still till I find a small book store to support around here or maybe online like the one I mentioned up top, but YOU can get involved, if you're of a mind to, and, who knows you may see your own book on the shelf and in an online store you helped support too.
More on Google Books and Google eBookstore and what Indie Authors are and will be listed on it, also IF and HOW, in an upcoming blog post. I have contacted a few indie authors and Google so I can put this all together for you and as an author, for myself.
Keep up with Indie Author trends here too: The Indie Book Collective You can follow the books and careers of several indie author stars there and the means they are using to promote indie books and authors, just follow the link to their site and go from there. One of the founders, Carolyn, has a #1 Kindle eBook called "30 Pieces of Silver" so trust me these ladies know what they're doing.
More soon on all this stuff and the latest updates as I break new ground as an author and make my way down "The Writers Road"

You know where to find me....
LUVU

About this letter.....

I'm still working on my next official blog post about  my thoughts as I view the changing landscape of the publishing world and how it pertains to writers. Also a post on eBooks and how your deal with agents and publishers might change, and, what the money breakdown will be, or should be Trying NOT to rehash the zillions of other informational opinions on the countless writer and publishing industry blogs, I will as always, apply my views as I see them playing out in my own journey down "The Writers Road".

This piece below is something that appeared recently on Angie's Diary, a cool writer site you may be familiar with. This new and improved version still has not been proofed or edited by a professional.
I will be discussing it in my writers group soon but I wanted to put it up here on my blog in the meantime as a sample of an exercise in translation. The hard part was to write it in such a way as to sound like a regular guy not a writer writing it, yet still have a polished flow.
Maybe you'll take a moment to look it over and, if anything, let me know what you think.

It's a "letter", a story within a story from a dying man to his wife who passed away tragically when they were young parents. Years later, terminally ill, he writes this letter to her asking her to wait for him at this spot, their spot, a place on the shoreline, yet again. I hope you like it. I will be coming back to it every now and then to rework it. There are some things about it I do not like, others that I do and I think it's worth fine tuning. What do you think? I also want to say that this piece is total fiction other than the fact that I did turn to someone and speak those words on the backstairs of our apartment on a sunny summer afternoon by the beach many years ago when we were young. I am, to this day, happy that I took my own advice and hold forever in my heart of hearts those beautiful golden exciting days of my youth because they in fact never did come again. Sometimes, in the storms of life we cling to memories of days that once were, we treasure moments that 'may never come again'....
You know where to find me.

 LUVU


__________________________________________________________________________________


Letter to a Friend



Hi ,
Life here on earth hasn't changed much  since last we spoke. How stupid of me I thought, to write a letter to someone who would never receive it. I can almost hear you laugh even now as  I scribble on this paper.
Do you remember that summer afternoon when we were young and sitting on the back stairs where we lived by the beach? I turned to you and said, "Treasure these moments, they may never come again." Never in a million years did we think that they wouldn't and we kept on living till one of us didn't.
To this day I don’t know what made me say that. I've agonized with guilt over the years thinking I somehow caused what happened by speaking such a thing. You would have told me that I didn't, that such things will happen and we should go on as best we can. How desperately over the years have I needed to hear you say that.
You loved this spot by the water. I'm here now, writing this letter sitting on the coral rock we sat on where I first kissed you and where I asked you to marry me. It destroys and renews me at the same time to come but I still do. Our babies are so much like you and have grown up to have babies of their own. I see so much of you in all of them. I'm not sure if I've done a good job with our girls but they're beautiful and happy. I tried my best to raise them the way you would have. I brought pictures, if only you could see them. Maybe you can.
Sometimes laying in bed at night in the stillness I swear I feel you breathing on my neck and your heart beating against my back. I’ve dreamed of slow dancing with you in the moonlight till the sun came up like we did on our honeymoon. I never told you this but I needed you far more than you needed me but you probably already knew that.
The moments have seemed to slow in their passing, accompanied only by the thunder of silence but it's alright because there is no sound I want to hear now other than your voice.
It feels like I'm slipping away from this life and if I am then it means I'm getting closer to you and I‘m okay with that.
The doctor says I don't have long so I wanted to let you know and to ask you to wait here for me like you did the night I asked you to marry me and I was two hours late. When I finally got here you were waiting for me on this rock. Friends always wait for friends, you said smiling.
I never told you the truth about that because I was worried you would come to your senses and never want to marry me. I was so nervous I lost the ring and it took me and half the city to find it. Actually it was old Mrs. Murphy's poodle who found it on the side of the road in front of her house. Classic. I left it on the roof of the car when I took my jacket off. I was always in a hurry to get to you. I still am.
You told me once that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all and if you truly love then you can never lose. You were right. You were always right. I still consider myself the luckiest man in the world to have been so loved.

There’s much more to tell you but it can wait till we're together again. Joni's husband Mikey is here to help me to the car so I'll close this letter. He's a nice boy, you'd like him. He reminds me a lot of me when I was young, maybe a little smarter.
Wait for me here, I’ll see you soon.

                                      All my love always ,

__________________________________________________________________________________

Sweet Inspiration and other phantom mysteries...

Here's the link to a guest post I recently had come out on Rich Evans Writes
His latest book is "Asylum Lake", click around on his site you'll see other authors posts and good articles.
He's on Twitter and Facebook too. The links are there.

In a day  or two I will be posting here again, I'm working on a piece for struggling writers to try to make sense of "the writers road" to publication. For many, it will be the "indie" road, maybe for me too, we'll see. Still, traditional or indie published we, as 21st Century authors, need to be aware of our responsibilities and options when it comes to promoting ourselves and our work, and there's a LOT you can do.
Let me be clear about ONE thing first though, it's this: I am NOT one who advocates blitzkrieg type self promotion on any level, online or off. First of all 99% of the world doesn't give a damn who you are and the 1% who may, well, be aware - you're putting yourself out there fighting for their time attention and money alongside thousands of others who will be too. Your mother and aunt lucy might think the world of you but the "world" doesn't even know you - YET. A big fish in a small pond is a small fish in an open ocean but you still need to survive and eat and learning to do that is what this blog is all about.
There is NO turn-key "marketing" plan out there either, I don't care what you've heard or read or ANYONE tells you although if you follow successful authors you WILL see a pattern. YOU are YOU and only you can be you. The main thing to understand is this is an industry unique in the fact that, yes, it's about money, Thank GOD, but at the same time one of the very very few in a modern world where emphasis is placed and respect is given with genuine sensitivity to craftsmanship, substance and creativity. Not to mention the fact that authors enjoy the role of relating the worlds values and image to itself in a way as old as humans have been on the earth. There is NO other industry like it, and make no mistake it IS an industry, and all this term implies.
For me, attaining a high level of skill in the art of story-telling and the craft of writing is something I am deadly serious about, not overly serious but still focused in the right things and directions.
This is our lives we're talking about here, not just our professional aspirations but our donation of precious time, sweat and tears - without measure.
Next month I have a couple radio appearances and a few guest blog sessions I hope you'll take the time to read and listen to. I've been very blessed to have made friends in this industry with writers and great human beings I would have respect for even if they weren't writers, and if I end up selling a lot of books it will be directly due to the extension of their gracious hands.
My history and background may not matter in the big scheme of things but the sum of my experiences here on earth  have given me an edge and perspective I hope to infuse into my work, my writing, and give depth and dimension to my characters and plots. I hope the same for you. Don't ever try to be anyone else, be who you are and find your own way, keeping in mind the outlines of this business. Good is good and great is great when it comes to writing, as it is in other pursuits in life and your aspirations are simply the beginning of a marathon you better train for and be willing to endure, but be joyful always if and when you are counted as one of the many in the venerable trade. I do and always will.
The ditches on the roadside of life are filled with the wreckage of broken dreams. Look if you must at the tragedy but don't look too long.
We all have dreams and no one knows for sure why some achieve them and others don't and my hope is for anyone reading this to see yours fulfilled in due time. And this, the most precious of all of life's gifts - time - is the very thing no one is guaranteed, so make the most of it and - treasure these moments for they may never come again.
You know where to find me.....

LUVU

A little perspective...

A quick update, an overdue post on what I'm up to lately.

     As many of you know I'm active in the blogosphere and in social media, mostly Twitter and Facebook. I read and follow dozens of writerly blogs and publishing industry websites and I try to keep up on the latest news and information as it pertains.
An interesting perspective has formed in my little brain that I wanted to ramble about today.
  
     Firstly, I've made some great friends in the past and also more recently thanks to social media, and, by contributing to and interacting with numerous writer and writer's blog sites in support of my fellow writers and their efforts. Something I am sincere about.
 Many editors, agents and publishers I follow offer their opinions and advice freely in well done blogs and on awesome websites. I've noticed tightly knit communities in these fields as well. I also follow closely several of the cutting edge tech and SEO type sites, like Hubspot, Mashable, Technorati, Digital Book World and a few others. Being both a techie and a writer, for me, these two worlds easily blend together in some ways, and yet, in others they don't.
I wanted to talk today about the ways they don't.

     Let me ask you something: How do you act, think, feel and treat people you're close to, like friends, family, relatives, or even colleagues? Is the bond or connection for you personal and emotional or does it lean more to a business or marketing mentality, or is it a bit of both? And, is it  the same or different from the way you speak to and think about and interact with clients, customers and business associates or others you don't know so well?
What? You might be asking right now.
Here's what I see every single day as I zoom around the internet touching base with friends and fellow writer friends, writer sites, tech sites and just about everywhere else. I see the lines blurring between friendships and marketing between people, such as writers, and an odd mentality of association for gain or profit, only, taking the place of basic human trait of people just wanting to be together. Not that this is, (everyone together holding hands skipping through green pastures throwing rose petals in the air and singing,) all I expect or had hoped for the web to be for me or anyone else. Maybe it's because for most people the web and all it's glory and power is so new to them and since 99% of what's on the internet is profit driven, the influence is invasively overt and at the same time subliminal and fuses with people's perception, development and use of the internet. Even to the point of changing how we find, see, interact and treat each other.
It's becoming a capture (site) and convert (to sale) world.

     Back in the early to mid nineties when I got my first computer, the world I knew to be out there was suddenly at my finger tips in living color with real people I could communicate with no matter where in the world they were. I kept in daily touch with a group of scientists stationed in Antarctica who were studying the dispersement and effects of sediment particles(pollution) in the atmosphere. I recall a somber Dr. telling me they had found diesel and other emission carbon particles up to 3 feet down in the older ice pack. This was historical news, very bad news. In those days it was a daily, momentary thrill to be part of something we all knew would soon change the world. I had a tech genius friend and pioneer who would regale us with tall tales of the future of computing and what the computers of tomorrow would and could do.
Awesome stuff since I see his theories and predictions all coming true.
I still see light speed changes and new technology and it's application spreading it's mighty wings every day but I'm troubled by the dis-associative current silently(sometimes not so silently) flowing underneath it all. Maybe you don't, but I do.
One of the world's top marketers does and it has caused him to write about it recently.
I'm not planning to run off and live in a cave or unplug my computers and throw them in the trash.

Being and staying personal on every level, for me, is a priority, not a clever sales or networking technique. It's part of who I am and how I demonstrate my love and respect for people. Being a writer, I enjoy daily emails, Twitter and Facebook communications and comments from lots of different folks. n it's still fun to make new friends too.
Writers are people whose job can be solitary in it's fundamental execution so I see a higher level of understanding and exuberance among them interacting with each other professionally and socially and I really get a kick out that. I hope that never changes.

I just wanted to write a few words about  how I see things lately.
That's it for now, you know where to find me.
                                
                                                              LUVU

I'm writing I'm writing

Usually I take Sunday's off, from writing that is, but yesterday I felt compelled (<--- I get headaches when I use big words....) to finish and tweak a themed short story for an elder care group, so I did, or tried to anyway. We'll see what happens, I hope they and YOU, like it.
While I was online I also did a little networking too.
Today I'm back at it trying to put myself in the poet mood to finish a piece I started last week for a poetry site and do a non-fic piece for one of the new writer sites. 500 words, should be a breeze....yeah right....hopefully I can go back to my second short story, third actually if you count the one I finished yesterday - "Mrs. Murphy Rocks". My first recent effort, a short called "The Magic Whistle" will appear somewhere soon, I'm looking at the best showcase opp's for it.
On Twitter you may find me posting in my usual wise-ass mode or promoting fellow authors, most of whom are a lot further down 'the writers road' than I am, but it's all good since I truly love this biz and the better the writing gets the more fun it becomes and I've made a LOT of good friends both in and out of the writing/publishing community.
Heidi Ayarbe is a great find, she's a YA author with great creds.
Look for me on Goodreads, whether you're a fan of books or an author it's a great place to hang and put your 2 cents in. Readers shouldn't underestimate the value of their input and reviews of books written by authors who are also members of  Goodreads . Alex Berenson, James Patterson and Steven Gore are members.

The fundamentals of writing, for me, have not become second nature yet, though I think about them a lot less these days and focus more on the depth and scope of my own translation, from my mind to the page to your mind. I can't tell how someone will reconstitute the story for themselves but I CAN make sure as much feature is there in tight sentencing. I love writing dialogue, even though, to me, narration and description are just other forms of it and come from a different angle, just not spoken, but "voice" is an element of them all. I love to blabber and oddly, so do my characters. Some of them.
(In real life, whatever that is, I'm more the strong silent type who, secretly, always wanted be Jerry Lewis.)
Blogging has helped me a lot in that department, of voice and the fundamentals that is, and I've written under the pressure of knowing many thousands of people will be reading what I write, so, though they are vastly dis-similar in some ways, yet, in others, they have the same effect on how I go about writing.
I'd better get back to it, before I wear myself out.
I'll see you on Daniel on Twitter or My Facebook Page or Goodreads, and, I'll let you know when something happens with my work and where it will be, in case you want to read it.

LUVU