Friday, July 27, 2012

Christmas in July.

Since I usually end up selling one or tow copies of the short story Christmas on the Mesa I have scheduled it for free promotion this weekend starting at midnight Friday night July 27 and running till midnight Monday July 31. If you download a free copy and like it please take the time to give it a short review.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Rough Draft finished

What a week, I finished the first draft of my book which is now using the working title Shade on the Run, plus took care of the day job. I have a few beta readers pouring over the rough draft now and will take the time to work on it when I get their feedback. Until then it is time to go home to the ranch. Friends are coming up from Wyoming and it should be a great time, dogs, kids, food, and a lot of noise. Just before I release the book I will release the short story Shade as a single. That way everyone can read the story that inspired the book. They are separate stories but the short story sets the tone for the rest and explains how some of the characters met in more detail than the book does.
I am finding this discussion going on in the public square about the individual vs the community especially intriguing since it similar to the theme of my book. There are those who live on the Government grid and those who choose not to. While everyone gets help from others it is what the individual does with that help that matters. Yes it is about how smart you are and how hard you work. There are a lot of smart people and a lot of hard working people, but there are also those who don't work smart. Anyone could have taken the Government technology and created Microsoft or Apple, but it was Bill Gates and Steve Jobs that actually did it. I could try to publish all my books using a typewriter and xerox machine, but that isn't working smart. Using the tools available doesn't make anyone's achievements less or does it make them indebted to those who built the tools. If you paid for the use of the tools then what you did with them is your own creation and something to be proud of.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Crazy days of summer.

Well in the trucking side of my life summer is the busy time. Longer hours of daylight means more hours to run and less sitting time. Right now it is even crazier since we have made special plans for my vacation this year. Friends are coming up to the ranch from Wyoming and it promises to be a time of good food, shooting and who knows what else. Just by a stroke of luck it seems that I am on the way to finishing my next book too. So a lot is happening and that is part of the reason my posts here have been so infrequent.
The book is taking on a life of it's own and there are some ideas floating around for the one after that. While this one is a sci-fi dealing with a dystopian future the next one will be a modern day western. It will bring back characters from the short story Christmas on the Mesa and pair them with a veteran suffering with PTSD. It could get interesting and hopefully it will help in some little way. I am hoping to also include some real life options for dealing with the problems being faced by many vets today. Only time will tell.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

In Congress July 4 1776

When in the course of human events.... These simple words set things in motion that would take the world from outdoor plumbing, horse drawn wagons, and slow communication by courier to what we have today. They unleashed the entrepreneurial spirit so that people could profit from the fruits of their own labors. While we have stumbled and made some very shameful mistakes, we have also fought and died to try and right those same faults. Freedom was what allowed Edison, Ford, Carnegie, Jobs, Gates, and a million others to flourish and take us in a span of just 236 years farther than we had come in the entire history of mankind. I think of all of this every year on Independence Day, and I thank God that I was lucky enough to be born in the United States of America, where I can either succeed or fail according to my own efforts. Since I have recently ventured into the Independent Publishing phenomenon it is even more poignant this year. No longer is my ability to reach an audience for my writing being controlled by a few publishing houses in New York City, but only by my writing talent and marketing efforts. It is with that in mind I will close this post with the final sentence of the Declaration as a way of offering my own affirmation of the principles that we as a Nation have tried to adhere to.   And for the Support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honour.