Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Never give up!

 It's true in every aspect of life that dogged determination will take you further than whining or wishing. Writing is no different.

Talent is great.

Education is wonderful.

But a stubborn will to do your best, every chance you get, is mandatory for a happy life. It's mandatory if you want your dreams to become reality.

The world isn't against you. No one is holding you back. It's up to you to live a little better everyday. It's up to you to attempt, to adapt, to stretch, to push and to enjoy the results of your hard work with celebration and joy.

Don't give up.

Monday, October 11, 2021

Is my flying car really here?

 I've been waiting for my flying car since I watched the first episode of  'The Jetsons' as a kid in '62.

I was 10 and just discovering Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and Ham Radio magazines. These magazines threw gasoline on the embers of my imagination!




 

I can't prove it but I'll bet you a dollar to a donut that the Flying Car graced the covers of those rags more than anything else. At least that's the way I remember it.

 My Dad ran Service Stations in the 50's, 60s and 70s. So I grew up tinkering with cars and trucks of all kinds, foreign and domestic. I even had a junk car that Dad parked in the second garage for parts. I spent one summer taking it apart, piece by piece. It's probably still scattered all over the garage floor 50 years later. Things don't move very fast in Levelland, Texas. Trust me.



 
So when I saw the Sunday Morning episode about flying cars I was a bit disappointed. The pictures above were very close to the Jetson model dream-ships I've been waiting for. 

The flying car portrayed on TV was a bit more 'meh'. 



It's basically an oversized drone that buzzes like a giant bee. Range is '20 minutes of flying time'.

Where is my four seater convertible with jet-engine driven ducted-fan impellers, computer stabilizer and GPA self-driving navigation?

Sigh.

Well I'll just have to wait patiently another 50 years.

Wait... I'm 69. 

Hmmm.

Well, I hope YOU enjoy zipping around in the clouds, wind whipping through your hair.

More on flying cars later.




Thursday, September 30, 2021

Exploring the World

 The world amazes me. All of it. 



So I'm expanding this blog to hopefully find and talk with other explorers, creators, readers, writers and anyone with something they want to study or examine with friends.

I'll still talk about writing and reading in the indie world because I do that everyday. It's a passion, one I enjoy immensely. I'll still tell you how my WIP is going, good and bad. ;-)

But there is so much more to explore out there! Music, science, history (I love Naval History as you'll see), how governments work and don't work and why, food, health care, AI (Artificial Intelligence), Art and so much more. 

The sand box that is humanity is so vast and interesting. Let's find our childhood plastic buckets and shovels and start making sand castles, one after the other.

Come along while I mosey from castle to castle, exploring all that is US.

Thursday, August 26, 2021

Outlining a new book!

 I'm outlining a book this week.

I admit I'm an on again, off again outliner. It seems like some stories will flow better if I just start typing and don't stop to think too hard about the plot. It's happened several times before.

Other times though I find outlining first keeps me focused on the story arc, characters, environment, etc. 

This book has lots of characters, species (yes it's a SciFi story ;-), environments, battles and hopefully a whole lot of fun for the reader! 

Another benefit for the outline is that I get a chance to enjoy the story as well. I get to 'play' with paths and tangents to see if I like them, before I commit to them in the story. It's really hard to back out lots of dialog, characters, etc. in a packed word document. Much easier to do in an outline.

The story involves some WW 2 submarine characters, boats and action. I have a chance to put all that research I've done to good use!

I'll keep you posted.

Do you always outline or always not outline?

Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Back in the writing saddle!

 I took a short breather after launching 'Arlo and Jake: Special Intel', my 5th book in that series.

It's been pretty well received, I'm thrilled! You never know how a series release will go. I purposefully keep my novels 'minimal', less than 250/300 pages. I find the massive trilogies difficult to keep focused on, even the really good ones like LOTR and the Jack Reacher books. Love them both but I have to take breaks between books.

I'm not ready to start up on book 6 of the series, though I do have the beginnings of an outline that I break open now and again.

So now I'm trying to finalize a couple of short stories that I hope to submit to Analog or Asimov or maybe some other magazine. Wish me luck.

One of the stories centers around mankind's search for life in the Universe. It's something that I've playing with for months. I'm hoping that my unique take on the quest will spark interest from one of the magazines. Selling a story to a magazine would open me up to a much wider readership! Don't really care about the money (right...), but to be able to see my work in a magazine would also be a huge ego boost right now. ;-)

I also have short outlines for books that continue the story line I started with 'Genome' the novel. These stories involve the AI 'Pip' I created to help my main characters look for medical cures. The gymnasium sized holo-deck is a great 'enabler' tool I created to help. With it you can walk around and interact with a hologram of molecules and more importantly with human DNA!

These stories will take off where 'Genome' ended. 

I've also got a YA story based on parts of Genome. I can't decide which to start first. I've never done a YA book, it might be time to try my hand at it!

Keep writing, my friends, and checkout my book links!!


Monday, April 12, 2021

Book 5 has launched!!

 'Arlo and Jake Special Intel' has hit the virtual bookstands of Amazon and Barnes and Noble!!

I'm really proud of this latest adventure of my apace-faring friends. Lots of new characters, new planets and snarky antics mixed in with the intrigue and action!

Now would be a good time for you to start with book 1, 'Arlo and Jake Enlist', and follow my heroes through space and time, trying to stop the GHA, the Galactic Houses of Aquinoxous', from aqua-forming terran planets!

They've faced space mercenaries, giant spiders, rouge Assassin Guilds, evil AIs and space battles to make your hair curl! 

Now they're trying to stop sabotage on the FTG's, the Federation of Thirteen Galaxies', home planet of Mekalon! Jake would rather fight a dozen space battles than try and match wits with Mekalon's Diplomatic Corp dweebs. But he and Arlo have another impossible job to do: save the Galaxies from the Bad Guys!

Come join the fun and adventure in the latest edition of this saga: 'Arlo and Jake Special Intel'.


Arlo and Jake Special Inte

Sunday, January 10, 2021

2021 Starts off Rocky but...

This is a writer's blog so I'll forego talking about 6 Jan. I've tweeted while angry before and regretted my tone and words so I won't fall into that trap here. My prayers go out to the family of Officer Sicknick. And all who lost their lives senselessly.

I sincerely hope you and your loved ones are doing well in the ongoing Covid pandemic. Don't forget to check on every neighbor in your area. Just leave a note if you don't know them. Deb and baked some pumpkin bread and went door to door. Even a little thing like this makes a big difference in people's lives. 

Writing has been slow. I'm waiting for the final edit of 'Arlo and Jake' book 5 before booting it out the door. Hopefully 'soon'. ;-)

I've been looking through my 'next' list for some inspiration. I don't know. Short story(ies) to Magazines? A different kind of novel, ie: not SciFi?

I need to update and clean up this blog too. I've left things pretty stagnant. Like everyone else it's sometimes hard to muster up any enthusiasm. 

On a positive note, I see the light at the end of the tunnel on Covid with the vaccines out. I'm disappointed that the rollout has been so poor, given the months of preparation time they've had. There is blame to go around, but blame won't get it fixed.

Stay safe. Wear your mask, Social distance, Wash your hands often. We WILL get back to normal.