Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving! (video)

It's early - but heading to grandmas house tomorrow. Internet access is sketchy.

SO much to be thankful for this year. Well, like landing a plane...any year you can can walk away from is a good year.

Enjoy video and Happy Thanksgiving!


Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Unshackled Creativity...

Today I read a good quote from Mark Twain.  - "A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds."

You ever get a sense of this?  Man, I have. And when you promote the idea around you can get so much affirmation and encouragement and discouragement from the widest circles in your life. Then when you start to execute the idea that circle begins to tighten. Eventually it can become so tight you can reach the extent of its radius with your outstretched arm. ;-)

If you succeed - your satisfaction can pour over the earliest and widest circles. I think that is called...revenge? (kidding:-) But this concept is poured out in Land Run.

But what is interesting to me is that the circles are created by the one with the idea. The desire for man's approval comes from the one who has the idea. He has put himself in bondage to the 'good opinion' of man. And draws abuse to himself like a lightening rod. He tethers himself to an others opinion of him and his actions. But if he gains the approval he desires...it is still slavery.

I know some folks who hold their cards close to them. They can do this for fear of a lack of approval they desire. The fear of being called a crank. They hold out for the successful results. This too is bondage, self-inflicted slavery.

Say what you want to whom you want and when you want to. Or say nothing at all. But don't desire the approval of man. There is freedom available in this. And much needed clarity of thought and purpose in whatever your idea and resulting project might be.

The second novel, Borderland, is at the editor (no publisher or editor as yet) - and I am working through the ideas of my 3rd novel project. A happy crank having a good time. :-)

This one is going to require even more research for me and maybe more time. But I expect I will be talking a little bit about it in the coming months. The motive being to share...like pulling out my wallet to show you a picture of my 2-year old. I hope folks enjoy it..but at some level, it just about me showing off my 2-year old. :-)

Anyhow... Land Run is available as eBook and Paperback on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, Lifeway -anywhere books are sold. :-)

Sunday, November 13, 2011

VETERAN STORIES

Hope everyone had a great Veterans Day weekend.


Land Run and the new novel both include characters with military history. In Land Run some of the characters have interesting back-stories in WWII and Desert Storm. For the new novel – a Ukrainian character has a back-story of Afghanistan (his Soviet days).

Today I am watching a Weather Channel show that is covering the Coast Guard station in Kodiak Alaska. It’s a lot better than much of my memories of there ;-) But there was something in this show I had forgotten about the military. These guys were running rescue drills in the pool while their Chief yelled at them about this or that. Then the Chief pulls them all aside to describe the mistakes they had made. After that he asked them, “how many mistakes are we allowed to make?”
“Zero, Chief!” they said.
“That’s right! Drop and give me twenty!”


1 in 5 will graduate from that school. Even in basic training we started with 100 and graduated with 36.

No mistakes. That is so impossible. But it really is the mind-set we all had in the field…every day and for every task. And we did make few mistakes.

Even though it is so unrealistic a demand of people…the pure belief in this saves lives and wins battles. In their tasks – there really is little room for mistakes.

I would have to say that this mind-set I had for 5 years informed and impacted my working life, and real life, for the following 20 years. Failure in task never seems to enter in to my thinking. In fact, probably any success that is found in my life – I can mostly give credit, for my part, to my short-sightedness. :-) (but I am working on lightening up nowadays)


There are so many stories, you know. Here is one I love. When I was 10 years old my uncle Bob got in the local paper. This is what happened:

He had spent 4 solid years in the Pacific fighting from island to island. After the war he came back home and became an electrician. Then 30 years later the Pentagon was going over their records and found that they owed him 36 medals. These included multiple purple hearts, two bronze stars, a silver star, and on and on. But included in this package was a bill for $80.

It seems that on whatever island he was on at the time – when he heard that the war was over he walked to the beach and through his M-1 rifle into the ocean. Someone had seen him do it and reported him. So the Pentagon wanted their $80 back for the rifle (I guess the 1945 price?) Crazy stuff.

If you have stories – please add them to comments.

Happy Veterans Day!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

THANKS Readers! Happy Anniversary!

It is the 6 month anniversary since the release of Land Run today!


Time flies when you’re having fun. Thank you to all who have read Land Run, chosen it for their book clubs, placed great reviews out on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, and professional and personal book review sites.

And thanks to all the bookstores and coffee shops that had me over for book-signings and readings. And the libraries that are already including it into their collections.

Thanks for following this blog as well. This connection to readers has been the most fun of all.

You all have made this venture an exciting adventure!

Please stay tuned for more… :-)

For folks new to this journey – please swing by these links for updated info…and welcome here!

AUTHOR BIO and MORE

BOOK WEBSITE

Friday, November 4, 2011

OKLAHOMA and UKRAINE

I have had a lot of questions about the settings of both novels.

For Land Run - simply, Oklahoma is home. I grew up there and no matter how long I have lived in North Carolina or anywhere else - I call it home. In these days when it is so easy or necessary to be mobile - I think we all have a place we consider home. For me, Oklahoma is where I discovered a love of reading and writing. I discovered how large man and his problems are. And where I was a private pilot - getting to see how small we all really are in this vast world. It is where I left for the Coast Guard - setting out on the ocean to find how small I am in this world I was. Oklahoma was the environment from which I branched out - only to come back to it with a better understanding and an enhanced respect.

For the new novel (Borderland - presently unpublished) - Our family made 3 trips there over 3 years. The final trip had me living there in an apartment for 2 months. This gave me a good feel for the people and language (I took a year of Russian in college...but I can tell you that doesn't count ;-). It gave me inclination and time to delve into their literature (classics and contemporary) and history as well. And our family fight to bring back a child we hosted in the States gave me a template to develop a compelling story. It is not our family story in any way - there just is no way to make that believable :-).

Well, that's some insight into the choice of setting. I love to start a story with 'place' in mind first. Not sure where the next novel will be located...please stay tuned.

Note: Land Run now also on Kindle and Nook.

Have a great weekend!