Now on Sale

"The Pole" My NEW Short story, Now Available on Amazon.com Kindle Edition $2.99 Check it out @http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LBK3HG2

Feelings...I mean Poetry

I love to eat!

Eating is such a useless, futile habit.

We are a country of obese devouring

rabid, over-consuming, digesting, so and so’s.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to eat!

Today I had a tuna-tub, a giant cookie, a large

soda, and a five ounce bag of chips. What a

feast. I’m still hungry.

When I was younger I ate to live, never for

taste. I felt better, food tasted better,

I looked better. Hold on while I take a bite

of this tuna-sub.  A mouthful of chips.

There. Satisfied!

New Year ’s Day is twenty-one days away, and I

plan to start a brand new resolution. Lose

weight, or burst.

Sorry

I hear your words -- Not!

Respect is what you think you got.

You only manage to confuse the issues.

My head and mind are above you.

I’m not in the clouds where you stay.

Your feelings are cutting through my heart.

I realize that we must part.

‘Cuz, respect is what you think you got -- Not!

Now, think of what is said and done.

That knife of a tongue you wield so clear,

listen to what you say my dear,

And sorry ain't one of those I hear.

I don't want your sympathy,

I can cry without it,

You and your sorry just don't cut it,

Something you think you got, Respect -- Not!

TEN THINGS ABOUT ME, OKAY A FEW MORE THAT 10…

I'm stuck, again, with writing one of my stories, well, actually an outline. I got a new idea for a new story and have been trying to outline for the last couple of days. I got a little bit done today, but I am still stuck. I thought that if I had a large cup of coffee and a HOT brownie I could put more words down on paper – computer screen. Well, that didn’t really work but I did come up with something else I could write about – me, sort of.

A few things you may not know about, well, since most people, online, know nothing about me anyway, I found 10 things, or more, that I am willing to post. Ten things, (or more if can think of them.)

1. I am a big sports fan. I love sports, well just Baseball, football and college basketball and football, golf, and tennis.
2. I am very active. I still play softball, bowl, golf, ride my bike just about every day, walk 5 miles every other day, and run on the odd days, I go camping, I love to kayak and I am in a ski club, a very active club.
3. I am an extrovert, introvert. Meaning I love giving parties (17 years of Super Bowl parties). However, I also enjoy being here, alone, at home, by myself either writing, or watching sports on the boob tube.
4. I meditate.
5. I am a vegetarian. I haven’t had red meat in 35 years. I was a pescatarian for 10 of those years (when I was married)
6. I am a cat person. I have two cats, one who is sitting in my lap as I type this list. At one time, with my first wife, we had nine cats!
7. I am a dreamer. Have been since I was in my teens.  Most of my stories, that I outlined, as of today, 52 outlines, I dreamt about way back then. I had a dream the other night and, hence the new outline I am stuck on, today.
8. I love to talk. It’s hard for me to end a conversation.
9. I would rather pick up the phone and call my friends and family. (They never call, though).
10. I love to laugh. I watch more funny things on the boob tube than anything else.
11. I’m have a need to know, so I watch the news more often than not.
12. I’m retired.    
13. I have a 129 IQ… Okay, I took that test 40 some odd years ago, but hey, it still works for me.
14. I love word games. My mother was a scrabble master and it rubbed off on me.
15. I’m a cancer survivor.
16. I am now a writer and Author!

Now that I think about I have many, many more things about me, but I am also a very private person – naw, not really.

Now available on Kindle

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K7KLBWO

For ten years, Russell McElroy has been down on his luck, after a meeting with a couple of college football players who sent him to the hospital for a couple of months. Russell then decided to travel the country and seek his fortune. He meets a wanderer named Marty Jackson and they spend those years traveling and living outdoors. 
One day, in the remote countryside, a fireball falls from the sky and lands close by. Inside the meteor, they find a Golden Box, but unbeknownst to Russell it is a portal to a prison planet. He is then drawn into the portal. However, in order for him to escape, he must learn magic or die trying. 

Now on Sale!

My First Sci-Fi novel is now on sale @ http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K706RPK  -pick it up today!! #novel #writers #writer #gottawrite #scifi

Marketing for the 21st century

I just realized something, just this very minute, out of the blue; I joined Facebook, Twitter, and a couple other Social Networks to interact, network and see if I can use these platforms to sell my books. The 21^st century way to market most thing, especially books.

Considering that is so very hard to get an agent or pitch your works, novels, screenplays to a publishing company. Many, many years ago while attending a college course on marketing, I was told; “you can’t get a book published without an agent and you can’t get an agent if you are not published. I see as of today, it still rings true.

Hence, joining social media groups. But, what I have noticed the most and disturbing thing…if you get thousands and thousands of followers in the same venue, writers, your chances of networking is great. HOWEVER, I am finding out, of those thousands of followers, they don’t want to buy your book; they want you to buy their books!

So, the vicious circle continues in the writing world for us novices, us amateur, us beginning, us retired wanna be authors.  The writing world is crowded, indeed, and there has got to be a better way. I have received quite a few suggestions and as funny as that is, I have tried all of them before they were suggestions, go figure.

So much more to do so little time. I will continue to write and hope for the best.

Mother's Day is May 11th

Mother's day is May 11th. My first book of poems, My Mother's Garden is now available on Amazon.com Kindle Edition for $2.99 -- also released in print, now on sale for $9.00. http://tinyurl.com/m3t2bvw

While you are there you can pick up my second book of poems, The Path to my Reflections: My Life in Poems - The art of life, love and happiness in paperback for $11.69. http://tinyurl.com/kdl7t7y

Get your copies today!

The Bucket List...or things that I will probably do anyway.

I’ve noticed that just about everyone, now a days, is putting together a bucket list. I was first aware of this “list” when I first saw that movie “Bucket List” way back in 2007. The more I think about it, it never occurred to me to find things to do before I die.

I’m sure there are millions of things to do, but being the age that I am now, I think I have done just about all the things I wanted to do in my life. Yes, of course there are a few more things that I could probably put on this so-called list.

Heck, I figure that my daughter-in-law, who is thirty something can do it why not me. There a few things that I really don’t care about any more like air travel, for instance, unless I am the pilot. Been there, done that. Besides, I am truly afraid of flying. I did most that when I was younger, but times have changed, I think for the worst as far as air travel is concerned.

But, I guess I could throw in a few places I would still love to go to. I mean I’ve gone white water rafting a few times, canoed rivers, backpacked and hiked trails, driven across the country several times and I do want to do that again. My list may be weird but it’s what I want to do before I die, my Bucket List.

1.      Publish my first novel

2.      publish my first short story

3.      publish my second short story.

4.      Have my first fictional autobiography, DAP traditionally published

5.      Finish my third novel, ROB

6.      Finish my fourth novel, Gate 4

7.      Finish my fifth novel, C-Med

8.      Finish my sixth novel, White Lake

9.      Finish my seventh novel, Pole

10.  Finish those 45 sci-fi stories I outlined 20 years ago

The list above I want to finish before I do the other things on my list.

11.  Meet every woman I have known through the internet…wait, I did that already, but heck I’ll have to do that again.

12.  Learn how to make beer

13.  Learn how to fly a plane

14.  Learn how to pilot a sail boat

15.  Learn Spanish, for real! I had it in High school, collage, a Spanish speaking friend and I still can’t speak Spanish.

16.  Take the train to Montreal

17.  Learn how to ball room dance

18.  Learn how to play the piano – I took lessons once, so long ago

19.  See a Full solar eclipse

20.  Bowl a 300 – I rolled a 299

21.  Hit a home run in softball, over the fence -- I’ve had an inside the park home run, but…

22.  Go to a Detroit Tigers game in every city they play

23.  See Mount Rushmore

24.  See the Northern Lights

25.  Learn to snowboard

26.  Run the Warrior Dash

27.  Run a half marathon

28.  Heck, run a 5k

29.  RV across the USA

30.  Drive to Alaska – a long time dream

31.  Finally, do at least one orbit of the Earth in someone’s rocket ship.

The Starving writer continues...

I am putting the finishing the final touches to my short story. This is just a draft of what the cover will look like. I should be ready to publish by the end of this week! One of these days I will be able to eat steak and lobster, caviar again!

Let's get ready to...Publish!

Finally, the cover for my first novel is finished! Getting ready to publish. Now, I have to read and edit my story one more time!

KARMA is a...

Karma

I tend not to talk about other people, even though they may have done something stupid or hurtful. I do think about it at great lengths, though. And I really never thought about the word Karma, I always called it, “what goes around comes around.” But, in my lifetime I have never really see cause or effect on that thought.

            During those times, many, many years ago I never wished something like karma or something bad to any person on my bad side. But, way too many times I have heard it from other people. And the more I think about it I can’t see that anything “bad” has happened to me because of something that I did to someone else, in my past, per se. To which, I really try my hardest not to do bad thing to other people, regardless.

            I look back on my life and have come to the conclusion that I have lived the ‘status quo’ for most of my life. But I am, and have been very cautious a great many times in my life, because I have enjoyed doing many adventurous things, not crazy things, though.

            Is it karma, though?  For most of my life I figured that I could truly never have a relationship because of how I was raised, even though I came from a large family but, my mother and father fought like Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali throughout my early life. I never wanted to ever argue with anyone, especially women, like my parents did.

            So, I spent most of my 20s only having so called, ‘one night stands’. In my late 20s I got married but, that lasted a mere 10 years. I have now been divorced (single) for just about 24 years. So, I went back to those ‘one night stands’ for those 23 and a half years, fearing a relationship.

             Now, as I look back, I can see that a few of those women may have gotten hurt because they wanted more and I felt that I couldn’t give more so I moved on. But, did karma get me in the end? Maybe…In June of 2006 I had my prostate removed and now my sex life is kaput. So, I feel, a relationship is out of the question.

            Why do I say this? In that short time I have only met one woman who understood what I was going through and she stood by me. But a relationship with her was out of the question, mainly because of her lifestyle. She had a bad, a very bad case of the MEs!

            So, when I tried to have, find someone to have a relationship with and told them my problem I was left holding the rose. So, I decided to enjoy life, the life of being single. I kind of feel better about it, but I do miss a few things, maybe a relationship. Karma! I guess you could say that was introduced into my life, but thank goodness it didn’t become a bitch, as they say about Karma.

            But, I digress, just a tiny bit. What brought up Karma…I was talking to an old friend, who worked with me years ago. We retired from our job and he went and moved to a southern state.

            Anyway, a person, who worked with both of us, came into question. My story; in 1990, in one of the buildings I worked in, there were two people on days and 14 on the night shift, I worked the day shift. Sometimes, if I worked overtime and had to stay late I would punch in the shift coming in and they would punch me out.

            One of the guys had called me, I can’t remember his name or what we were talking about, but it came up that he was coming in and I mentioned to him to punch me out and I would punch everyone in. He said that he wouldn’t but he still wanted me to punch him in. I told him I wouldn’t punch him in and he flew off the hammer.

            Anyway, I found out that this guy, who use to be a friend (or just a co-worker that I had known for years) hated me with fervor. In 2000 my mother passed away. I was told by a co-worker, that this person told them, ‘he didn’t care and he wished that it was me who died’.           

            To this day I cannot figure out what set this person off towards hating with that kind of ache. Around 1995 I heard that he had cancer and died that year. Karma? Maybe…     

            I guess that’s got me thinking about Karma today. maybe it was karma that intervened into my life or it was just some zealous doctor that was trying out a new technique that removes one’s prostate without being overtly invasive. Or Karma?

Resolutions, again? I hope not.

            I know that everyone has kind of heard it before, and I just read something that kind of baffles me, to a small degree; "resolutions are for quitters". That is just plain and simple hogwash, BS, silly and a few other words I can’t think right now. Resolutions take a lot of effort and resolve to accomplish and you have to start somewhere.

            But, on the other hand, I really don’t do resolutions in the first place. I mean I can make stuff up as I go along but I gotta stick to it to make it work. I am not going to do things like, say, go to the gym and stick with it or save more money. Either you are going to do it or you are not. And I usually forget by the end of the month anyway.

            I would have made something up yesterday but, I had to take my son to the Airport. He and his wife are going on an Asian tour. A dream trip for me, one day, one day. Anyway, yesterday, after the airport, and it was snowing heavily and I live about 50 miles away from the airport, I had to make it back to catch the Red Wings play their winter classic game. Then the Rose Bowl came on right after that. A really Busy day for me.

            Well, the Michigan State Spartans finally won the Rose Bowl after 20 some odd years. GO GREEN!! Other than that it has been snow for the last 48 hours and it’s still snow, now. I say let snow…considering that my snow thrower it on the fritz.

But, I still decided to make a something similar to a resolution, in fact a few affirmations that I think will help throughout this year and I am going to stick with them, through thick and thin.

1.      WRITE. The biggest of them all, write and keep writing. I just finished one of my novels this past December and I finished editing it and I just have to read it a couple more times to make sure it’s right for publication. Or I will find an editor that won’t strip my skin off  if I can’t pay what they want. That motivated me when I finished. It’s part of a series of novels, five novels, that I would love to finish, heck, this year, if I can. But the goal it to WRITE THEM. Write, write, and write!

2.      READ. This goal is a twofold type of thing. In order to write I have to READ more. In the long ago past I was reading a book a week, sometimes two books a week, but I was reading nonetheless. And it helped, back then, with my writing. Now I must do it again. I purchased a Nexus 7 tablet this past November, just to have a modicum of entertainment.  And I put my Kindle account onto it. I had it on my cell phone, but even with my glasses the words were just too small to read. And to make me ever so happy, I found a site that finds free eBooks to read! Lucky me. Read, read, and read!!

3.      I know one shouldn’t use the word ‘try’ because if you try it just gets harder to accomplish. In the words of the master Yoda, and I’m paraphrasing here, “don’t try, either you do or you do not. There is no Try.” Anyway, I am going to try and write at least one post in my blog page at least twice a week. Not try, but Do!

4.      Complete the three short stories I have, kind of, finished. Or at least finish editing them.

5.      Find a publisher (maybe and agent) to publish my tomes

6.      Learn how to market my books. I have self-published two books and they languish in purgatory waiting from me to have them sold. Total sales, 40 and I have given away a few that I could have sold. But, that is another goal for this year.

I might really have to do something dramatic and drastic. Of course that is what got me thinking, I saw that someone else had tried it and I really shouldn’t, maybe? Why don’t I finish my screenplays and put it up for auction on eBay? Starting price; $10,000. Then I can see what happens. Hey it’s a start, and I gotta start somewhere. If, and I mean, IF, that works out, I will have to finished my other screenplays. Those will be the next to up for auction.

            There you go, resolutions or actions that I have to do, again, this year. I know one thing, I gotta stop talking about it and do IT! I am at the pinnacle of my life and I have to make do and not fail. That is in no way quitting, it’s starting again, because I don’t do resolutions.