He took in a deep breath and looked at the blue bar at the top of his computer screen: “Document1”it read simply enough. And below it, an expanse of empty white screen. The cursor sat in the upper left hand corner beating, no doubt, to the time of some internal software programmed clock-heart beat that he in a thousand years wouldn’t begin to (or really wanted to, if he were to be honest) understand. The cursor beat, taunting, even begging him it seemed: just write something...
It was the staccato burst of machine gun fire from a heavily fortified concrete bunker raining Third Reich death down upon the beach below that awoke him from his slumber. He lay there a moment confused, disoriented, disconnected. Rat-a-tat-tat! Disembodied voices screaming, officers shouting incoherent orders, distant explosions, young men dying. Glancing about and slowly surveying his surroundings he quickly came to remember where he was. Rat-a-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat! The ...
When he stumbled across the old photo album while cleaning out his basement he paused because better than anyone he knew the trick: if your opponent is Muhammad Ali, then your best strategy is to simply not get into the ring. But yet…sometimes he just couldn’t help himself, either. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee he whispered inside his head to the ghosts that dwell in dark basements everywhere as he slowly worked the dusty book free from a cardboard box. Sometimes he just ...
He gazed at the picture for the longest. She was pretty and young with a radiant smile in her graduation robes and cocked flat board tasseled cap, but most of all he read and re-read the caption she had typed in beneath it. “Full of hope, lol” Yes, he could see that. It shined in her eyes like the sun. But still… it was what she had typed in as a bit of injection of humor (he figured by her use of the ubiquitous internet “lol”) he read as ...
I am starting an e-book publishing house and have no clue how to set up a website. Allow me to explain. I want to launch the site by December of this year. I have contracted a bunch of authors and can use more! My web genius is going to start working on one of my sites next month but with the new cosmetics company we started this year I don’t think she has the time to do it. It takes about a year to produce one book after we receive the finished manuscript and I am curren...
I have been persuaded by friends and family to start an e-book publishing house. I am currently in the works to get this done but I do not want just my works being sold there. If you have any work, and you would like to offer your work for electronic publication let me know and I will send you the information you will need. I am looking for all genres; Military, Romance, Science Fiction and Action adventure to give you an idea of what you can offer. This will be a royalty paid c...
The prosecutor, wearing an impeccable grey three piece suit, spoke with the righteousness of a fifteenth century Salem minister. “Your Honor, the defendant was caught red-handed and in possession of exhibits A and B.” “The defendant”, he continued, “has made a full confession and has exhibited absolutely no remorse for his heinous crime against society. The defendant has repeatedly made demands that he be allowed to commit his crime with impunity and has expresse...
Got the new batch of feedback from Random House for the Elemental book. So much pain. I can only explain is through analogy: When I was a kid, I thought I could draw pretty well. Then, one day, I met some real artists. I mean people with talent and I realized that no, no I can’t really draw. Similarly, I considered myself a pretty good writer. I read books all the time. But it took having to write one – professionally – to really appreciate the effort and talent involv...
Tap here to begin writing... I guess that's appropriate when you're tap, tap, tapping you way through a sentence on an iPhone. I'll get back on the computer soon enough, but the game is on and it is easier to go this way than type, run back to the TV and repeat. Modern convenience right there.•••There's been several incarnations of this blog, the first one dating back to 2004 and I've been playing off and on with this format ever since. The first one is/was at JoeUser, which actua...
She wasn't quite two years old. Her daddy was one of the truck drivers and sometimes he would bring her into the office. She was beautiful but a little shy. She would hide her face in the crook of daddy's neck and just peek out with a shy smile. It took several visits before she would speak to me...until the snowy day when she came in at lunch time. I was scarfing some KFC and she came around the counter and caught me. I offered her some chicken and from that day forward we were fast friends. Ev...
My book, Silent Thunder is now at the publishers, the contract is signed and the evil editor will begin to rip my work apart. I am happy and sad at the same time. Happy becaue after years of work my book was accepted for publication. Sad because it is no longer under my control. Do other authors have this feeling of loss and elation?
NAFTA - Comparing Economies of USA, Canada, and Mexico So close, and yet so far. Tied together as much by geographic proximity as by NAFTA, Canada, Mexico, and the US are dependent on each other for much of their economic well being. Understanding the differences and similarities between these co-dependent economies can provide you with a compelling picture of how various factors play into a country’s economic status. To paraphrase Alice in Wonderland, you might be wondering w...
It's amazing how influential our perception of certain words is in determining fact from fiction. Just off the top of my head I can think of heaps of words that immediately add a little something to what I perceive a person is saying: clearly - I can't even back this up It's beyond me - I am resorting to hyperbolae because I don't care enough to think trust me - I am the last person to trust family values - my family is bigger than my IQ/I'm a convicted pedophile/I'm cheating on my p...
Finished the Round Robin Story, which I titled Red Star in my head. Don't worry, no one expects you to read it. (Though ruthless emails explaining when you lost interest and why, things like what is not working are/were appreciated.) It took 4 months of fitful, sometimes obsessive writing, in-between this little thing called life, to get the story of my imagination onto 316 pages in Word, which translates to roughly 100,000 words. And its not so much a story as an obese outline...