Done Two Awaiting Results and Riding

Finished Editing my second Novel Completely last night at 12:30AM. Skipped church this morning to ride with my good friend Kenny Kutter, riding is a religious experience for me. Awaiting Smashwords to update their sales results from the distribution network -Second Quarter results! Art work for cover and trailer is the work now and consumed with random spare haunting of thoughts for the the sequels of Whisper and No Rules Of Engagement!  I will be doing the fun and magic part of writing again soon, creating a new Novel.  So Excit...

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Posted in: Riding Writing Results

Second Quarter Results

Smashwords distributes its authors books, that make it into their Premium Catalog, to numerous very large outside vendors.  My First Novel, "Whisper", made it into the Catalog and was distributed three days before the end of the first Quarter!  So obviously I had no sales reported through those networks as it may take a couple of days from the time they get them until they show up on their site. My Book has been out there for the entire second quarter and the results, according to smashwords, are to be posted tomorrow, July 31.  I am excited to see if there are any sales.  I will be happy with one from any of the retailers! I know from Amazon and Smashwords that 244 copies of my book are out there in the virtual library of other people.  Tomorrow I find out how many...

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Posted in: Second Quarter Results Sales

Rewards

Besides being able to say you are a published Author, the best reward is Royalties! Today July 29, 2011, I was notified Amazon dot com was direct depositing my first Royalty Payment from sales of my First Novel, which I published in January of this year.  The amount is laughable as my book is for sale for 99 cents and of which I get 31 cents per book sold.  It was January 17, of this year that I posted I finished my first Novel!  Within six months I have earned enough to warrant them sending me a payment and for that I am pleased and proud.  As I have stated many times through out my various posts, "Whisper", will always be my worst book.  The fact that my first and worst book is sustaining itself with meager but consistent sales is inspiring for me. I have finished...

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Posted in: Royalties Book Writing Novel

History Tidbit

On today's date in 1945, a B-25 bomber crashed into the 78th floor of the Empire State Building.  The three people in the planer died along with 11 people from the building, and 26 people were injured.  The pilot flew into thick fog and descended to regain visibility and found himself surrounded by skyscrapers.I know the thought that hit me when I first read this was what was a B-25 bomber doing flying over New York City this late in the year 1945.  The war in Europe was over and the war in the Pacific would be over shortly.  I remember when the tire company I work for used to be located across the street in a little four story brick building at 6300 St. John.  We had the bottom floor and the top floor and two other companies occupied the floors in the middle. ...

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Posted in: Empire State Building B-25 Bomber

The Last Chapter

It's 12:35AM and I just finished the re-writing of the last chapter of my second novel.  Truly a Labor of Love!  Good night or Good Morning, I am crawling off to b...

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Freeze FBI!

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, famous for the blue jackets with yellow letters, FBI, across the back, all started one hundred and three years ago on this date in 1908.President Teddy Roosevelt established the Bureau as part of the Justice Department and under the Attorney General.  It was given the mandate to enforce the government's regulatory policies, especially on the land grabs in the west and the growing business trusts in the east.The Attorney General and first head of the FBI at the time was Charles Bonaparte.  Yes, he was related to the Bonaparte.  He was the grand nephew of the Emperor Napoleon Bonapar...

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Posted in: FBI Bonaparte Teddy Roosevelt

Dean and Jerry

On this day in 1946 at the Club 500, in Atlantic City, NJ, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis made their debut as a comedy team!As a child, I remembered watching the old black and white movies of the Keystone Cops, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin.  My favorites were always the comedy teams.  First of course always goes to Laurel and Hardy, second was Abbott and Costello, but hands down the funniest to me was Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.  Each were great in their own right.  What amazed me most was Dean Martin was a terrific singer and still one of my favorites to listen today.  Jerry Lewis was as smart as he was funny, and he was a riot!  When you put those two together magic happened!  I don't think anybody could really explain it, but everybody could see it,...

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Posted in: Dean Martin Jerry Lewis Comedy

Great Indie Reads

My Book just got listed on Great Indie Reads!! Check it out! http://greatindiereads.blogspot.com/2011/07/whisper-wiley-randolph-series-by-thomas.h...

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Posted in: Whisper Wiley Randolph Great Indie Reads

History Tidbit

Ernest Hemingway was born on this day in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois.  He won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.  His career began as a reporter in Kansas City.  He was a reporter during the Spanish civil war and was decorated for his efforts in Italy during World War I.  On this day in history The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was destroyed by arson.  I wonder if they had fire insurance back then?Along with Hemmingway the Scottish Poet Robert Burns shares his birthday, and American astronaunt Alan Sheppa...

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Posted in: History Tidbit Hemingway

Dreams, the Future, and Writing

I realized today that I am living my dream now.  I finally figured out what my true passion is, which is writing.  I have published a book and it is still stunning me with people saying they couldn't put it down.  How they normally don't read books like that, of that genre, but they really enjoyed it and would definitely buy and read the sequel.  I am in the closing stages on my second novel.  It is already so far above my first book.  I have grown so much as a writer and learned so much in just the last year.  I can't imagine where I will be and what I will know in five years. I am making a decent living in my current career and raising my family in hard and challenging times.  I don't know where the future is going to take...

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Posted in: Dreams Future Writing Passion

Man on the Moon

Forty Two years ago, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon.  Neil was first to set foot on the moon and Buzz planted the U.S. Flag to symbolize the United States won the Space Race which the Russians started with the launching of Sputn...

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Posted in: History Tidbit Moon Landing

Up Date and Laughing Fit

My wife took the boys to the lake this weekend with her family and left me to work on my second book.  Primarily editing!  I didn't get done what I had set out to do but did manage to get half of what I wanted to done.  Found a much better method of working.  The truly amazing part was how I was able to totally disengage my emotions from the editing.  It is almost as if I reached a new plateau in knowledge and experience as far as editing is concerned.When I reached a section where my editor highlighted a whole section and put a note REWRITE – I just dove right in as if it were trying to write a post for my blog.  I can't say no emotions; it is just that my feelings for editing have changed.  I am sure a big part of the change is the realization we are getting...

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City Deliveries

Something that sounds so simple and is taken for granted is city delivery of tires.My day job, besides being an undiscovered awesome New York Best Selling Author (Well, not yet, but someday!) is being the Operations Manager of a Tire Wholesaler in Kansas City, Missouri.  I wasn't always the Operations Manager.  Nineteen years ago I was a warehouse man/ Driver for the company.  Back then our city deliveries were done with two trucks, one went one way and the other went the other direction.  We did two routes a day, a morning city delivery and an afternoon city delivery, with the same two trucks.Over the years the numbers of stops have grown as has our customer base, the amount of tires we stock, the area we service, everything has grown as we have grown as a company.Let...

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Posted in: Tires Delivery Routes Memphis Belle

Computers, Mathematics, and Music

Somebody relayed to me recently that something that bothered them was that Science Fiction writers keep assuming that computers for aliens (those not of Earth) would be the same as Earth's.  This comment has bothered me since I heard it.  I happen to be one of those people who will ponder concepts, ideas, problems, and such for days, weeks and even months before reaching a solution I am happy with.  A solution that explains the situation, figures out the problem, in a way that I can live with, given my beliefs and limited education.A computer at its very simplest form is a switch.  It's on or it's off.  From series and groupings of switches in various positions you get logic gates which can be used to compare, evaluate, or do mathematical functions with the values...

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Posted in: Computers Mathematics Music

Segway Jousting

It gets around this time of the year and just a football commercial on television can get me excited.  I am not the all consumed sports fan who has to watch every football game I can get, but I love football season and watching and rooting for our home town Kansas City Chiefs!  I try not to miss a game.  I much prefer watching at home in my own living room rather than at the stadium which is maybe ten minutes from my house.  I don't like crowds, traffic, or beer so sitting at home drinking Kool Aid and eating hot dogs cooked out on the grill is enough to keep me happy.One day some time ago discussing the direction of the team and our thoughts on the upcoming season with one of my crew, I suggested out of the blue, what I would love to see at the Stadium would be Segway...

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Posted in: Segway Jousting Football Chiefs

Life Interupts Passion

This is strictly an apology for not posting, and happily complaining that I have enough things in my life that my life is fully invading my passion of writing, editing, and getting my second novel ready to publish. Possible posts I didn't get to but may someday. Mrs. Fords next door neighbor was Leonard Firestone!  Of the Firestone Tires Firestone's! Revolts Yesterday's Date during Abraham Lincolns Administration.  People forget things could be worse, when he raised the amount of people who needed to be drafted and rich families could buy a replacement for $300.00 there were public revolts! How I got stupid and rode an electric Bull last Saturday!  OK, how I sat on an electric bull spin once and was thrown through the air.  The stupid part was getting back on repeatedly! My...

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Posted in: Posts Passion Writing Editing Bull

Book Reviews, Critiques, and Writing

I am probably a good example of the average American.  I read, lately not enough, but I forget to go and write book reviews of the books I have read.  I recently read a blog posting of a lady who just got her first review and it reminded me of the excitement I get when I read a new book review of my book.  I only have one book published but I still get excited when I read a new book review of my one book.  I especially like good honest critiques of rough draft material, likes and dislikes, what people think of the characters, what they liked about the book as a whole and what they didn't like.  I think getting that feed back and acting on it, before it's published is truly what is going to help make me a great writer in the end.  I got that tidbit from one of...

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Posted in: Book Reviews work writing

Air Superiority

If you are involved in an armed conflict anytime since the late nineteen thirties, air superiority has been a major concern.  He who controls the air definitely has a major advantage.I was born in 1966, and the Apollo program was well on its way before I was old enough to really understand what our country was doing in regards to the Space Race.  By the time I was in grade school I knew who Chuck Yeager, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin were.  I had a picture on my bed room wall of the crew of Apollo 11 and dreamed of being a fighter pilot until I got glasses in fifth grade.  I know Chuck Yeager was not part of Apollo eleven, but anybody whose father was in the United States Air Force in the nineteen-sixties knew who Chuck Yeager was.  The man was a...

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Posted in: Air Superiority NASA Space Shuttle

Audience

If you have a Blog, you get a special screen which is referred to as a dashboard.  On mine there are six tabs. Posting, Comments, Settings, Design, Monetize, and Stats. I Love the Stats!  It shows how many people have visited my blog, what type of system they were using to view it, what platform they were directed from, and from what county they were from who viewed my blog.  Under Stats is a tab that says Audience.  Obviously the top of the list is always the United States with the most hits, but in the last week the Ukraine has been number two! It just boggles my mind trying to figure out what I am writing about that is catching the attention of people from the country of the Ukraine?  So if you are reading this post and you are from the Ukraine, please leave a...

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Posted in: Audience Ukraine Comments Sharing

How times have changed

As I mentioned the building I work in yesterday in my post, and all of its little hiding places.  Several things come to mind about how things have changed.  Originally this building was built in the shape of a Giant U.  This allowed the rail lines that run up to the building to bring train cars into the middle of the U shape in the center of the building to be unloaded from the inside of the building while one side of the building did shipping and the other side offered an enormous retail outlet for the public.The people who built the original structure in the early 1900's built this place to last for a long time.  In the nineteen-sixties they filled in the train court up the middle with concrete and put a cheap crappy roof over it.  It is an insult to the rest of...

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Posted in: Electronics Technology workmanship old building

Medicated and Doing Much Better

It rained!!  Which my thanks to God, the water falling from the sky, kills and drowns the little puffs of white fluffy bits of cotton stuff floating around the area and washes it all to hell.  It was supposed to rain yesterday, but didn't, Complaint Department Please! Also because of the care and love of my wife, the wonders of modern over the counter (kind of) drugs for allergies, I am much better today than I was yesterday. Just in time, because I am working my last of five thirteen hour days at my day job.  Congrats to Derrick, our night manager, who I have been helping out covering his shift for him over the last two weeks.  He and his wife were blessed with another beautiful healthy baby! Anybody having infertility problems should contact me so I can send you...

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Posted in: Doing Better Babies Fertility Water

I Have a Great Idea for a Story!

As my many acquaintances, Face book friends, people at church, and especially those fine individuals who I work with every day at my day job, all find out that I am an aspiring writer and I have published a book, everybody has an idea for a story. This explains why their has been such an influx of things being published as the world of self publishing has been birthed and is growing into it's own organism.  More people are taking their stories, writing them, and self publishing them.  Let's face it everybody has a story, even if it's just their own. I have a couple of problems with the sharing of ideas by those to lazy to go through the monumental effort of writing a book, re writing the same book, editing the book, going through it what seems like a million and a half times before...

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Posted in: Inspiration Ideas Story Book

Drought and Flooding

Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri are flooding.  Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico are experiencing a drought.  Africa is having the worst drought in years. We can't do any thing about Africa.  But in this country we could build aqueducts to move water around the country and even build giant holding tanks to pump water into and save to release at later dates.  Missouri is flooding in different areas on a regular basis, and I am certain that there are areas that experience droughts on a regular basis.  In a time when our country needs jobs we could spend years building these projects and some time in the future we would benefit from the relief of flooding and the benefit of water where it is needed when there is a shortage.  Just an id...

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Posted in: Drought Flooding

Meth Claritin D and the cotton stuff

Yesterday I posted numerous posts and felt great, and today a natural event bought me to my knees.  For those who don't know about the trees, I believe they are called 'cotton woods', but what ever they are, from time to time they secrete little white fluffy things into the air. If you have noticed my profile pictures, I am bald.  The doctors call it alopecia areata, but I know it got worse when my allergies changed as reached adult hood.  I am convinced they are related.  I have a goatee beard, hair on my chest and other areas, but my head is smooth as ever and I never have to shave it.  Allergies!  I know rag weed could potentially kill me just being near it.  The fluffy cotton stuff in the air from these trees is debilitating to me.  I get a sinus...

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Posted in: Meth Claritin D Allergies

That's All Right

I'm on Fire Today, HISTORY TIDBIT On this day July 5th in 1954 Elvis Presley auditions at Sun Records for Sam Phillips.  Two days later, "That's All Right" is played on Memphis radio and the Era of Rock and Roll begins. I play around with time travel in my books and have several posts dedicated to the subject, and I would have loved to have seen in an alternate universe how things would have played out had Buddy Holly not died in the air plane crash with the other stars on that fateful day.  Buddy Holly had a much greater success ratio starting off than Elvis did and I have heard good debates concerning if he hadn't of died he may have become the King of Rock -n- Roll and not Elvis.  I love both of their music and most of the other performers of that era, so it wouldn't have...

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Posted in: Elvis Buddy Holly Sam Phillips Cooke Rock Roll

E-Mail sent to a Self Publishing House

As I have stated through out several of the posts on my Blog, I researched the Publishing Industry, rather thoroughly before decideing on self publishing via Smashwords dot com and Amazon dot com.   I will not share with the readers of my blog the full extent to which I investigated the publishing industry as if I did it may someday prove very embaressing for certain agents, their companies, and certain publishing companies.  Plus, I may want to be published by them some day when I am not a complete unknown and have a following, and fan base, and when they would love to have my business at terms that I may get to dictate. Anyway, one of the companies I contacted in my reseach is persistent at best.  They keep contacting me in different forms to solicite my buisness for...

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Posted in: Self Publishing Smashwords Mark Coker Editor

Failure and Inspiration

At http://io9.com/5818006/10-classic-sf-and-fantasy-books-that-were-originally-considered-failures check out the last book on the list. The Fellowship of the Ring!  J.R.R. Tolkien!!  Originally believed to be a failure!  If we could all fail as wonderfully as this!!!  I only posted this to let those who are starting out and checking the web site their book is on and seeing the royalties due that are still at 7.99 of maybe less, take heart, not everything that doesn't soar off the launch pad is bad.  Some of the greats started out small and slow to start also.  Every writer everywhere had a first book and not everyone of them was a instant succe...

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Posted in: Failure Inspiration

Thank You Dreamers Perch

Thank You Cindy Borgne, and your Blog "Dreamers Perch" for the Posting this weekend of the interview of me and the excerpt of my book.  By the way I love the Title of of Blog!!! For any of you that missed it, Cindy's Blog did an interview of me, and included a Excerpt from Whisper my first Novel.  It is part of Smashwords Summer / Winter Promotion and being offered for FREE at Smashwords ONLY for the Month of JULY. If you haven't read it and want to now is the time and Smashwords is the place with the right price!! FREE FREE FREE  - It doesn't get any cheaper than that.  The Fourth is over and everybody in my family still has all their fingers so it was a Good Celebration. Happy Birthday America!!  I have a question for any body who is in Great Britain and...

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Posted in: Dreamers Perch Interview Whisper Independence

New Inerview and Excerpt of Whisper

Today a excellent website has provided a Excerpt from my first Novel and an Interview of Me!!!! Please check it out!!  http://tiny.ly/b6nc Also if your interested in reading it - My First Novel - "Whisper" It is FREE during the month of July at Smashwords dot com http://www.Smashwords.com/books/view/38922 Still finishing my second Novel "No Rules Of Engagement" due out in two month...

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Posted in: Interview Except Whisper FREE

Smashwords Summer/Winter Promotion

For the month of July the web site Smashwords is having a Summer - Winter Promotion ! It's Summer in the Northern Hemisphere and Winter in the Southern Hemisphere, so they are offering books to read in at the beach while on vacation or snuggle up to a fire with.  I am participating in the promotion and as my book was already priced at .99 Cents, because I am virtually an un-known author, the only place to go down to was zero.  So during the month of July my book.  My first Novel!  Will be available for free through Smashwords dot com.  http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/38922  If you have not read it yet, what a perfect time to get it, because it can't get any cheaper than this!!  Just a note I am in the final stages with my second Novel, "No Rules...

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Posted in: Smashwords Whisper Summer Winter Promotion