I Apologize to Nicholas Sparks

Sometime back in previous posts I did one where I explained Why I hate Nicholas Sparks, and later (In another post) I explained how I was bitching about a particularly harsh review I had gotten on one of my books, when my wife and her friend both insisted I should toughen up and take it. They stated that I could dish it out but could not take when it was dished out to me. It was pointed out about my other post concerning Mr. Sparks, where I might have hurt his feelings by what I had posted. Since then I have been putting it off until a day when I couldn’t come up with something to post about. Today is the day. I am so caught up with working on the sequel to “Whisper” that I just couldn’t think of anything worthy of posting or writing about other than getting back to my work at hand. ...

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Posted in: Nicholas Sparks Apology post blog

New Covers for my Books

Recently both of my published books have gotten new covers! No Rules Of Engagement Which was published last August 2011, now looks like this. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other formats. Whisper Which was my first novel was published in January 2011, now looks like this. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other formats. The old cover designs still show on Barnes & Noble site until their system updates with the next edition of Smashwords Premium Catal...

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Posted in: New Cover Design Art Amazon Barnes Noble Smashwords

A Rant on Games

One of the things authors do is watch people. We pay attention to everything even if we seem to be not paying attention at all. We even eavesdrop on others conversations. Were the cats of the people world, curious about everything and always vigilant and hunting the next story or idea for a blog. Today I over heard two people complaining about one of these new game systems where you don’t even need a controller. You only have to stand in front of your television and simulate performing an activity to control the character and action on the screen in a real time computer game. I heard them explain how this ‘sucked’ and how they have to do it this way for it to work right. I was shocked how one of them explained how he could simulate the movements laying on his couch so he wouldn’t actually...

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Posted in: Games Balls playing leadership winner

Optimize your website!

Is your website optimized? The way to find out is to go to Google Maps and call up your website. If in the top right hand corner after the name of the website there are question marks, then this site has not been verified yet. Somewhere on this page is place to submit for authorization. Once you do that Google will call you with a recorded message. You have to follow the directions from the message. Once your site is verified Google will send you a pin number. With that pin number return to this site within Google Maps and you can optimize your website. The first step in optimizing your website is to make sure your URL is correct in every spot on this page. You can set five or six different categories on this page for your website. You can insert photos and check your reviews here. Unfortunately...

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Posted in: optimize Website reviews blogs mobile

Gimme Three Steps towards the Door

As in the Lynyrd Skynyrd Song, except you need three clicks within nine seconds. From the time someone lands on your website how long do have to catch their attention? Three minutes? Two? One? Or only seconds? Research shows you have three to five seconds to catch that person’s interest before they click away to the next site. That means something has to catch or hook them in mere seconds of viewing your site or they are gone. You need to show them what they are looking for fast and efficiently. People are looking for something particular, a particular book, a savings, or a discount. Maybe they are looking for Author Information? Maybe they are interested in your book? Maybe they are looking to see if they would be interested in your book? One of the things Wed Designers look...

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Posted in: seconds click web design interactive

Website Design and SEO Class

Last night I attended a class on Website Design and SEO. For the un initiated SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. I was under the impression the class was going to tell you about how to design a Website, but that goes right back to my not being very bright at times. It was geared to aspects of designing a website. How you want your website to look? What do you want it to do? What do you want it to do for you? Plus a lot of information about Search Engines, how you can optimize them to make sure it is doing what you want. If it is not then you have to adjust it, optimize it, change it, to get the results you want. I think I am pretty confident that anybody who has a website, their goal is to turn web surfers into Internet Customers. 50% of mobile device searches turn into sales....

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Posted in: SEO Web Site Design factors

Fiction and Questions

I love the point in a book when it steps over the point of reality. Something happened that isn’t right. Our wonderful brains except this new reality because it is a story, its fiction, it isn’t real. Immediately upon the step from what our brain understands as reality, we know it isn’t real, we accept that fact, but our brains kick into overdrive asking questions. We read more carefully now looking for clues to figure out what just happened. The questions are the true key to the intrigue. The writer should anticipate the questions the reader is going to have. You don’t necessarily have to answer the questions immediately. In most situations it is best to keep giving the reader clues so they may endeavor to figure it out on their own. Then obviously you want to answer the questions...

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Posted in: Writing Questions reality reader clues

Conniption Fit

I grew up hearing about these from my parents. “Don’t throw a conniption fit!” “You don’t want me having a conniption fit and whoppin your butt!” I am of the age that my parents were Baby Boomers, that group of children born during World War II. The group that got the distinction of living their teenage years in the Golden Nostalgic 1950’s and early 60’s. The Golden Age of Rock and Roll. Today’s Dictionary Word from Dictionary dot com, is conniption! conniption \kuh-NIP-shuhn\, noun: A fit of hysterical excitement or anger. Conniption is actually an invented word. It first appeared in America in 1833 and may be related to the word corruption which was use in the sense of "anger" in the early 1800s. What makes this word so special to do blog post on it? I am glad you asked! It ties...

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Posted in: Conniption Fit English Great Writing

“What’s a Rounder?” Curiosity and Writing

The old saying says it killed the cat, but I believe besides being a voracious reader curiosity is part of what makes a great writer. As a writer you not only have to be curious about the little things you see and don’t understand, but the myriad of things you don’t have the answers for. You must be curious about people. Why do they do the things they do? What extra ordinary things do people actually do? What things people do when they think nobody is watching or paying attention? I find I am constantly asking questions about things. Mostly to myself, jotting them down on notes to investigate and find the answers when I have time. Sometimes asking other people if they know why this is that way? Why does that happen? I wonder how they built that? I wonder why they went to so much...

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Posted in: Curiosity Writing questions asking

Cycles, Balance, and Time Changes

Men and woman both have cycles that affect us on different levels at different times. The problem with these cycles is they don’t always affect us the same way every time, or in the same predicable periods, and the owners manual was lost just around the time our ancestors were evicted from the Garden of Eden. From lunar, menstrual, seasonal, temperature, social, and the very essence of life cycles act upon us and ease and force changes on our system, perceptions, ability to function in our lives. It changes our lives whether we want it to or not. Sometimes these changes are subliminal, or so subtle we don’t even notice them adjusting bits and pieces of our lives. Sometimes it is the drip of water seeping through a crack in a dam that changes as the dam gives way. Through the holiday’s...

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Posted in: Cycles Time Changes Balance Focus

What defines EPIC!

The Godfather turns 40. Epic generally refers to a long poetic composition, centered upon a hero, a series of great achievements or events; Homer’s Iliad is an Epic poem.  In one dictionary it actually said of Great size or extent: a crime wave of epic proportions. 40 Years ago today March 15th, 1972, Francis Ford Coppola’s, “The Godfather” opened at theaters.  A three hour epic chronicling the lives of the Corleones, an Italian-American crime family, adapted from the bestselling book of the same name by Mario Puzo. I feel when a piece is adapted from a book, and not only survives, but is so universally well-known after forty years; it becomes not only epic, but an Iconic Masterpiece.  I grew up with my Scottish father quoting things from the Godfather to me.  Meg Ryan...

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Posted in: Godfather Puzo Coppola forty Epic

Happy Pi Day, Einstein’s Birthday and Britannica

First off, Happy Pi Day!  3.14.12   the value of Pi = 3.14. Secondly, as near as anyone can tell today maybe Albert Einstein’s Birthday, because he might have been born on 3.14.1879.  Did anybody hear about how the Encyclopedia Britannica is going to stop being available in the printed form? I have a set of these fine books from the early 1990’s.  My wife is constantly on me to throw them out and I staunchly refuse.  I keep saying my children can throw them out when I am dead and gone.  I grew up with using partial used sets of two different series of encyclopedias.  We lived in the country and a trip to the library was over twenty miles.  If we went to town it was for more important things than to look something up or waste time in a library. ...

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Posted in: Britannica Books Cursive lights power

HULK BUTT

I first have to say I am sorry for any and all whom this post may offend. I have two boys, Hayden who is almost four and Garth who has just turned two.  From time to time the universe conspires against us and no matter what you do; it is going to be wrong. I have a tree in my front yard which produces countless millions of these little barbed hard balls and manages to spread them all over the yard.  They drive me crazy as I have to pick them up all the time, and as they have been accumulating in the yard over the past several weeks I have wanted to get them picked up.  Sunday it rained all the way through until Monday when I went to work it was wet and cold.  By the time I got off of work it was sunny and seventy-five degrees out, absolutely beautiful.  Driving home...

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Posted in: Hulk Butt Boys Chanting Wrong Funny

Grotesque and Beautiful

Leonardo Di Vinci, one of the smartest and talented people who ever lived did a study of what he considered Grotesque and Ugly.  This has always fascinated and bothered me.   It has facinated me in the fact that such a great mind studied what was considered undesirabe from an asthetic stand point.  It makes sense because as an artist you want to understand what is pleasing to the eye and what is not.   By drawing and studying what is considered grotesque or ugly it may help destinguish what qualities we consider beautiful, gorgeous, and sexy.   With all the people on the planet certain people through time have been identified by many flattering comments which range from hot, sexy, beautiful,...

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Posted in: Leonardo Da Vinci Beautiful Ugly attractive

The Enterprise

Launched and Christened on September 24, 1960, she was designed to last for 25 years, which would have put her out of service in 1985.  A major overhaul and refit in 1979 and another major overhaul in 1990 significantly extended her service life.  She was in the movie “Top Gun” where she acquired a set of fuzzy dice which I hear she still proudly displays. Today March 11th 2012 she embarks on her final deployment which will keep her out until December of this year when she will be decommissioned.  Her Motto: “We are Legend; Ready on Arrival; The First, the Finest; Eight Reactors, None Faster.  Her nickname is the Big E. She has been a Legend, Still is and always will be!  Sharing the name of the legendary Starship Enterprise which has inspired Science Fiction fans...

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Posted in: Enterprise Aircraft Carrier Decommissioned

Remembering Nathan Birnbaum

Nathan was born in 1896, one of twelve children.  As a child, he sang for pennies on street corners and in saloons.  He dropped out of school to entertain people and make money entertaining anyway he could.  He later changed his name to George Burns. In 1922 George teamed up with Gracie Allen and performed what was known at the time as a Dumb Dora Show, where George played the straight man to Gracie getting the laughs with her illogical logic.  They both started in Vaudeville, and ended up performing in various radio shows from 1932 to 1950.  They also played themselves in a number of movies before the radio show moved to television. Gracie Allen died in 1964, at the age of fifty-eight. Later in 1975, at the age of seventy-nine, George Burn’s career took off again...

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Posted in: George Burns Gracie Allen Vaudeville Radio TV

Read It Again, Daddy.

When I started computer programming in 1980 and home computers were in their infancy, if you wanted graphics you had to use codes to define the pixels that would make up the space of a cursor on the screen.  For Music you had to input all the variables such as frequency, loudness, and how long you wanted each sound to play in decimal equivalents to fractions of a second.  It dawned on me then that essentially music is mathematics.  The sound spectrum runs up and down beyond our range of hearing.  Anywhere along the spectrum it can be expressed as a frequency of the vibration. Atoms vibrate and have frequencies they resonate at, which means that matter has frequencies it resonates at.  The energy of the atom can go up or down depending up the energy or frequency...

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Posted in: Physics Music Light Matter God vibrations

Interview of J.R. Barker

Thank you for joining us today on my blog and allowing me to interview you. Tell us about "The adventures of the frog prince." The adventures of the frog prince is about a young prince who has found himself transformed into a small slimy creature and left to fend for himself in the wilds of a moat.  As he struggles to get to grips with his new form he has to find his way back into the castle and track down the culprit.  The only problem is that he’s annoyed so many people as a human that he struggles to narrow down the list of suspects.  Along the way he makes some unlikely friends and discovers a new side to himself and the people around him. It’s available as an ebook and is suitable for ages 5+, you're never to old to...

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Posted in: Artist Writer Interview Blogger Movie Maker