The Newbery Medal

Literary History tidbit. On this day in history in 1922, the American Library Association awarded the first Newbery Medal to Hendrik Willem van Loon for his children’s book “The Story of Mankind.” Frederic G. Melcher, a former bookseller who became an editor of Publishers Weekly came up with the idea for an award honoring outstanding literature for children.  He proposed the medal should be named for John Newbery, the eighteenth-century English bookseller and author who was considered the father of children’s literature.  The purpose of the medal was to encourage originality and excellence in the field of children’s literature. This year’s winner was Jack Gantos, for “Dead End in Norvelt” published by Farrar Straus Giroux. The importance...

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The Battle of Little Bighorn

History Tidbit On this Day in history June 25, 1876. A collection of Indian tribes led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeated the U.S. Army troops of Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer near Montana’s Little Bighorn River in what is more rightly called a bloody massacre. Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and the leaders of the Sioux Tribes had been resisting the U.S. Governments efforts to confine their people to reservations.  By June of 1876, more than ten thousand Indians had gathered along the banks of the Little Bighorn River in defiance of the U.S. War Department order to return to the reservations. But let’s back up a bit and put things in better perspective.  In 1875, after Gold was discovered in the Black Hills region...

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Posted in: Seventh Cavalry Custer Gatling Sitting Bull Crazy Horse Little Bighorn

The Time Between Books

New Beginnings! As a writer when I am working on one of my novels I have to write down ideas as I get them and work to maintain a tunnel vision in regards to my story at hand or else I would never finish it.  The ideas range to changes or additions to the story I am working on, or completely new ideas of stories.  When I think I may have a completely new story idea, I treat it like a blog post where I start with the dreaded blank sheet and put down my ideas, thoughts, and possible scenes – whatever I have at that moment.  Then I save it and forget about it.  If other ideas come along related to one of my story ideas I haven’t got to yet, I add to the sheet I started and save and forget it in order to continue with my task...

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Posted in: Story Ideas Research Rap Reference Bulletin Writing Book

The Unsung Heroes of the Literary World

As I have posted several times before, Editors have the most thankless job in the Literary World.  They are the unsung about heroes of the Literary World.  They know English, Grammar, and about the Elements of Style.  They not only have to tell writers that their babies are ugly, they have to point out period and comma, every misuse of a word, every misspelling, and a myriad of other problems of style, redundancy, and prose which raises its ugly head throughout their work. Most readers will read a book or two from the same author before bothering to actually see who wrote it or write down their name to purposefully search out more works from the same author.  Nobody ever picks up a book to look to see who edited it. ...

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Posted in: Editors English Grammar Proofing Authors Indie Promote

I DON’T OWN A KINDLE!

Obviously everyone doesn’t own a Kindle in spite of Amazon’s best efforts to monopolize the E-Book Market. That doesn’t mean you still can’t take advantage of the multitude of FREE books offered everyday on Amazon! The Kindle AP can be downloaded for FREE to your phone, computer, or favorite pad product and then you can read the FREE books offered at Amazon dot com. Start your Kindle Library today with my first novel, “WHISPER” Whisper -- Kindle Bestseller Praise for Whisper: "The concept of presented within the book– a new technology being created that can in a sense make people and objects invisible for a given set time and also transport an object or person to another time period–is pretty darn awesome! The author did a wonderful...

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Posted in: Kindle Amazon FREE E-books Market Whisper Summer

My First Novel FREE

One of my very first blog posts was “I Published My First Novel.” Many of you have followed along since then and been with me through my discoveries and learning experiences with self-publishing.  I still cannot believe all that has happened and transpired since January of 2011.  It has been an amazing journey. As last week I finished the sequel to “Whisper” it is kind of nice to be in a position to offer my first novel for free just before I am able to release the sequel.  I know that times are tough and even the little liberties and escapes we allow ourselves need to be budgeted carefully, so offering my book for free is in a way giving back to my favorite group of people, The Readers! So just in time for the start...

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Posted in: First Novel Wiley Randolph Whisper FREE Kindle Amazon

WHISPER FREE

Today through Thursday June 21st My First Novel WHISPER is FREE at AMAZON DOT COM GET YOUR COPY NOW FOR FREE - JUST IN TIME BEFORE THE SEQUEL IS RELEASED! http://www.amazon.com/Whisper-Wiley-Randolph-Series-ebook/dp/B004NBZ962/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1 Praise for Whisper:"The concept of presented within the book– a new technology being created that can in a sense make people and objects invisible for a given set time and also transport an object or person to another time period–is pretty darn awesome! The author did a wonderful job of explaining how such a technology could be created and work effectively. " -- A.C."Really interesting concept that kept me intrigued throughout." -- K.K.Overview:** WARNING: Not for children or young teens....

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Posted in: Free Kindle Books Sci-fi Science Fiction Action Adventure

Criticism, Scorn and Honesty

As a writer you grow over time as you increase your knowledge and skills concerning the craft of writing.  Once you’re published you put your work out there for the world to read and judge. The judging comes in many forms and various areas. I started writing with stories that I knew I would like to read that haven’t been written yet in spite of the continued advice from many to know your audience, or target market.  I have a problem with the concept of a target market because how can you qualify the myriad of people you may never meet who will read your work.  Plus the judging comes from those who read it and those who don’t.  I have had one instance already in my infinitesimal writing career where the book reviewer admittedly deleted the book on the second page yet...

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Posted in: Criticism Scorn Honesty Writing Offensive human banned books

Finished Rough Draft Book 3

Last night while my wife was having a party with her girlfriends I finished the rough draft of my third book.  It is officially off to the editors! It is a very satisfied feeling finishing you rough draft.  I know now with this being my third book it is still a long ways from being finished, over, put to bed, and completed.  As I await the corrections of my second novel which will make editing round number three of it, I realize it takes a long time to actually complete a book.  With my deficiencies in English, I will only be as good as my editor. It’s the sequel to “WHISPER.”  “Leviathan Deterrent” is written.  Now it just needs cleaned up to make me look like I’m not a third grader at a keyboard with...

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Posted in: Leviathan Deterrent Sequel Whisper No Rules Engagement Kindle Father's Day Free

A Tidbit on Writing

When I was writing my first book and dreaming of becoming a published author in 2010 I spent spare moments researching about agents, the elusive query letter, how to sell yourself and your story to an agent, and any and everything I could find about publishing.  I researched who published what, about how many books each publishing actually published in a year, how many clients did a particular agent carry, how many agents where employed at different literary agencies, what genres do they sell. As I look back the most important advice I read was that from the authors.  Piers Anthony and his blog about his trials and tribulations with traditional publishing companies.  Ken Follett’s Master Class about writing.  James Rollins...

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Posted in: Authors Writer Writing Style Query Publishers Edit million word format

Research for Books

I thought it might be interesting for budding authors and readers to get an idea of some of the research tidbits I needed to research and look up for my third book “Leviathan Deterrent” and my fourth book which will be the sequel to “No Rules Of Engagement.”  You never know where the research is going to take you.  Sometimes it determines parts of the story and sometimes the story determines the path of the research. For those who have read “No Rules Of Engagement” you would have read about the fuzzies cocooning themselves if they are not eaten by the Gators within a certain amount of time.  I researched all about the myriad of insects in which cocoons are part of their evolutionary process.  I researched the reasons...

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Posted in: Reseach curiosity peaks Muse historically looked seed

Women with Guns

I did a post back in May about Guns In America and it was kind of popular according to how many people checked out the post.  So I thought I might follow up on that with what I found most surprising and that is how many woman own firearms. Apparently there is over twenty million women in the United States own a firearm.  As of 2011 Twenty-three percent of registered firearms in the country belong to women.  The surprising part is which women owns them.  The demographic is unlike anything ever seen before.  Gun owner ship of women crosses all the lines and includes ALL women! The photographer Lindsay McCrum has recently put out a book, “Chicks with Guns”, which is certainly going to make people rethink their assumptions...

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Posted in: Girls Women Weapons Guns Conceal Carry Lindsay McCrum Chicks

Dragons and Aliens

All last week I did posts about colonizing Mars, colonies, and aliens.  One thing I thought about was Dragons!  They are found in the ancient tales and glyphs of just about every culture from way back.  In the Central America’s, North American Indians, all throughout Northern Europe, and from many different parts of the Asia including China. How is it that some many cultures with no known contact with each other all came up with the same mythical beast which we have yet to find archeological evidence of ever existing?  Is this just one really big Coincidence? Or did they exist!  They came here from another world and messed with our ancient ancestors and then left.  Could they have been aliens? They are usually...

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Posted in: Aliens Dragons No Rules Engagement Amazon Smashwords human

Alien Contact

All week I have been doing posts about aspects of colonizing Mars, or other planets.  Anybody who is a fan of Science Fiction would know immediately the possible threats dreamed up by writers and then later modeled and brought to life by television or the movies.  As I have said many times, Fiction pales to real life experiences.  I would be terribly afraid of flying across the galaxy to explore or colonize new worlds for fear of what we may find there or along the way. Through the years of Science Fiction aliens have taken many forms from Alf to Tribbles, or the more common not so friendly versions such as the creatures from the Alien or Predator movies.  I know I will never forget the scene from the first Alien movie...

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Posted in: tribbles alien Alf galaxy new worlds War murder education communication

The Self-Sustaining Colony

At what point is a colony self-sustaining? One of my fears about going to a remote colony on another planet would be what would happen if the climate (political or financial) changed so that they would not be able to continually supply the colony? The colony type of mind set and existence is a hard life to begin with, before you throw in the added factors of no sources of oxygen, water, or readily available food sources.  The sooner you could create some sort of large green houses to grow crops and grass and that you could support animals like cows, goats and chickens to supplement the food stores the sooner you could free yourself of the need of supply in those areas. Another concern I would have would be economic viability. ...

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Posted in: agriculture colony economic greenhouse oxygen water food