The Grand Experiment – Releasing “Talkeetna Trouble” Raw and Uncut

Posted by george on August 15, 2012
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: , , , , , . 7 comments

Way back in the fall of 2010, I participated in the month of craziness known as National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). If you’re not familiar with this madness, each November writers set out to write a novel in 30 days. See, I told you it was madness. I completed the task and thus my first novel, Talkeetna Trouble was born.

I was intimidated at first and then as I hit my writing goal (and then some) for each day, I became more engrossed. It was pretty amazing, actually. Before I knew it, characters were saying and doing things of their own accord. I let the story flow.

When it was finished, I printed out the manuscript and decided to let it sit for a while.

Fast forward to August of 2012. It popped into my head that it would be an interesting experiment to publish the book on Kindle “as is.” Talk about madness. It occurred to me that there might be some intrigue involved with allowing readers to see a manuscript in its raw form. No polish whatsoever.

I figure one of two things is going to happen. Either the readers are going to be hip to seeing the seedy underbelly of writing, or they will be so annoyed that they throw the thing in the trash – Kindle and all. Now I have just enough faith in folks to believe that they will be more fascinated than disgusted. We’ll see.

I put a huge disclaimer in the Amazon book description, letting potential readers what was in store for them. I also emblazoned the cover with “Raw and Uncut.” I really would hate for someone to not realize they were participants in this grand experiment.

Which direction do you think this will go? Are books like sausage and laws where you enjoy the result but don’t really want to see how they’re made? Or will there be a market for raw books?

A Review Of Life Lessons From The Heart

Posted by george on August 3, 2012
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: . 1 comment

There are times when being a book reviewer is tough duty. I’ve been sent dozens of books either electronically or in printed form and overall the experience has been good. There are times however when the experience is so much better than just “good.” Reviewing Life Lessons From The Heart by Teresa Morrow is one of these “better than good” experiences.

These days, we are bombarded on a constant basis with bad news. Negativity is everywhere. Over time, it is easy to forget the good things in life. They are still there, just beneath the surface whether we realize it or not. Sometimes a gentle reminder is all that is needed to get us back on track. Life Lessons is that gentle reminder. This book is not a cumbersome manifesto, full of fluff and whatnot. At less than 50 pages, it is easy to read and more importantly it is easy to absorb the moving and inspirational advice within.

Each chapter is a specific lesson based on Teresa’s life experiences that I would guess are very similar to the challenges each of us face in one way or another. At the end of each chapter is an appropriate “poem” driving the point home of the lesson.

Life Lessons From The Heart is not a book to be read and put on a shelf. It is more suited to a book that you should keep on your nightstand in order to review the lessons and see how they apply to your day.

I believe you will find Teresa’s writing style to be conversational and engaging. In a word: Real. Contributing greatly to the readability of the book, her style made me feel as if we were sitting in an outdoor cafe, talking about life while enjoying the setting sun and a strong cuppa.

Do yourself a little favor. Get Life Lessons From The Heart and give yourself a treat.

Here’s the link: Life Lessons From The Heart at Smashwords

Here’s a little info about Teresa:

Teresa began her life as a symbol of inspiration; born under special
circumstances weighing a little over one pound compounded with severe
heart issues.  She overcame these medical obstacles surprising the doctors
by living beyond their projected life span of twenty-four hours. Later, in
her teens, she was introduced to the world of writing when she submitted a
poem for creative writing class which got selected in the school yearbook.
Her professional background has expanded from working with family business
to Fortune 500 companies as an executive assistant. This led her to start
her own virtual administrative business, Key Business Partners, in 2007.
Following an internal sense of purpose she turned that enterprise into an
online book promotional company that has helped numerous authors share
their personal messages with others.
At 40, this native Floridian’s true life purpose came to the forefront. As
an inspirational writer, author and poet, this author of Life Lessons from
the Heart (2012 Smashwords) is an advocate for individuals who want to
realize and celebrate their own uniqueness. She serves as a reminder that
one’s true purpose can be experienced every day. Teresa showcases her
passion to help empower others overcome their obstacles and realize their
own voice through the celebration of self trust and love.

 

How I “Usta” Twitter

Posted by george on July 19, 2012
Posted in: Other Stuff, Writing. Tagged: , . 22 comments

Or, “How I got off myself and started being social with my media.”

I’ve been on Twitter for a few years. After I got over the initial hump of no followers and not following many, I embraced Twitter as a way of interacting with fellow writers. I also used it to shamelessly plug my own stuff – although I could never be accused of being spammy. Until recently, my Twittering kinda went like this:

  • I would not retweet stuff from anyone I didn’t have some kind of interaction with.
  • If, after several retweets of someone’s stuff, they never acknowledged the retweets, I stopped retweeting their stuff or I unfollowed them altogether.
  • I would only follow folks who were strictly within my interests of blogging or writing.
  • I would not, could not tweet a quote. I would not do so in a boat.
  • If someone tweeted political stuff that I thought was crap, I’d unfollow them. (Okay, maybe I still do this a teensy bit, but now I take a lot of other factors into consideration.)
  • If a tweet had a link to Facebook, the Huffington Post or any liberal news media organizations, I would not retweet them.
  • If someone always tweeted their own stuff and never tweeted anyone else’s, I would unfollow them eventually, or just ignore them in my timeline.
  • If someone was obviously auto-tweeting the same stuff day after day I would not retweet any of it.
  • If someone sent me an auto direct message after I followed, I would just as quickly unfollow.
  • If a tweet had typos or was written in text-ese (U no what I mean 4 sure) then I would not retweet.
  • If someone carpet-bombed my timeline with multiple FF tweets with no reason attached, I would unfollow.

After reading this list, you’re probably thinking, “Jeez, what an intolerant jerk. Not very social.”

Yeah, well that’s the same conclusion I came to. Congrats.

Now I do a lot of things differently and I’m gaining about 20 new followers every day. I’ve interacted with a lot of great folks and have seen the traffic to my blog and book sites increase quite a bit. In short, I’m using this social media platform socially and how about that?

Now, I retweet all kinds of stuff. It doesn’t matter if it’s a tweet about a book in a genre I would never read. It doesn’t matter if the topic is of particular interest to me. The way I see it, some of my 3200 followers may be interested and that’s good enough for me. I don’t care if the person never tweets anyone else’s stuff. Although with that said, c’mon people. Get a clue. Get off yourself and interact. I ignore the auto DMs. They bother me not. I follow back darn near everyone unless it is obvious that their tweets in my timeline would drive me buggy. I don’t care if someone never responds to my retweets. If someone does, I usually send them a quickie tweet, thanking them.

Essentially I’ve made being social on Twitter my mantra. I dig it and I hope my followers do as well. I’d like to think my timeline is eclectic with a mixture of writing, books, positive messages, quotes, funny stuff and general George witticisms.

The moral of the story is to take it easy and just enjoy the media. Lose the stiffness and expand your horizons. I’ll just bet you’ll love your twittering the more for it.

The Collapse Novel – America, You Better Get Strapped In

Posted by george on July 10, 2012
Posted in: Writing. Leave a Comment

Author Richard Stephenson has hit one out of the park with his novel, Collapse. Watch the America we know literally collapse under the weight of natural disasters, rouge nations and damned scary power-hungry politicians.

Interestingly enough, I just recently finished a book well know to smart folks who are busily prepping for potential disasters. Patriots by Rawles runs the same direction of Collapse but approaches the fall of America from a collapse in the financial market angle. I mention this because taking both of these novels into account, they could run side by side and the possibilities should scare the pants off of anyone willing to pay the littlest bit of attention.

I found Collapse to be entertaining, intriguing and scary as hell. To say that the premise of the novel is believable would be an understatement. Although it takes place in 2027, there is not reason that most of this (except Beck’s AI technology) couldn’t happen in the next six months. Keeping that thought in the back of my mind helped to propel me through reading this book in just a few sittings.

Richard counts on us embracing the characters and that’s easy enough to do. The Navy Seal is iconic as one of the protagonists and is balanced nicely by his cell-mate and cohort Tank. It poses an interesting contrast. And while Beck (The world’s richest man) is initially a spoiled and prissy little turd, he eventually steps up and does the right thing.

Collapse is rich with sub-plots that seamlessly converge and everyone ends up where they’re supposed to be. I enjoyed reading the book and was excited to see that the ending leaves the door wide open for a sequel.

You can download Collapse in all the formats here:

About Richard:
 Richard Stephenson is a fifteen year veteran of law enforcement, beginning with the United States Army as a Military Policeman and currently working in federal law enforcement. Richard’s true passion is in writing.
Follow him on Twitter here:

Facebook too!

Vintage Tumblemoose: It’s All Been Said

Posted by george on July 3, 2012
Posted in: Writing. 5 comments

This is one of my early posts from nearly four (!) years ago. I have come to realize that it still applies. Enjoy!

Sometimes when I know it’s time to post, my idea bin is a bit light.  When this happens I’ll stumble along blogs and go visit a writing or blogging site I’ve not been to for a while.  Sometimes I run across a seed, get an “A-ha!” moment and off I go.

There are times though, when I look at all of the posts on the sites and think, “Holy crap.  Everything’s been written.  Now what?”.  If I was a bettin’ man, I’d say more than a few of you out there have been in the same place.  That’s kinda where I was earlier and then it occured to me that this is the beauty of writing, the beauty of blogging.

Ok, so I know that in reality everything has not been written.  The thousand monkeys with their thousand typewriters have not hit the thousand year mark yet.  Much of this comes down to perspective and attitude about writing.  If you really believe that everything has already been written, then you probably need to find something else to do.  Such a narrow view on life will not carry you very far.

The beauty of writing is that I can take something that has been said and I can give it my very own personal voice.  How cool is that?  As individuals, we all have our own perspectives.  We all have our own unique life experiences that we can use to color our writing palate in vivid hues.  And maybe, just maybe the way we write something that has been said will speak to an individual reader and allow them to see a topic in a way that is new and refreshing to them.  Honestly, if even one reader takes the time to read my work and it speaks to them, I am a very happy camper indeed.  I do write for myself because I love what I do, but I always have this unknown reader in mind.

So the next time you’re stuck, boldly take a topic that’s been “done” a million times and give it your very own spin.  See what happens.  I guarantee you’ll be happy with the results.