with John W. Howell
Today’s photo shows somewhat of an improvement over the past couple of days. The sun is out and looks like a glorious morning. The beach is relatively deserted and the temp is around 68 degrees. We are expecting some thunderstorms on Tuesday which we can always use.
Last week’s photo
Well, it is another Stream of Consciousness Saturday. This week’s prompt is “indescribable” and the dungeon master leader Miss Linda says we can use the actual word or base the post on something that defies description. (hmmm I guess that’s what the word means) If you would like to add additional stress meaning to your writing life why not go to Linda’s site and see what it takes. Here is the link, http://lindaghill.com/2015/11/13/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-1415/ Here is my contribution.
Indescribable by John W. Howell © 2015
“So come on tell me what it was like.”
“You would not believe it. I was standing there, and all of a sudden a blinding light washed over me.”
“Then what happened?”
“Then this voice came out of the light and told me to buy a lotto ticket.”
“And you did?”
“No. Not then.”
“So what did you do?”
“Well, I went to the convenience store and asked the clerk what I should do.”
“Come on you’re killing me. What then?”
“She told me to go back to the light and find out the numbers to play.”
“That was excellent advice. Did you do it?”
“I sure did. The light was still there, and so I asked what numbers to play.”
“You got the numbers?”
“Well no. What happened next defies description.”
“Shoot me in the face. Finish the story.”
“The big ole light tells me to think of a number from one to one hundred.”
“What did you say?”
“I picked twenty-one.”
“Then what?”
“The light said, nope that ain’t it.”
“Okay, What happened next.”
“We did that six more times and each time the light told me I was wrong.”
“How does this end?”
“The light yelled at me, and my fear was indescribable.”
“What did the light yell?”
“Quick pick you idiot, is what it said.”
“You are a sick person. You know that right?”
“I prefer indescribably eccentric.”
“Did you win?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Didn’t play.”
“I’ll give you the count of three to take off running.”
Marie Ann Bailey is helping with the His Revenge Launch today. You can see her post on her blog 1 Write Way. I would like to thank Marie as she is a wonderful person who dedicates herself to her job, her husband, her cats, her knitting and most certainly to her writing. Marie is the author of 1WriteWay a delicious combination of original work, collaboration, interesting reblogs and other supporting posts in favor of supporting other authors.
I have also had the pleasure to work with Marie on the collaborative posts that were simu-published on each of our blogs on Mondays for a year. She was a delight in the collaboration. (And made me look good to boot.)
Marie is currently participating in NaNoWriMo and has great expectations of achieving the 50,000-word target. I have faith she will make it.
Here is more about Marie in her own words. Thank you so much, Marie
“I am a writer, living with three cats, more yarn than I can knit up in a lifetime, and a dear husband who doubles as my best friend. I started this blog a few years ago when I was toying with the idea of becoming a freelance editor. I wanted 1WriteWay.com to be a serious resource of all things related to writing and editing. But then life happened, I got distracted, and went offline for a while. Now I’m back but with a different purpose for this blog. I just want to write. I’m old enough to be looking forward to retirement (as opposed to what my next career move should be), and the more writing I can do now, the better shape I’ll be in to make writing my primary focus when I’m no longer at the office 40 hours a week. I enjoy my current job and my coworkers and that actually has made it more difficult to be disciplined with my writing. I do derive intrinsic satisfaction from what I do at the daily grind, but the urge to write hasn’t left. In fact, the more I think about retirement, the more I want to write.
I started writing about when I was 9 years old. At least, I remember once reading aloud a story to my 4th grade class. I took creative writing classes whenever I could, joined the college literary guilds, and participated in readings. But I was never very confident (if at all) about my writing talent, and it was easy for me to “give up” periodically, in spite of the support I got from mentors and fellow writers. And once I got a “real” job (in an office with a biweekly paycheck and benefits), it was hard to argue with anyone that I should or could expect to do better by writing. I’ve made a lot of detours in the past 30 years, trying to become a “professional” whatever (social worker, data analyst), trying to believe in careers and working in offices and 401k’s. But now that I’m about 10 years shy of official retirement (fewer years if I’m lucky), I’ve finally started to wake up to the fact that those things–career, working in an office, going to meetings, conferences–means little to me. I’d rather be writing (ideally, in my jammies with a pot of hot tea for fuel).
I also have the slightly queasy sense of time running out. I’m way past the halfway mark, even if genetics are in my favor and I live to my mom’s age of 90 (and counting). Anything can happen, and I have more time to make up for than I have time left. So I’m dusting off the blog and hope that people stop by, have a read, and enjoy themselves. I welcome any comments on any of my posts. The “Like” buttons are a nice new feature at WordPress, but if you do like my posts, I hope you can take a moment to tell me why. I will reciprocate.”
What a couple of weeks this has been. This book promotion stuff can wear you down. I’m sure my steady readers now know I have a new book titled His Revenge. At least I laid off the regular stuff during the busiest time so that the notifications were kept down to a dull roar. I appreciate everyone who helped spread the word on the launch. The reason I thanked each publicly is I was taught to send a thank you note when receiving a gift. I considered each of the posts about His Revenge to be a gift and wanted the giver to know how much I appreciated their help. As of today, there are only three more blogs about His Revenge. One today, one on Monday and one later in November. I’ll just say this is like a political campaign and for now the WordPress media part is almost finished. One final group 4Wills Publishing should be thanked for setting up a tour with Rave Review Book Club members for last weekend. It was a bunch of fun, and I welcomed their help. My JohnKu today is a reflection of how I feel about the support I have received.
Help by John W. Howell © 2015
Under heavy load,
Making the journey too hard. . .
More hands more success.
Karen Oberlaender is helping launch His Revenge today on her blog My Train of Thought. Please visit and tell her hello from me.
Karen lives in Germany and is a Linguist, technical author, urban fantasy writer, book blogger, and a member of Rosie Amber’s Book Review Team. She does extensive reviews and can be found at https://mytrainofthoughtson.wordpress.com/
Karen also posts book reviews here; LinkedIn, Twitter, Goodreads, Tumblr, Google+
Karen enjoys reading; Mystery, Urban Fantasy, Thriller, Paranormal, Young Adult, Fantasy, Middle Grade, Short Story, Horror, New Adult, Science Fiction
Book formats Karen prefers when reviewing are; e-pub or mobi
Hobbies, interests, and any pets? Reading, writing, nature, films; cats (cohabitants)
Thank you Karen.
Banner by Luciana Cavallaro
This post is to announce a ten-day cross-genre promotion featuring twelve authors. Each of the authors has special promotional details to share with you when you visit their blog post. Right now a His Revenge Kindle edition is available for free with the purchase of a paperback copy. The details are HERE. Amazon calls it the matchbook offer.
Here are the other authors participating. A visit to them will get you savings on their books for at least the next ten days.
Shehanne Moore — https://shehannemoore.wordpress.com/
Janice Spina — https://jemsbooks.wordpress.com/ — middle-grade junior detectives series
Bette Stevens is helping introduce His Revenge today. You can visit her post HERE.
Also, you should know Bette was a Beta reader for His Revenge and provided valuable input to the finished product.
Bette is also an excellent author and you can visit Amazon to view (and buy) her books.
Her books
Here is more about Bette. Thank you, Bette for your support and help.
Inspired by nature and human nature, Bette A. Stevens is an author, retired teacher, wife, mother of two and grandmother of five. Stevens lives in Central Maine with her husband on their 37-acre farmstead where she enjoys writing, reading, gardening, walking and reveling in the beauty of nature. She advocates for children and childhood literacy and for monarch butterflies, an endangered species. Stevens’s children’s activity book, THE TANGRAM ZOO and WORD PUZZLES TOO!, was first published in 1997 by Windswept House Publishing, Mt. Desert, ME; a second edition was self-published by the author in 2012. AMAZING MATILDA, Stevens’s second children’s book, self-published in 2012 won a 2013 Purple Dragonfly Book Award (Honorable Mention for Excellence in Children’s Literature – Ages 6 and older category) and also placed #9 on The 2013 Gittle List for Self-published Children’s Picture Books. Stevens has written articles for ECHOES, The Northern Maine Journal of Rural Culture based in Caribou, Maine. In 2013, the author published her first book for the YA/Adult audience: PURE TRASH: The story, a short story of a boy growing up in rural New England and prequel to DOG BONE SOUP, her debut novel released January 2015.
Kevin Brennan is helping launch His Revenge today and you can see the post HERE.
Kevin is the author of five books and a blogger. Four of them can be viewed on Amazon here. His newest that has been launched recently is titled,
Excuse the large font but I wanted to make sure you could see the title. I can guarantee you will enjoy any of Kevin’s books. They are well storied and written. (Hint, Kevin is a genius)
Chris The Story Reading Ape is helping with the launch of His Revenge. You can go HERE to visit the post. Chris also helps indie authors with reviews and making his blog available for promotions and guest posts. You can contact Chris for and he is always happy to lend a hand. Go HERE to look at the submission possibilities. Chris also offers a number of ways to help an author be successful. Here is a trailer on Chris’ services.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki2FvIrpm_8&authuser=0
Also. you can visit Chris on Amazon, Goodreads, Pinterest, Smashwords, Stumble Upon and Tumbler.
It is Wednesday Story Day and Veterans Day. First I want to thank all veterans and current active military personnel for their service and recognize this day as a celebration of their sacrifice.
Also, I’m back with a new episode of our continuing saga about Ben, Alexis, Mrs. Worthe, and dad. The last time we visited these troubled folks the two kids were asking the father about giving them some C4 explosives. The dad was almost convinced when in walks Mrs. Worthe. Let’s join the happy family.
“Mom what are you doing home so early?”
“For heaven’s sakes Alexis. I live here and can come and go as I please.”
“I-I know that. I mean we didn’t expect you to be here.”
“I’m well aware of that Alexis. You and Benny here were trying to convince your poor father to give you some explosives weren’t you?”
“Yes, dear. We were discussing the point. I was telling these two that I am worried about them blowing themselves up.”
“Yes, I heard you. You were just telling Alexis that you can’t deny her anything that she asks.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do. The fact that she hangs around this Ben character is evidence of your softness.”
“Come on dear. Let’s not make a scene.”
“There will be no scene and no C4 either.
“Aw, mom. You don’t run the plant. You don’t have a say. Does she daddy?”
“I’m afraid so. I sold the company to your mother a couple of months ago.”
“Why did you do that daddy? That was your father’s company.”
“I know. Sadly I just couldn’t make it profitable.”
“I can’t believe that. Mother, what did you do to daddy? That company has been making money for years.”
“Oh, shut up Alexis. I didn’t do anything. Your father here is a terrible business person is all. On top of his expensive habits that is.”
“What habits?”
“Go ahead dear tell your loving daughter about your proclivities to excess with wine, women, and song.”
