Kip Koelsch's Blog, page 9
July 5, 2018
AWARD FINALIST - WENDALL'S LULLABY
Excited that my novel Wendall's Lullaby has been selected as a finalist in the Florida Authors and Publishers Association 2018 President's Book Awards! The medalists will be announced at the FAPA conference banquet on August 4th! It's just nice to receive some professional recognition from my Florida peers.
July 1, 2018
New 5-Star Review: Wendall's Lullaby
"My first impression of this book upon reading it was that it might be quite similar to the work of Clive Cussler. I was wrong, I'd say it was more on a par with the work of Michael Crichton, particularly books like Congo. A gripping thriller that also has the added bonus of making you think, interesting characters, page turner in every sense of the word. I couldn't wait to see what happened next. Definitely worth reading if you like the genre and I look forward to seeing what the author does next."https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
June 14, 2018
GOODREADS GIVEAWAY: Kindle Edition of Wendall's Lullaby
Go to: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...
June 11, 2018
Cousteau Day 2018: Celebrate!
[image error]It’s difficult to put into words how much I was influenced by the work of Jacques-Yves Cousteau. As a young boy I read of his adventures in National Geographic Magazine, spent many an evening laying on the living room floor watching his television series and specials and was an early member of The Cousteau Society.
Because of Cousteau and the love of the oceans he instilled in me, I learned to Scuba dive in eighth grade and devoured more and more books on the marine environment and its creatures.
The Cousteau Society and Captain Cousteau informed and inspired my environmental thinking. I devoured the Cousteau Almanac–an exhaustive compilation of facts and figures related to human impacts on our water planet. It was a ground-breaking work and something I wish was duplicated again today.
And while I never became the marine biologist I thought I might, I’ve always maintained my interest in and kept contact with the oceans–whether through my relationships with others more directly involved in marine research or simply paddling my surfski or kayak.
Cousteau’s inspiration continues to permeate how I think about the world, what I’ve recently written (Wendall’s Lullaby) and my current writing project (Delphys Rising). Join me in celebrating the birthday of a man who was a pioneer and a champion for the home planet we (somewhat erroneously) call Earth.
Calypso by John Denver
June 6, 2018
IndieReader 2018 Discovery Awards Review
While my first novel Wendall’s Lullaby didn’t win an award, the jury from IndieReader wrote a nice review:
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WENDALL’S LULLABY is an intricate mystery with thought-provoking and heartbreaking moral questions, believable government conspiracies, lives both human and cetacean on the line, and a bit of romance. The science is plausible, the characters mostly likeable, and the plot, especially near the end, full of enough twists and turns to keep the reader fully engaged with the story.
Little things like positive reviews and book sales are great motivators for any writer. They certainly help make it easier to sit at the keyboard and work through the tough spots in my current work-in-progress–Delphys Rising. So, if you’ve read and enjoyed Wendall’s Lullaby–please take the time to leave a review on Facebook, Amazon and/or Goodreads. Even a few lines can help keep me motivated and will also get you that much closer to reading the sequel.
New Review from 2018 IndieReader Discovery Awards
"WENDALL’S LULLABY is an intricate mystery with thought-provoking and heartbreaking moral questions, believable government conspiracies, lives both human and cetacean on the line, and a bit of romance. The science is plausible, the characters mostly likeable, and the plot, especially near the end, full of enough twists and turns to keep the reader fully engaged with the story."
https://indiereader.com/2018/04/wenda...
May 22, 2018
$0.99 FOR MY NOVEL!!!
WENDALL'S LULLABYFor a limited time the Kindle edition of Kip Koelsch's thriller is available for just $0.99. Wendall's Lullaby blends political intrigue, beached dolphins, Navy special operations and science into a tale that reads like a film--PERFECT SUMMER READING!
Order the ebook and start unraveling a little of the conspiracy today: https://www.amazon.com/Wendalls-Lulla...
April 11, 2018
“Productive” Writing Days
[image error]Not all productive writing sessions are about scenes and dialogue flowing from fingers flying across the keyboard and ending with a huge word count. Don’t get me wrong–I do like those days. But word count is not the end-all be-all for a novelist.
[image error]The completion and publishing of Wendall’s Lullaby was originally all about exorcism for me–casting out the demons of a nearly complete but unfinished work that had been languishing for nearly eight years so that I could justify starting a new writing project. But completing the novel reawakened my interest in and enthusiasm for the subject matter and the characters. The re-discovered notes for a sequel only compounded those feelings.
So on the blank backsides of scrap paper I started fleshing out the old and new characters. I outlined–some. Before my outlining–my story arc–was complete my enthusiasm got the best of me and I sat down at the keyboard and started writing. To say I was “in the flow” would be an understatement–easily writing a few thousand words each session. I hit a bit of a block at about 35,000 words, did a little research and brainstorming and did well until I hit about 45,000 words. Then I struggled again–getting to the just-under 50,000 word mark before I realized my ideas weren’t fully developed beyond that point.
The realization came as I tried to write new scenes and kept having to retreat to the last few new ones I’d written–and rationalizing that my little tweaks and additions to those were “progress.” It was, but not what I needed to start flowing through the last third of my story.
[image error]Today I came to grips with that realization and rallied to spend most of my writing session in my head–alternately sitting at my desk scrawling notes, pacing through the house, staring through the trees swaying in the wind and taking some photos of the cats. My real breakthrough came early on–digging through notes I’d buried during last week’s cleaning of my office and finding a page scrawled with potential plot directions and twists. Viola!
While I know that some of the directions I’ll be going in the last third of the book will require some rewriting of previous chapters and scenes to add the needed nuances, I’m going to resist the urge to jump back and instead press forward until I reach the end of the first draft.
I’m just happy that I didn’t let myself get caught up–or caught–today by the need to conquer a certain word count. Instead I managed to step back and have a conceptually productive day that will lead to future days of flying fingers.
April 2, 2018
Amazon Reader Review: Wendall's Lullaby
March 29, 2018
JUNK MAIL UPDATE: 1 YEAR LATER
[image error]Sometime in the fall of 2016 we realized that the hundreds of pieces of mail my father received daily were not only junk, but junk that was coercively (and misleadingly) soliciting donations. Unfortunately, for many reasons, he was not well-equipped to discern the truly coercive pleas of disreputable organizations from the very few solicitations of “reputable charities.”
Several actions over the last year or more contributed to the eventual slow-down of junk mail addressed to my dad:
HE MOVED–and instead of forwarding his mail to his new apartment we had it forwarded to our house. We did not do a true change of address of any kind. Amazingly, it wasn’t long before we were receiving mail addressed to my dad at our address in addition to forwarded mail from his old address.
PHONE CALLS–for some reason I hate the phone. So my wife (THANK YOU JULES)made phone calls to the “charities” and organizations that were soliciting with junk mail. She made calls (sometimes multiples) to over 800 distinct entities. Some took all of my web search skills to find phone numbers as it’s not uncommon for junk mail to have no phone number (“phone numbers are so old skool!”) on their letterhead. This was the most effective at stopping the flow of junk.
EMAILS–for those for which we couldn’t find phone numbers I sent emails, Facebook messages or submitted forms on their websites.
SNAIL MAIL–when we were particularly outraged or when the other methods seemed not to work we used their pre-paid reply envelopes to send passionately scrawled replies imploring them to stop–sometimes we just raged and other times we tried to appeal to their humanity.
Extreme measures? It was an extreme (but not uncommon) case.
[image error]Today, on most days we receive less than six pieces (down from 50-100) of mail addressed to my dad. I don’t expect that we will ever be completely free of his junk mail–but at least it is no longer going to his mailbox! One of my lawyer friends tells me that their office still gets mail for clients that have been dead for years. But it is nice to know that ours has finally trickled down to a mere annoyance.
The take-home on a personal level? Be nosey. Be present. Be strong in confronting parents or grandparents about this kind of thing. Ruffle their feathers. Confront them. Don’t be passive.
The take-home on a broader level? The government–senior agencies, post office etc.–is doing little to nothing to address this type of elder abuse and fraud. They don’t have the will or the resources. It’s up to us–you and I–to continue to spread the word.
