Lynn Woolley's Blog: Vast Write Wing
October 9, 2025
The Power of Logical Thinking
Thinking logically isn’t all that hard, but it requires discipline. It’s the opposite of “shooting from the hip” – just saying the first thing that comes into your mind. It’s common sense, but it’s more than that. Common sense is being smart enough not to touch a hot iron or drink spoiled milk.
Logical thinking, to me, means first having a grasp of what you’re talk about, or the talking points, if it’s something political.
It also means listening to both sides of an issue – especially those you tend to disagree with – and carefully evaluating every argument. Logical thinking is free of emotion and biases, and considers only what makes sense – and what doesn’t. It means being flexible when parameters change as they often do. And it carries with it the ability to communicate why the conclusion you’ve reached is better than all the others.
Logic as a way of life. And talk radio.
I adopted logic as my brand in 1995 when I began my first run as a talk show host on KTEM. I wanted a mission statement that actually said something --- like Fox’s old (and still great) “We Report; You decide.” They even glommed onto an even better slogan that was one word shorter: “Fair and Balanced.” Those slogans locked in the “unbiased” position or brand for Fox News. Unfortunately, they abandoned that position in favor of “America is Watching,” which says nothing. Oh, well.
I didn’t know anything about Fox News in 1995, but I know practically everything about Star Trek. The First Officer of the starship Enterprise was a pointy-eared alien from Vulcan whose mother was from Earth. Vulcans, as you may know, eschew emotion and live their lives around logic. I was impressed.
Then came a woman said to be the human with the highest IQ. Her name was Marilyn vos Savant, and she had a column in the now-defunct PARADE MAGAZINE, and wrote a book entitled The Power of Logical Thinking. I’m not sure, but I may have fallen in love with her when I read that book. I sent her a letter once, and actually got a personal reply.
Based on these two influences in my life, I chose logic as my brand. My long-form mission statement read:
Taking the vital issues of the day, stripping them of their emotion, and analyzing them with logic aforethought.
Translation: I pledge to know what the hell I’m talking about. I will remove the political bullshit and I will you what it really means. I also had and still have a short form of that. Just two words:
Be Logical
There’s a history behind that, too. I had been in the advertising business, and a Shakespearian-trained actor in the Nashville area called Jim Varney had been doing syndicated TV commercials all across the country as “Ernest P. Worrell.” My agency hired him to do three commercials for an automotive dealer group that we represented. Varney began each ad speaking to an unseen neighbor: “Hey Vern!”
Naturally, imitators popped up, and one of those involved a man dressed as a woman and addressed someone called “Sister.” The Sister ads were funny and very well done, but never caught on like the Varney ads did. But here’s what impressed me. At the end of every commercial, the actor would look into the camera as say “Be sweet!”
I was impressed again. Not many slogans are just two words, and I thought those two words were very memorable. So, I adapted them for my own use, and “Be Logical” became my show-close as it has been now for more than 30 years.
To complete the shtick, I created an imaginary “Department of Logic” that I suggested the U.S. Government adopt in order to help it stop doing stupid things. Like spending more money than we have. I made myself the head of that department known as the “Secretary of Logic.” So, that’s history of the Lynn Woolley logic brand. I’ve always tried to live up to it.
What Mr. Spock said.
Leonard Nimoy, playing the role of Spock never got any laugh lines. He rarely, if ever, got the girl. He was free of the albatross of emotion, unless he was changed by some alien force. He was truthful, dependable, and fact-based. He would say things like: “That is not logical,” and “Indeed, Captain.” He was to the point and usually right, except when the half of him that was human got in the way. I loved the portrayal, and Spock became the show’s breakaway character.
To see Mr. Spock at his best, take a viewing of the episode “City on the Edge of Forever,” written by Harlan Ellison and first aired on NBC on April 6, 1967. If I was tasked to name the ten best individual episodes of all hour-long dramas I’ve ever seen on TV, I think this one might be at the top of the list.
In the episode, Dr. McCoy is accidentally injected with an overdose that makes him go crazy, and he beams down to a planet where there exists a mysterious portal known as “The Guardian of Forever.” Pursued by Kirk and Spock, he escapes through the portal into Earth’s past. At that point, Kirk and Spock lose contact with the Enterprise. The portal is intelligent and explains that Dr. McCoy has altered history and that the Federation of Planets and the Enterprise no longer exist. It offers to send the two men back in time, just slightly ahead of McCoy, so they can prepare for his arrival and try to stop him from changing history.
Arriving in Depression-era New York, they disguise themselves in period clothing with Spock wearing a pullover cap to hide his ears. They begin to work in a soup kitchen run by a woman named Edith Keeler, who is key to the plot of the episode. In the normal flow of history, Keeler was supposed to be killed in a traffic accident. Using his Tricorder, Spock determines that if she survives, Edith Keeler will eventually lead a peace movement that will result in Hitler winning the war. Kirk, who has fallen in love with her, is devastated. But Spock understands that unless Edith Keeler dies, the future will not develop as it should. This sets up the logic problem.
As the show reaches its climax, McCoy is located and is back to his normal self. The three men are standing along a street as Edith Keeler crosses, not noticing a truck coming at her. This is the moment of truth, the point at which she is supposed to die in the normal flow of history. Save her, and the future is doomed. Let her die, and all will be as it is supposed to be. But Kirk loves her. What does he do?
Instinctively, Kirk moves to save her, but is warned by Spock. McCoy also moves to save her, but is restrained by Kirk. As she is run down and killed by the truck, history is restored to its normal course. McCoy is shaken and asks whether Kirk knows what he just did in allowing Keeler to step in front of the truck. Spock responds: "He knows, Doctor. He knows."
It's a problem of logic and emotion all at the same time. Kirk has fallen for the woman, but he understands that if she lives, future history will be different and very bad. He has only a second to make a decision. He throws away his emotions, and logically does the right thing. I’ve seen the episode many times and I always wonder what I would have done.
What Marilyn vos Savant said.
Her book is a keeper, and I’d held onto my copy for years. In it, she talks about logic in making choices, but the most impressive thing she does is present problems – riddles if you prefer – and teaches us how to solve them. Here’s a little poem/problem that carries within itself all the clues you need to logic out who is speaking:
A man is walking up a set of stairs when he encounters a portrait of a man. He looks at it and says: “Brothers and sisters have I none, but this man’s father is my father’s son.”
The answer is simple, if convoluted. But it makes you think logically. If you haven’t already figured this one out, keep at it. The facts are all you need to solve it.
Ms. Vos Savant is famous for the “Monty Hall Problem,” about which she was routinely challenged. Google AI states the problem for us:
The Setup:
• There are three doors. Behind one door is a car; behind the other two are goats.
• Your Initial Choice:
• You pick a door (e.g., Door #1). At this point, your door has a 1/3 chance of having the car.
• The Host's Action:
• The host, who knows what's behind each door, opens one of the other two doors to reveal a goat.
The Choice:
• You are then given the option to stick with your original choice or switch to the other unopened door.
Here’s what vos Savant offers as the solution, as summarized by the AI:
Marilyn vos Savant correctly stated that in the Monty Hall problem, you should always switch doors to increase your chances of winning the car from 1/3 to 2/3. This counter-intuitive solution faced significant backlash, with many, including those with PhDs, insisting she was wrong. Her explanation hinges on the host's knowledge and constraint: the host, knowing where the car is, must open a door with a goat, concentrating the initial 2/3 probability of the car being behind one of the other two doors onto the single remaining unopened door.
This is her most controversial riddle, but think about it and see if you can understand the logic she applies to it.
How thinking logically can help you understand life decisions and political positions.
One thing I’ve always depended on is the Transitive Property. In mathematics it goes like this:
If two things are equal to a third thing, then they are equal to each other.
That’s simple with numbers. Let say that A and B are both equal to C. Then, by the Transitive Property, A must be equal to B. In pure numbers, if A has a value of 20, and C has a value of 20, then A = C, and since A = B, then the value of B must also be 20. In math, that is immutable.
It works that way in life as well:
You can’t afford to buy a house that costs more than $300,000. The house you are considering costs more than $300,000. Therefore, you can’t afford the house.
And in politics:
When government spends more money than it takes in, the National Debt will become unsustainable. The National Debt has become unsustainable. Therefore, the government must not spend more money than it takes in.
You can tell me all day long that this is too simplistic. It’s not. It’s not even an art. It’s the science of merely putting two facts together to see how they work out. The answer is always obvious, but is almost always disputed along party lines.
Try this one:
When government became heavily involved in college tuition, the cost of attending college rose significantly. Government is becoming heavily involved in healthcare. Therefore, the cost of healthcare is rising significantly.
Or this one:
When congressional hearings are televised, the hearings turn into partisan shouting matches. Most congressional hearings are televised. Therefore, most congressional hearings turn into partisan shouting matches.
It’s not that simple, say you? I say it often is. Prove me wrong. Consider the logic of Trump’s handling of tariffs or Biden’s handing of the border. A bit of logic goes a long way. The problem with Congress is that there’s not much logic remaining. Issues like Birthright Citizenship only need to look at original intent, and the illogic of preserving a practice that makes no sense and does great harm to the country.
Consider the logic of a welfare state that enables a man to impregnate a woman and leave her, without consequences while it pays single women to have babies. Think about the statement that “incarceration does not keep the crime rate down.” Say, what? That makes no sense.
In today’s America and indeed the world, logic is out and emotion and insanity are in. Women can’t be men, and men can’t be women, and yet we have a justice of the Supreme Court that can’t define what a woman is.
Doctors and hospitals perform sex-change operations for the profit while knowing that you cannot change a person’s sex. That’s not logical. Our system of medical care, with Big Insurance as the middleman, is so totally illogical, that it is being crushed under its own weight. We ought to change it, but the American people pump billions into insurance company coffers in unneeded and unnecessary insurance premiums and there is no incentive to change. That’s not logical.
The lobbying system in Congress is illogical as hell. So is the idea that members of Congress, that have inside information, can use it to get rich while the rest of us would do jail time for doing the same thing. Carping about Climate Change when sinking trillions into it without results is illogical. Gerrymandering is illogical. Not having term limits when politicians have served past their expiration dates is illogical.
Where is the federal Department of Logic when we need it?
We tried some logic with Elon Musk and DOGE and somebody, somewhere went berserk over every penny that was cut. Congress will put it all back. There will come a day of reckoning just as there was with the Subprime Crisis. Nobody thought that could happen. But it did, and nobody seems to think we have a debt crisis, but we do.
Fixing it would be logical, but the government has been shut down more than once because one party thinks government should spend more on healthcare in perpetuity, which will (logically) cause healthcare costs to go up.
You should try what I just did.
Get a yellow tablet and jot down all the things that are illogical about your life, and the politics of your country. You might write your congressman about it. He won’t do anything, but it’s worth a try. If you can fully grok the Monty Hall Problem, maybe you should run.
In closing, I’d like to thank Mr. Spock and Marilyn vos Savant for opening my eyes to the power of logical thinking. That’s what has guided most of my adult life and has helped me make better decisions. With just a little logic, congressmen could make better decisions too, but logic tells me they never will.
Logical thinking, to me, means first having a grasp of what you’re talk about, or the talking points, if it’s something political.
It also means listening to both sides of an issue – especially those you tend to disagree with – and carefully evaluating every argument. Logical thinking is free of emotion and biases, and considers only what makes sense – and what doesn’t. It means being flexible when parameters change as they often do. And it carries with it the ability to communicate why the conclusion you’ve reached is better than all the others.
Logic as a way of life. And talk radio.
I adopted logic as my brand in 1995 when I began my first run as a talk show host on KTEM. I wanted a mission statement that actually said something --- like Fox’s old (and still great) “We Report; You decide.” They even glommed onto an even better slogan that was one word shorter: “Fair and Balanced.” Those slogans locked in the “unbiased” position or brand for Fox News. Unfortunately, they abandoned that position in favor of “America is Watching,” which says nothing. Oh, well.
I didn’t know anything about Fox News in 1995, but I know practically everything about Star Trek. The First Officer of the starship Enterprise was a pointy-eared alien from Vulcan whose mother was from Earth. Vulcans, as you may know, eschew emotion and live their lives around logic. I was impressed.
Then came a woman said to be the human with the highest IQ. Her name was Marilyn vos Savant, and she had a column in the now-defunct PARADE MAGAZINE, and wrote a book entitled The Power of Logical Thinking. I’m not sure, but I may have fallen in love with her when I read that book. I sent her a letter once, and actually got a personal reply.
Based on these two influences in my life, I chose logic as my brand. My long-form mission statement read:
Taking the vital issues of the day, stripping them of their emotion, and analyzing them with logic aforethought.
Translation: I pledge to know what the hell I’m talking about. I will remove the political bullshit and I will you what it really means. I also had and still have a short form of that. Just two words:
Be Logical
There’s a history behind that, too. I had been in the advertising business, and a Shakespearian-trained actor in the Nashville area called Jim Varney had been doing syndicated TV commercials all across the country as “Ernest P. Worrell.” My agency hired him to do three commercials for an automotive dealer group that we represented. Varney began each ad speaking to an unseen neighbor: “Hey Vern!”
Naturally, imitators popped up, and one of those involved a man dressed as a woman and addressed someone called “Sister.” The Sister ads were funny and very well done, but never caught on like the Varney ads did. But here’s what impressed me. At the end of every commercial, the actor would look into the camera as say “Be sweet!”
I was impressed again. Not many slogans are just two words, and I thought those two words were very memorable. So, I adapted them for my own use, and “Be Logical” became my show-close as it has been now for more than 30 years.
To complete the shtick, I created an imaginary “Department of Logic” that I suggested the U.S. Government adopt in order to help it stop doing stupid things. Like spending more money than we have. I made myself the head of that department known as the “Secretary of Logic.” So, that’s history of the Lynn Woolley logic brand. I’ve always tried to live up to it.
What Mr. Spock said.
Leonard Nimoy, playing the role of Spock never got any laugh lines. He rarely, if ever, got the girl. He was free of the albatross of emotion, unless he was changed by some alien force. He was truthful, dependable, and fact-based. He would say things like: “That is not logical,” and “Indeed, Captain.” He was to the point and usually right, except when the half of him that was human got in the way. I loved the portrayal, and Spock became the show’s breakaway character.
To see Mr. Spock at his best, take a viewing of the episode “City on the Edge of Forever,” written by Harlan Ellison and first aired on NBC on April 6, 1967. If I was tasked to name the ten best individual episodes of all hour-long dramas I’ve ever seen on TV, I think this one might be at the top of the list.
In the episode, Dr. McCoy is accidentally injected with an overdose that makes him go crazy, and he beams down to a planet where there exists a mysterious portal known as “The Guardian of Forever.” Pursued by Kirk and Spock, he escapes through the portal into Earth’s past. At that point, Kirk and Spock lose contact with the Enterprise. The portal is intelligent and explains that Dr. McCoy has altered history and that the Federation of Planets and the Enterprise no longer exist. It offers to send the two men back in time, just slightly ahead of McCoy, so they can prepare for his arrival and try to stop him from changing history.
Arriving in Depression-era New York, they disguise themselves in period clothing with Spock wearing a pullover cap to hide his ears. They begin to work in a soup kitchen run by a woman named Edith Keeler, who is key to the plot of the episode. In the normal flow of history, Keeler was supposed to be killed in a traffic accident. Using his Tricorder, Spock determines that if she survives, Edith Keeler will eventually lead a peace movement that will result in Hitler winning the war. Kirk, who has fallen in love with her, is devastated. But Spock understands that unless Edith Keeler dies, the future will not develop as it should. This sets up the logic problem.
As the show reaches its climax, McCoy is located and is back to his normal self. The three men are standing along a street as Edith Keeler crosses, not noticing a truck coming at her. This is the moment of truth, the point at which she is supposed to die in the normal flow of history. Save her, and the future is doomed. Let her die, and all will be as it is supposed to be. But Kirk loves her. What does he do?
Instinctively, Kirk moves to save her, but is warned by Spock. McCoy also moves to save her, but is restrained by Kirk. As she is run down and killed by the truck, history is restored to its normal course. McCoy is shaken and asks whether Kirk knows what he just did in allowing Keeler to step in front of the truck. Spock responds: "He knows, Doctor. He knows."
It's a problem of logic and emotion all at the same time. Kirk has fallen for the woman, but he understands that if she lives, future history will be different and very bad. He has only a second to make a decision. He throws away his emotions, and logically does the right thing. I’ve seen the episode many times and I always wonder what I would have done.
What Marilyn vos Savant said.
Her book is a keeper, and I’d held onto my copy for years. In it, she talks about logic in making choices, but the most impressive thing she does is present problems – riddles if you prefer – and teaches us how to solve them. Here’s a little poem/problem that carries within itself all the clues you need to logic out who is speaking:
A man is walking up a set of stairs when he encounters a portrait of a man. He looks at it and says: “Brothers and sisters have I none, but this man’s father is my father’s son.”
The answer is simple, if convoluted. But it makes you think logically. If you haven’t already figured this one out, keep at it. The facts are all you need to solve it.
Ms. Vos Savant is famous for the “Monty Hall Problem,” about which she was routinely challenged. Google AI states the problem for us:
The Setup:
• There are three doors. Behind one door is a car; behind the other two are goats.
• Your Initial Choice:
• You pick a door (e.g., Door #1). At this point, your door has a 1/3 chance of having the car.
• The Host's Action:
• The host, who knows what's behind each door, opens one of the other two doors to reveal a goat.
The Choice:
• You are then given the option to stick with your original choice or switch to the other unopened door.
Here’s what vos Savant offers as the solution, as summarized by the AI:
Marilyn vos Savant correctly stated that in the Monty Hall problem, you should always switch doors to increase your chances of winning the car from 1/3 to 2/3. This counter-intuitive solution faced significant backlash, with many, including those with PhDs, insisting she was wrong. Her explanation hinges on the host's knowledge and constraint: the host, knowing where the car is, must open a door with a goat, concentrating the initial 2/3 probability of the car being behind one of the other two doors onto the single remaining unopened door.
This is her most controversial riddle, but think about it and see if you can understand the logic she applies to it.
How thinking logically can help you understand life decisions and political positions.
One thing I’ve always depended on is the Transitive Property. In mathematics it goes like this:
If two things are equal to a third thing, then they are equal to each other.
That’s simple with numbers. Let say that A and B are both equal to C. Then, by the Transitive Property, A must be equal to B. In pure numbers, if A has a value of 20, and C has a value of 20, then A = C, and since A = B, then the value of B must also be 20. In math, that is immutable.
It works that way in life as well:
You can’t afford to buy a house that costs more than $300,000. The house you are considering costs more than $300,000. Therefore, you can’t afford the house.
And in politics:
When government spends more money than it takes in, the National Debt will become unsustainable. The National Debt has become unsustainable. Therefore, the government must not spend more money than it takes in.
You can tell me all day long that this is too simplistic. It’s not. It’s not even an art. It’s the science of merely putting two facts together to see how they work out. The answer is always obvious, but is almost always disputed along party lines.
Try this one:
When government became heavily involved in college tuition, the cost of attending college rose significantly. Government is becoming heavily involved in healthcare. Therefore, the cost of healthcare is rising significantly.
Or this one:
When congressional hearings are televised, the hearings turn into partisan shouting matches. Most congressional hearings are televised. Therefore, most congressional hearings turn into partisan shouting matches.
It’s not that simple, say you? I say it often is. Prove me wrong. Consider the logic of Trump’s handling of tariffs or Biden’s handing of the border. A bit of logic goes a long way. The problem with Congress is that there’s not much logic remaining. Issues like Birthright Citizenship only need to look at original intent, and the illogic of preserving a practice that makes no sense and does great harm to the country.
Consider the logic of a welfare state that enables a man to impregnate a woman and leave her, without consequences while it pays single women to have babies. Think about the statement that “incarceration does not keep the crime rate down.” Say, what? That makes no sense.
In today’s America and indeed the world, logic is out and emotion and insanity are in. Women can’t be men, and men can’t be women, and yet we have a justice of the Supreme Court that can’t define what a woman is.
Doctors and hospitals perform sex-change operations for the profit while knowing that you cannot change a person’s sex. That’s not logical. Our system of medical care, with Big Insurance as the middleman, is so totally illogical, that it is being crushed under its own weight. We ought to change it, but the American people pump billions into insurance company coffers in unneeded and unnecessary insurance premiums and there is no incentive to change. That’s not logical.
The lobbying system in Congress is illogical as hell. So is the idea that members of Congress, that have inside information, can use it to get rich while the rest of us would do jail time for doing the same thing. Carping about Climate Change when sinking trillions into it without results is illogical. Gerrymandering is illogical. Not having term limits when politicians have served past their expiration dates is illogical.
Where is the federal Department of Logic when we need it?
We tried some logic with Elon Musk and DOGE and somebody, somewhere went berserk over every penny that was cut. Congress will put it all back. There will come a day of reckoning just as there was with the Subprime Crisis. Nobody thought that could happen. But it did, and nobody seems to think we have a debt crisis, but we do.
Fixing it would be logical, but the government has been shut down more than once because one party thinks government should spend more on healthcare in perpetuity, which will (logically) cause healthcare costs to go up.
You should try what I just did.
Get a yellow tablet and jot down all the things that are illogical about your life, and the politics of your country. You might write your congressman about it. He won’t do anything, but it’s worth a try. If you can fully grok the Monty Hall Problem, maybe you should run.
In closing, I’d like to thank Mr. Spock and Marilyn vos Savant for opening my eyes to the power of logical thinking. That’s what has guided most of my adult life and has helped me make better decisions. With just a little logic, congressmen could make better decisions too, but logic tells me they never will.
September 1, 2025
Why I Don’t Use the F-Word in My Writing
You won’t find the word f**k in anything that I write. Why not? After all, it’s the way people talk these days, isn’t it? Virtually all podcasters use it liberally, since a podcast is not subject to FCC fines. Joe Rogan uses it a lot. Bill Maher can hardly get through a sentence without it. Stephen King is possibly the highest-selling living author in America today and he’s always used the word. Even Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer have picked up on the word.
I’ll admit, the word is versatile as hell. Or heck, if you prefer.
Think about it. The F-word can be a noun or a verb or an adjective or any other part of speech depending on how you use it. It’s by far the easiest word to substitute for another word or to inject anywhere in a sentence, or simply to use as a modifier. And it makes you sound so cool! (That was satire. Actually, it makes you appear to be trying to sound cool.)
So why don’t I use it?
For one thing, I like to be different. I like to prove that I can write a top-of-the -line political column without resorting to the sensationalism the word provides. I don’t think the Democrats’ little experiment with the word is working out so well. They’d be better off working on policy instead of language.
In fiction writing these days, the F-word is practically a requirement. It’s hard to pick up a good mystery these days without it. Again, it adds nothing to the story, unless you think everyone uses it, and so characters have to use it too.
I don’t use it because I can tell a good story without it. In my early fiction writing, back in the seventies, the thought of hard-core profanity and blasphemy never occurred to me as something to put into a story. In the current century, I never saw a need to sprinkle it in as Stephen King often does. None of the great classics of science fiction, romance, or mystery used it. The word is a more modern phenomenon as far as literary usage.
The question is: does use of the F-word make for a better story?
I think not. I think it detracts. It makes the characters seem sleazier, just as it makes Bill Maher and Sen. Schumer seem sleazier. Perhaps the villains in a mystery story should appear to be sleazy, but murder usually takes care of that.
In my trilogy, Stitches in Time, the first story, “A Stitch in Time,” was written in 1978. I never thought of using profanity at that time. When I wrote the sequel, “Rules of Ascension,” in 2007, the idea of downgrading the language to gutter talk still did not occur.
In fact, you’ll never see language much worse than a hell or a damn in my stories. My characters always use correct grammar and speak the King’s English, unless an accent is called for called for the in the storyline. In “Rules of Ascension,” the villain calls the ruler that’s he’s trying to murder a “bastard” for not dying soon enough. That’s as nasty as I’ve gotten.
And sex! I have written a sex scene or two.
There’s one in the story “The House on Jackson Lane,” in my collection Darker Secrets. There’s another one near the end of the short novel “Earth as It Is in Heaven,” which is the final story in Stitches in Time. I think both of these scenes are very sexy, but they are not porn. I can write porn, but why would I? Each of these scenes played a vital role in the storyline, and I wrote them to do just that; not to prove that I can write erotica.
Why not the F-word? It’s simply not necessary to tell a story.
You know, I think maybe it is for Stephen King. I’m sure it is. King seems to need that word to fall back on. Isaac Asimov, the writer that inspired me to write fiction, never used that word, and rarely, if ever, wrote a sex scene. He sold millions of books. But so did King, so it’s whatever you prefer.
I prefer a great story with twists and turns that keep you turning the page. At this point, Stitches in Time has gotten nothing but 4-and-5-star ratings and excellent reviews at Goodreads.com. Not one person has complained that my characters weren’t profane enough.
A good story is a good story with or without that word. If you purchase a copy of Stitches in Time, and pass it along to your mother, she will not have reason to question you about the trash you’re reading. My goal is for anyone who reads my books to say: That was a great story!
***
Lynn Woolley is a Texas-based author, broadcaster, and songwriter. Follow his podcast at https://www.PlanetLogic.us. Check out his author’s page at https://www.Amazon.com/author/lynnwoo.... Order books direct from Lynn at https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site. Email Lynn at lwoolley9189@gmail.com.
I’ll admit, the word is versatile as hell. Or heck, if you prefer.
Think about it. The F-word can be a noun or a verb or an adjective or any other part of speech depending on how you use it. It’s by far the easiest word to substitute for another word or to inject anywhere in a sentence, or simply to use as a modifier. And it makes you sound so cool! (That was satire. Actually, it makes you appear to be trying to sound cool.)
So why don’t I use it?
For one thing, I like to be different. I like to prove that I can write a top-of-the -line political column without resorting to the sensationalism the word provides. I don’t think the Democrats’ little experiment with the word is working out so well. They’d be better off working on policy instead of language.
In fiction writing these days, the F-word is practically a requirement. It’s hard to pick up a good mystery these days without it. Again, it adds nothing to the story, unless you think everyone uses it, and so characters have to use it too.
I don’t use it because I can tell a good story without it. In my early fiction writing, back in the seventies, the thought of hard-core profanity and blasphemy never occurred to me as something to put into a story. In the current century, I never saw a need to sprinkle it in as Stephen King often does. None of the great classics of science fiction, romance, or mystery used it. The word is a more modern phenomenon as far as literary usage.
The question is: does use of the F-word make for a better story?
I think not. I think it detracts. It makes the characters seem sleazier, just as it makes Bill Maher and Sen. Schumer seem sleazier. Perhaps the villains in a mystery story should appear to be sleazy, but murder usually takes care of that.
In my trilogy, Stitches in Time, the first story, “A Stitch in Time,” was written in 1978. I never thought of using profanity at that time. When I wrote the sequel, “Rules of Ascension,” in 2007, the idea of downgrading the language to gutter talk still did not occur.
In fact, you’ll never see language much worse than a hell or a damn in my stories. My characters always use correct grammar and speak the King’s English, unless an accent is called for called for the in the storyline. In “Rules of Ascension,” the villain calls the ruler that’s he’s trying to murder a “bastard” for not dying soon enough. That’s as nasty as I’ve gotten.
And sex! I have written a sex scene or two.
There’s one in the story “The House on Jackson Lane,” in my collection Darker Secrets. There’s another one near the end of the short novel “Earth as It Is in Heaven,” which is the final story in Stitches in Time. I think both of these scenes are very sexy, but they are not porn. I can write porn, but why would I? Each of these scenes played a vital role in the storyline, and I wrote them to do just that; not to prove that I can write erotica.
Why not the F-word? It’s simply not necessary to tell a story.
You know, I think maybe it is for Stephen King. I’m sure it is. King seems to need that word to fall back on. Isaac Asimov, the writer that inspired me to write fiction, never used that word, and rarely, if ever, wrote a sex scene. He sold millions of books. But so did King, so it’s whatever you prefer.
I prefer a great story with twists and turns that keep you turning the page. At this point, Stitches in Time has gotten nothing but 4-and-5-star ratings and excellent reviews at Goodreads.com. Not one person has complained that my characters weren’t profane enough.
A good story is a good story with or without that word. If you purchase a copy of Stitches in Time, and pass it along to your mother, she will not have reason to question you about the trash you’re reading. My goal is for anyone who reads my books to say: That was a great story!
***
Lynn Woolley is a Texas-based author, broadcaster, and songwriter. Follow his podcast at https://www.PlanetLogic.us. Check out his author’s page at https://www.Amazon.com/author/lynnwoo.... Order books direct from Lynn at https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site. Email Lynn at lwoolley9189@gmail.com.
May 21, 2024
Worlds Without End
Stitches in Time: A Trilogy -- now available from Planet Logic Press
Here it is – my third and final collection of all the stories I’ve written over the years. It’s Stitches in Time: A Trilogy, and it presents three time-bending tales of alternate realities. This concludes my pandemic-inspired project to publish all my fiction. I still have more than 70 original songs I need to record, but that’s another project for another time. And this collection is all about time!
This is the marketing blurb written for Amazon and other online book stores:
"Time goes on and on, and never stops for anyone. But what if there were infinite streams of time, each leading to an altered future? In Stitches in Time, a scientist discovers a way to control the flow of time, and uses it to recover a version of his lost son. Time rolls on, and when a young scientist crosses the barriers of time and space, he encounters an Earth that only he can save. And when our home planet is destroyed by war with an alien race, scientists search for a new Earth in a far-flung alternate reality. Don’t miss Stitches in Time, a trilogy of time-bending tales of worlds without end."
Here’s a thumbnail look at each of the three stories in the Trilogy:
BOOK 1: A Stitch in Time
A scientist's attempt to bring back his dead son results in a time-splice for a deceased advertising executive.
Perhaps you’ve been on a busy freeway in stop-and-go traffic when time seems to be moving in spurts. What if it does move just a frame at a time? What would the implications be? You’ll no doubt note the rather glaring absence of the internet in this tale since I had never heard of such a thing at the time. This story was written in Dallas in 1978.
BOOK 2: Rules of Ascension
In a world with no President, no Constitution, and no United States of America, there is only the Rules of Ascension.
This novel began as an unnamed “space opera” back in the ‘80s that later became the third story in the trilogy. But I did not complete it at the time. I filed that narrative away (intending to return to it later) and started a new story. This time, all the action takes place on Earth under a one-world government that is starting to fall apart. This story was begun on July 15, 2006 and completed on February 13, 2007 in Temple, Texas.
BOOK 3: Earth as It Is in Heaven
When Earth becomes unsuitable for human life, scientists probe alternate universes to find a new one.
This is what Stephen King would refer to as a “trunk novel.” I wrote it on a typewriter in the ‘80s, but once I reached a certain point in the story, I couldn’t make the ending work. So, I tossed it into a trunk (actually a file cabinet) and forgot about it. When I started a project to publish all my fiction, I found the old manuscript and began to keystroke it. This time, ideas flooded my mind and I completed it with what seemed like a most satisfactory denouement. I did not date the original story, but I started work on it again in 2018 and completed it on February 13, 2019.
From the book, here is the introduction to Stitches in Time, written on December 26, 2021:
"Worlds Without End"
As a political writer, I’ve written hundreds of columns having to do with what goes on in the world. In 1978, I created a world of my own. I didn’t think much about it at time; it was simply the latest in a series of short stories I was writing and hoping to sell.
I had gotten the bug to write while working at KRLD, a 50,000-watt AM powerhouse in Dallas that received a lot of books from publishing houses looking for on-air reviews. These went straight to the desk of the late, great commentator Alex Burton who sometimes passed them around the newsroom once he was done with them.
For some strange reason, two books that Alex gave to me were by the same author: Isaac Asimov. Both were short story collections: Buy Jupiter and Tales of the Black Widowers -- one science fiction, and the other mysteries. I was impressed with both and sought out more of Asimov’s work, devouring everything I could find. Of course, I was also reading Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Mary Roberts Rinehart in the mystery field and Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, and Henry Kuttner in science fiction. I read Poe’s horror stories and graduated to those of Robert Bloch and later, Stephen King and Dean Koontz.
But as much as I loved reading, I wanted to write even more.
So, I wrote short stories and had the audacity to actually send them to editors who must have conspired against me since they were routinely rejected and returned in the self-addressed, stamped manila envelope that all unseasoned writers were required to provide. There were two things I could do at this point: give it up, or keep trying. I chose to keep on writing and sending stories until one day I received a letter from an actual professional magazine offering to buy one of my stories. The pay was 1-cent per word, but that was not the point. What mattered was getting published.
By this time, I was writing and selling articles and columns and even a couple of non-fiction books. But down deep, I wanted to write fiction. Over the next four decades, I continued to write stories and put them away, intending to publish them some day. In 2019, not getting any younger, I decided to make it happen.
I went back into my files and pulled out all the stories written on my old Royal typewriter with the round keys. There was a series about some college students who operated an amateur detective agency. There were some light science-fiction stories inspired by Asimov’s work. I retrieved two unfinished manuscripts including one that I had completely forgotten about. I keystroked them into digital form and finished them. There was one other long story I had abandoned that was begun after I had a computer. I finished it too. Digging deeper, I found four early shorts that were written in 1967 for my old comic book fanzine, The Symbol. I keystroked them into the computer and cleaned up the writing somewhat. I published all but one of these short stories in two collections: The Clock Tower and Other Stories and Darker Secrets.
That left one short story, A Stitch in Time, and two novels still to go and those are the ones you now hold in your hand.
These three tales are what you might refer to as what if stories. A what if story leads straight to what then. And therein lies the sense of wonder from a story of speculative or mystery fiction. Doyle asked, what if there was a man so observant that he could deduce the solution to any crime? Asimov asked, what if robots became sophisticated enough to exhibit human emotions? Bradbury asked, what if a fireman started fires instead of putting them out?
One afternoon in 1978, I formed a what if question while stuck in traffic on the R.L. Thornton Freeway in Dallas. Observing cars moving forward with starts and stops, I wondered if time might function that way as well. What if a scientist could isolate those micro-moments in time and splice them to other timelines? Once through the drivetime melee, I pulled out my trusty Royal and put in two pieces of paper with a sheet of carbon sandwiched between them and began to outline a story. A few days later, I completed A Stitch in Time. Once it was published, I knew it was ripe for a sequel.
I gave that my first shot in the eighties and completed 67 double-spaced pages before I got a case of writer’s block. I thought it was good to a point, but didn’t have a feel for how to develop and bring the story to a satisfying conclusion. The pages went into a file folder and into storage, becoming what Stephen King refers to as a “trunk novel.”
In 2007, I decided to give it another try. This time, I had more ideas than knew what to do with. What if Roosevelt had never contracted polio? What if world peace was forced upon the nations? What if a man from our world shifted to that other reality? What if they tried to kill him? It all came together but I never once submitted it to a publisher. I just saved the file and moved on.
Fast forward to 2019 when I got the idea of publishing all these stories. I had created a world of holonets, solar-buses, and time splices in Stitch, and had expanded that world in Rules of Ascension. With many of the same characters and new ones I had created, I wanted an additional story to form a trilogy. That’s when the trunk novel was rescued from the depths of my file cabinet. I picked up the story and ran with it, somehow knowing precisely where I wanted it to go. Ideas flooded into my mind. What if one planet’s climate was becoming dangerously colder while another was burning to a crisp? What if we could send an emissary across dimensional barriers to find another Earth? What if we could create a really large stasis field? What if we could access other worlds? What if we could explore countless realities in worlds without end?
Of course, Rules tied in with concepts and characters from Stitch, and the final story, Earth as It Is in Heaven, tied in with both of the prior narratives as well as referencing two tales from The Clock Tower and Other Stories.
And so, I present to you my world that began in real time on a busy Dallas freeway, progressed to a rules-based utopia (or dystopia) of government-mandated World Peace, and ended up as a tale of three galactic civilizations and how they interacted.
You may be wondering, since this concludes my fiction publishing project, if there will be any more stories. That all depends on how many more years God is willing to allow. Given enough time, I shall surely get the urge to ask what if a few more times, and extrapolate what then.
And you may have noticed some loose ends herein that might be tied up…
Here it is – my third and final collection of all the stories I’ve written over the years. It’s Stitches in Time: A Trilogy, and it presents three time-bending tales of alternate realities. This concludes my pandemic-inspired project to publish all my fiction. I still have more than 70 original songs I need to record, but that’s another project for another time. And this collection is all about time!
This is the marketing blurb written for Amazon and other online book stores:
"Time goes on and on, and never stops for anyone. But what if there were infinite streams of time, each leading to an altered future? In Stitches in Time, a scientist discovers a way to control the flow of time, and uses it to recover a version of his lost son. Time rolls on, and when a young scientist crosses the barriers of time and space, he encounters an Earth that only he can save. And when our home planet is destroyed by war with an alien race, scientists search for a new Earth in a far-flung alternate reality. Don’t miss Stitches in Time, a trilogy of time-bending tales of worlds without end."
Here’s a thumbnail look at each of the three stories in the Trilogy:
BOOK 1: A Stitch in Time
A scientist's attempt to bring back his dead son results in a time-splice for a deceased advertising executive.
Perhaps you’ve been on a busy freeway in stop-and-go traffic when time seems to be moving in spurts. What if it does move just a frame at a time? What would the implications be? You’ll no doubt note the rather glaring absence of the internet in this tale since I had never heard of such a thing at the time. This story was written in Dallas in 1978.
BOOK 2: Rules of Ascension
In a world with no President, no Constitution, and no United States of America, there is only the Rules of Ascension.
This novel began as an unnamed “space opera” back in the ‘80s that later became the third story in the trilogy. But I did not complete it at the time. I filed that narrative away (intending to return to it later) and started a new story. This time, all the action takes place on Earth under a one-world government that is starting to fall apart. This story was begun on July 15, 2006 and completed on February 13, 2007 in Temple, Texas.
BOOK 3: Earth as It Is in Heaven
When Earth becomes unsuitable for human life, scientists probe alternate universes to find a new one.
This is what Stephen King would refer to as a “trunk novel.” I wrote it on a typewriter in the ‘80s, but once I reached a certain point in the story, I couldn’t make the ending work. So, I tossed it into a trunk (actually a file cabinet) and forgot about it. When I started a project to publish all my fiction, I found the old manuscript and began to keystroke it. This time, ideas flooded my mind and I completed it with what seemed like a most satisfactory denouement. I did not date the original story, but I started work on it again in 2018 and completed it on February 13, 2019.
From the book, here is the introduction to Stitches in Time, written on December 26, 2021:
"Worlds Without End"
As a political writer, I’ve written hundreds of columns having to do with what goes on in the world. In 1978, I created a world of my own. I didn’t think much about it at time; it was simply the latest in a series of short stories I was writing and hoping to sell.
I had gotten the bug to write while working at KRLD, a 50,000-watt AM powerhouse in Dallas that received a lot of books from publishing houses looking for on-air reviews. These went straight to the desk of the late, great commentator Alex Burton who sometimes passed them around the newsroom once he was done with them.
For some strange reason, two books that Alex gave to me were by the same author: Isaac Asimov. Both were short story collections: Buy Jupiter and Tales of the Black Widowers -- one science fiction, and the other mysteries. I was impressed with both and sought out more of Asimov’s work, devouring everything I could find. Of course, I was also reading Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Mary Roberts Rinehart in the mystery field and Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, and Henry Kuttner in science fiction. I read Poe’s horror stories and graduated to those of Robert Bloch and later, Stephen King and Dean Koontz.
But as much as I loved reading, I wanted to write even more.
So, I wrote short stories and had the audacity to actually send them to editors who must have conspired against me since they were routinely rejected and returned in the self-addressed, stamped manila envelope that all unseasoned writers were required to provide. There were two things I could do at this point: give it up, or keep trying. I chose to keep on writing and sending stories until one day I received a letter from an actual professional magazine offering to buy one of my stories. The pay was 1-cent per word, but that was not the point. What mattered was getting published.
By this time, I was writing and selling articles and columns and even a couple of non-fiction books. But down deep, I wanted to write fiction. Over the next four decades, I continued to write stories and put them away, intending to publish them some day. In 2019, not getting any younger, I decided to make it happen.
I went back into my files and pulled out all the stories written on my old Royal typewriter with the round keys. There was a series about some college students who operated an amateur detective agency. There were some light science-fiction stories inspired by Asimov’s work. I retrieved two unfinished manuscripts including one that I had completely forgotten about. I keystroked them into digital form and finished them. There was one other long story I had abandoned that was begun after I had a computer. I finished it too. Digging deeper, I found four early shorts that were written in 1967 for my old comic book fanzine, The Symbol. I keystroked them into the computer and cleaned up the writing somewhat. I published all but one of these short stories in two collections: The Clock Tower and Other Stories and Darker Secrets.
That left one short story, A Stitch in Time, and two novels still to go and those are the ones you now hold in your hand.
These three tales are what you might refer to as what if stories. A what if story leads straight to what then. And therein lies the sense of wonder from a story of speculative or mystery fiction. Doyle asked, what if there was a man so observant that he could deduce the solution to any crime? Asimov asked, what if robots became sophisticated enough to exhibit human emotions? Bradbury asked, what if a fireman started fires instead of putting them out?
One afternoon in 1978, I formed a what if question while stuck in traffic on the R.L. Thornton Freeway in Dallas. Observing cars moving forward with starts and stops, I wondered if time might function that way as well. What if a scientist could isolate those micro-moments in time and splice them to other timelines? Once through the drivetime melee, I pulled out my trusty Royal and put in two pieces of paper with a sheet of carbon sandwiched between them and began to outline a story. A few days later, I completed A Stitch in Time. Once it was published, I knew it was ripe for a sequel.
I gave that my first shot in the eighties and completed 67 double-spaced pages before I got a case of writer’s block. I thought it was good to a point, but didn’t have a feel for how to develop and bring the story to a satisfying conclusion. The pages went into a file folder and into storage, becoming what Stephen King refers to as a “trunk novel.”
In 2007, I decided to give it another try. This time, I had more ideas than knew what to do with. What if Roosevelt had never contracted polio? What if world peace was forced upon the nations? What if a man from our world shifted to that other reality? What if they tried to kill him? It all came together but I never once submitted it to a publisher. I just saved the file and moved on.
Fast forward to 2019 when I got the idea of publishing all these stories. I had created a world of holonets, solar-buses, and time splices in Stitch, and had expanded that world in Rules of Ascension. With many of the same characters and new ones I had created, I wanted an additional story to form a trilogy. That’s when the trunk novel was rescued from the depths of my file cabinet. I picked up the story and ran with it, somehow knowing precisely where I wanted it to go. Ideas flooded into my mind. What if one planet’s climate was becoming dangerously colder while another was burning to a crisp? What if we could send an emissary across dimensional barriers to find another Earth? What if we could create a really large stasis field? What if we could access other worlds? What if we could explore countless realities in worlds without end?
Of course, Rules tied in with concepts and characters from Stitch, and the final story, Earth as It Is in Heaven, tied in with both of the prior narratives as well as referencing two tales from The Clock Tower and Other Stories.
And so, I present to you my world that began in real time on a busy Dallas freeway, progressed to a rules-based utopia (or dystopia) of government-mandated World Peace, and ended up as a tale of three galactic civilizations and how they interacted.
You may be wondering, since this concludes my fiction publishing project, if there will be any more stories. That all depends on how many more years God is willing to allow. Given enough time, I shall surely get the urge to ask what if a few more times, and extrapolate what then.
And you may have noticed some loose ends herein that might be tied up…
April 24, 2024
Stitches in Time -- A Trilogy now available from Planet Logic Press
Here it is – my third and final collection of all the stories I’ve written over the years. It’s Stitches in Time – A Trilogy, and it presents three time-bending tales of alternate realities. This concludes my pandemic-inspired project to publish all my fiction. I still have more than 70 original songs I need to record, but that’s another project for another time. And this collection is all about time!
This is the marketing blurb written for Amazon and other online book stores:
Time goes on and on, and never stops for anyone. But what if there were infinite streams of time, each leading to an altered future? In Stitches in Time, a scientist discovers a way to control the flow of time, and uses it to recover a version of his lost son. Time rolls on, and when a young scientist crosses the barriers of time and space, he encounters an Earth that only he can save. And when our home planet is destroyed by war with an alien race, scientists search for a new Earth in a far-flung alternate reality. Don’t miss Stitches in Time, a trilogy of time-bending tales of worlds without end.
Here’s a thumbnail look at each of the three stories in the Trilogy:
BOOK 1: A scientist's attempt to bring back his dead son results in a time-splice for a deceased advertising executive. Perhaps you’ve been on a busy freeway in stop-and-go traffic when time seems to be
moving in spurts. What if it does move just a frame at a time? What would the implications be? You’ll no doubt note the rather glaring absence of the internet in this tale since I had never heard of such a thing at the time. This story was written in Dallas in 1978.
BOOK 2: In a world with no President, no Constitution, and no United States of America, there is only the Rules of Ascension. This novel began as an unnamed “space opera” back in the ‘80s that later became the third story in the trilogy. But I did not complete it at the time. I filed that narrative away (intending to return to it later) and started a new story. This time, all the action takes place on Earth under a one-world government that is starting to fall apart. This story was begun on July 15, 2006 and completed on February 13, 2007 in Temple, Texas.
BOOK 3: When Earth becomes unsuitable for human life, scientists probe alternate universes to find a new one. This is what Stephen King would refer to as a “trunk novel.” I wrote it on a typewriter in the ‘80s, but once I reached a certain point in the story, I couldn’t make the ending work. So, I tossed it into a trunk (actually a file cabinet) and forgot about it. When I started a project to publish all my fiction, I found the old manuscript and began to keystroke it. This time, ideas flooded my mind and I completed it with what seemed like a most satisfactory denouement. I did not date the original story, but I started work on it again in 2018 and completed it on February 13, 2019.
From the book, here is the introduction to Stitches in Time, written on December 26, 2021:
Worlds Without End: As a political writer, I’ve written hundreds of columns having to do with what goes on in the world. In 1978, I created a world of my own. I didn’t think much about it at time; it was simply the latest in a series of short stories I was writing and hoping to sell.
I had gotten the bug to write while working at KRLD, a 50,000-watt AM powerhouse in Dallas that received a lot of books from publishing houses looking for on-air reviews. These went straight to the desk of the late, great commentator Alex Burton who sometimes passed them around the newsroom once he was done with them.
For some strange reason, two books that Alex gave to me were by the same author: Isaac Asimov. Both were short story collections: Buy Jupiter and Tales of the Black Widowers -- one science fiction, and the other mysteries. I was impressed with both and sought out more of Asimov’s work, devouring everything I could find. Of course, I was also reading Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Mary Roberts Rinehart in the mystery field and Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, and Henry Kuttner in science fiction. I read Poe’s horror stories and graduated to those of Robert Bloch and later, Stephen King and Dean Koontz.
But as much as I loved reading, I wanted to write even more.
So, I wrote short stories and had the audacity to actually send them to editors who must have conspired against me since they were routinely rejected and returned in the self-addressed, stamped manila envelope that all unseasoned writers were required to provide. There were two things I could do at this point: give it up, or keep trying. I chose to keep on writing and sending stories until one day I received a letter from an actual professional magazine offering to buy one of my stories. The pay was 1-cent per word, but that was not the point. What mattered was getting published.
By this time, I was writing and selling articles and columns and even a couple of non-fiction books. But down deep, I wanted to write fiction. Over the next four decades, I continued to write stories and put them away, intending to publish them some day. In 2019, not getting any younger, I decided to make it happen.
I went back into my files and pulled out all the stories written on my old Royal typewriter with the round keys. There was a series about some college students who operated an amateur detective agency. There were some light science-fiction stories inspired by Asimov’s work. I retrieved two unfinished manuscripts including one that I had completely forgotten about. I keystroked them into digital form and finished them. There was one other long story I had abandoned that was begun after I had a computer. I finished it too. Digging deeper, I found four early shorts that were written in 1967 for my old comic book fanzine, The Symbol. I keystroked them into the computer and cleaned up the writing somewhat. I published all but one of these short stories in two collections: The Clock Tower and Other Stories and Darker Secrets.
That left one short story, A Stitch in Time, and two novels still to go and those are the ones you now hold in your hand.
These three tales are what you might refer to as what if stories. A what if story leads straight to what then. And therein lies the sense of wonder from a story of speculative or mystery fiction. Doyle asked, what if there was a man so observant that he could deduce the solution to any crime? Asimov asked, what if robots became sophisticated enough to exhibit human emotions? Bradbury asked, what if a fireman started fires instead of putting them out?
One afternoon in 1978, I formed a what if question while stuck in traffic on the R.L. Thornton Freeway in Dallas. Observing cars moving forward with starts and stops, I wondered if time might function that way as well. What if a scientist could isolate those micro-moments in time and splice them to other timelines? Once through the drivetime melee, I pulled out my trusty Royal and put in two pieces of paper with a sheet of carbon sandwiched between them and began to outline a story. A few days later, I completed A Stitch in Time. Once it was published, I knew it was ripe for a sequel.
I gave that my first shot in the eighties and completed 67 double-spaced pages before I got a case of writer’s block. I thought it was good to a point, but didn’t have a feel for how to develop and bring the story to a satisfying conclusion. The pages went into a file folder and into storage, becoming what Stephen King refers to as a “trunk novel.”
In 2007, I decided to give it another try. This time, I had more ideas than knew what to do with. What if Roosevelt had never contracted polio? What if world peace was forced upon the nations? What if a man from our world shifted to that other reality? What if they tried to kill him? It all came together but I never once submitted it to a publisher. I just saved the file and moved on.
Fast forward to 2019 when I got the idea of publishing all these stories. I had created a world of holonets, solar-buses, and time splices in Stitch, and had expanded that world in Rules of Ascension. With many of the same characters and new ones I had created, I wanted an additional story to form a trilogy. That’s when the trunk novel was rescued from the depths of my file cabinet. I picked up the story and ran with it, somehow knowing precisely where I wanted it to go. Ideas flooded into my mind. What if one planet’s climate was becoming dangerously colder while another was burning to a crisp? What if we could send an emissary across dimensional barriers to find another Earth? What if we could create a really large stasis field? What if we could access other worlds? What if we could explore countless realities in worlds without end?
Of course, Rules tied in with concepts and characters from Stitch, and the final story, Earth as It Is in Heaven, tied in with both of the prior narratives as well as referencing two tales from The Clock Tower and Other Stories.
And so, I present to you my world that began in real time on a busy Dallas freeway, progressed to a rules-based utopia (or dystopia) of government-mandated World Peace, and ended up as a tale of three galactic civilizations and how they interacted.
You may be wondering, since this concludes my fiction publishing project, if there will be any more stories. That all depends on how many more years God is willing to allow. Given enough time, I shall surely get the urge to ask what if a few more times, and extrapolate what then.
And you may have noticed some loose ends herein that might be tied up…
Lynn Woolley is a Texas-based author, broadcaster, and songwriter. Follow his podcast at https://www.PlanetLogic.us. Check out his author’s page at https://www.Amazon.com/author/lynnwoo.... Order books direct from Lynn at https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site. Email Lynn at lwoolley9189@gmail.com.
This is the marketing blurb written for Amazon and other online book stores:
Time goes on and on, and never stops for anyone. But what if there were infinite streams of time, each leading to an altered future? In Stitches in Time, a scientist discovers a way to control the flow of time, and uses it to recover a version of his lost son. Time rolls on, and when a young scientist crosses the barriers of time and space, he encounters an Earth that only he can save. And when our home planet is destroyed by war with an alien race, scientists search for a new Earth in a far-flung alternate reality. Don’t miss Stitches in Time, a trilogy of time-bending tales of worlds without end.
Here’s a thumbnail look at each of the three stories in the Trilogy:
BOOK 1: A scientist's attempt to bring back his dead son results in a time-splice for a deceased advertising executive. Perhaps you’ve been on a busy freeway in stop-and-go traffic when time seems to be
moving in spurts. What if it does move just a frame at a time? What would the implications be? You’ll no doubt note the rather glaring absence of the internet in this tale since I had never heard of such a thing at the time. This story was written in Dallas in 1978.
BOOK 2: In a world with no President, no Constitution, and no United States of America, there is only the Rules of Ascension. This novel began as an unnamed “space opera” back in the ‘80s that later became the third story in the trilogy. But I did not complete it at the time. I filed that narrative away (intending to return to it later) and started a new story. This time, all the action takes place on Earth under a one-world government that is starting to fall apart. This story was begun on July 15, 2006 and completed on February 13, 2007 in Temple, Texas.
BOOK 3: When Earth becomes unsuitable for human life, scientists probe alternate universes to find a new one. This is what Stephen King would refer to as a “trunk novel.” I wrote it on a typewriter in the ‘80s, but once I reached a certain point in the story, I couldn’t make the ending work. So, I tossed it into a trunk (actually a file cabinet) and forgot about it. When I started a project to publish all my fiction, I found the old manuscript and began to keystroke it. This time, ideas flooded my mind and I completed it with what seemed like a most satisfactory denouement. I did not date the original story, but I started work on it again in 2018 and completed it on February 13, 2019.
From the book, here is the introduction to Stitches in Time, written on December 26, 2021:
Worlds Without End: As a political writer, I’ve written hundreds of columns having to do with what goes on in the world. In 1978, I created a world of my own. I didn’t think much about it at time; it was simply the latest in a series of short stories I was writing and hoping to sell.
I had gotten the bug to write while working at KRLD, a 50,000-watt AM powerhouse in Dallas that received a lot of books from publishing houses looking for on-air reviews. These went straight to the desk of the late, great commentator Alex Burton who sometimes passed them around the newsroom once he was done with them.
For some strange reason, two books that Alex gave to me were by the same author: Isaac Asimov. Both were short story collections: Buy Jupiter and Tales of the Black Widowers -- one science fiction, and the other mysteries. I was impressed with both and sought out more of Asimov’s work, devouring everything I could find. Of course, I was also reading Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Mary Roberts Rinehart in the mystery field and Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, and Henry Kuttner in science fiction. I read Poe’s horror stories and graduated to those of Robert Bloch and later, Stephen King and Dean Koontz.
But as much as I loved reading, I wanted to write even more.
So, I wrote short stories and had the audacity to actually send them to editors who must have conspired against me since they were routinely rejected and returned in the self-addressed, stamped manila envelope that all unseasoned writers were required to provide. There were two things I could do at this point: give it up, or keep trying. I chose to keep on writing and sending stories until one day I received a letter from an actual professional magazine offering to buy one of my stories. The pay was 1-cent per word, but that was not the point. What mattered was getting published.
By this time, I was writing and selling articles and columns and even a couple of non-fiction books. But down deep, I wanted to write fiction. Over the next four decades, I continued to write stories and put them away, intending to publish them some day. In 2019, not getting any younger, I decided to make it happen.
I went back into my files and pulled out all the stories written on my old Royal typewriter with the round keys. There was a series about some college students who operated an amateur detective agency. There were some light science-fiction stories inspired by Asimov’s work. I retrieved two unfinished manuscripts including one that I had completely forgotten about. I keystroked them into digital form and finished them. There was one other long story I had abandoned that was begun after I had a computer. I finished it too. Digging deeper, I found four early shorts that were written in 1967 for my old comic book fanzine, The Symbol. I keystroked them into the computer and cleaned up the writing somewhat. I published all but one of these short stories in two collections: The Clock Tower and Other Stories and Darker Secrets.
That left one short story, A Stitch in Time, and two novels still to go and those are the ones you now hold in your hand.
These three tales are what you might refer to as what if stories. A what if story leads straight to what then. And therein lies the sense of wonder from a story of speculative or mystery fiction. Doyle asked, what if there was a man so observant that he could deduce the solution to any crime? Asimov asked, what if robots became sophisticated enough to exhibit human emotions? Bradbury asked, what if a fireman started fires instead of putting them out?
One afternoon in 1978, I formed a what if question while stuck in traffic on the R.L. Thornton Freeway in Dallas. Observing cars moving forward with starts and stops, I wondered if time might function that way as well. What if a scientist could isolate those micro-moments in time and splice them to other timelines? Once through the drivetime melee, I pulled out my trusty Royal and put in two pieces of paper with a sheet of carbon sandwiched between them and began to outline a story. A few days later, I completed A Stitch in Time. Once it was published, I knew it was ripe for a sequel.
I gave that my first shot in the eighties and completed 67 double-spaced pages before I got a case of writer’s block. I thought it was good to a point, but didn’t have a feel for how to develop and bring the story to a satisfying conclusion. The pages went into a file folder and into storage, becoming what Stephen King refers to as a “trunk novel.”
In 2007, I decided to give it another try. This time, I had more ideas than knew what to do with. What if Roosevelt had never contracted polio? What if world peace was forced upon the nations? What if a man from our world shifted to that other reality? What if they tried to kill him? It all came together but I never once submitted it to a publisher. I just saved the file and moved on.
Fast forward to 2019 when I got the idea of publishing all these stories. I had created a world of holonets, solar-buses, and time splices in Stitch, and had expanded that world in Rules of Ascension. With many of the same characters and new ones I had created, I wanted an additional story to form a trilogy. That’s when the trunk novel was rescued from the depths of my file cabinet. I picked up the story and ran with it, somehow knowing precisely where I wanted it to go. Ideas flooded into my mind. What if one planet’s climate was becoming dangerously colder while another was burning to a crisp? What if we could send an emissary across dimensional barriers to find another Earth? What if we could create a really large stasis field? What if we could access other worlds? What if we could explore countless realities in worlds without end?
Of course, Rules tied in with concepts and characters from Stitch, and the final story, Earth as It Is in Heaven, tied in with both of the prior narratives as well as referencing two tales from The Clock Tower and Other Stories.
And so, I present to you my world that began in real time on a busy Dallas freeway, progressed to a rules-based utopia (or dystopia) of government-mandated World Peace, and ended up as a tale of three galactic civilizations and how they interacted.
You may be wondering, since this concludes my fiction publishing project, if there will be any more stories. That all depends on how many more years God is willing to allow. Given enough time, I shall surely get the urge to ask what if a few more times, and extrapolate what then.
And you may have noticed some loose ends herein that might be tied up…
Lynn Woolley is a Texas-based author, broadcaster, and songwriter. Follow his podcast at https://www.PlanetLogic.us. Check out his author’s page at https://www.Amazon.com/author/lynnwoo.... Order books direct from Lynn at https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site. Email Lynn at lwoolley9189@gmail.com.
December 12, 2022
“Darker Secrets” features Vampires, Haunted Houses, Private Eyes, and three Tales From the Strange Café
My news release for DARKER SECRETS:
Welcome to a darker world of night-things, callous murderers, and secret societies, all contained in sixteen enticing tales of suspense and detection.
Darker Secrets is the second in a series of three books from Planet Logic Press that will contain all the stories in my own personal canon. Some date back to 1967 when I was a mere seventeen years old, to several tales written specifically for Darker Secrets. The book is available as a paperback and as an eBook for Kindle or Nook.
If you read the prior book, The Clock Tower and Other Stories, you’ll notice some familiar characters returning in Darker Secrets. But even so, this collection has its own eerie identity. While The Clock Tower was mostly fantasy and science fiction, this book adds the element of mystery with eight stories that focus on detection.
The fantasy element is back as well with a century-spanning vampire story leading off the book, followed by a pair of supernatural themed tales. Two stories have an element of science fiction, and one crosses over into the superhero genre.
The final three stories in the book take place in a run-down eatery in the fictional city of Jamesport. In “Tales From the Strange Café,” you’ll join a literary, male-only, drinking and debating society that exists for the purpose of hearing oddball stories, and deciding on their veracity. Our group, the Wayfaring Strangers, takes on the issues of so-called Brain Warfare, an impossible murder, and the haunting of Texas’ most famous tower.
So order your copy today and discover how many Darker Secrets you can unveil!
Here are some ways to purchase Darker Secrets online:
Direct from the author at Square:
https://planetlogicpress.square.site/...
From Amazon.com:
https://www.amazon.com/Darker-Secrets...
From Barnes and Noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dark...
From ABEbooks.com: https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Book...
Sixteen enticing tales of Suspense and Detection
Story synopses:
• A 150-year-old British vampire is pursued by a private investigator.
• An advertising executive is haunted by his own reflection.
• A man uncovers a tale of seduction and murder after moving into a haunted house.
• Four college chums get together to solve a missing gold mystery.
• The Duval Street gang must crack a murder suspect’s airtight alibi.
• Victims and suspects abound after a deadly substance shows up in Cedar Falls.
• College sleuths must solve a fictional murder and a real one at the same time.
• An amateur detective challenges his friends to solve a contrived murder mystery.
• When Farmer Tom is brutally murdered, his best friend seeks justice.
• On his 21st birthday, a young man must prove to his dead father that he is worthy.
• Two young musicians achieve success at a terrible cost.
• A chain of radio stations turns to subliminal persuasion to increase ratings.
• The Capital Eye agency must solve the brutal murder of a billionaire’s ex-wife.
• The government creates a band of heroes to battle a Russian mind control agent.
• When a reclusive widow is brutally murdered, Detective Todd seeks a missing clue.
• A television production crew searches for paranormal activity atop a deadly tower.
LYNN WOOLLEY is the author of “The Clock Tower and Other Stories” and four books on broadcasting and politics. He currently hosts “Cardle & Woolley” on KJCE Talk 1370 in Austin and the “Planet Logic” podcast. His career has included stints as a radio news anchor in Dallas and Austin, a political writer for The Dallas Morning News, co-host of the Children’s Miracle Network Telethon in the Waco-Temple market, and 24 years as a syndicated radio host. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
Welcome to a darker world of night-things, callous murderers, and secret societies, all contained in sixteen enticing tales of suspense and detection.
Darker Secrets is the second in a series of three books from Planet Logic Press that will contain all the stories in my own personal canon. Some date back to 1967 when I was a mere seventeen years old, to several tales written specifically for Darker Secrets. The book is available as a paperback and as an eBook for Kindle or Nook.
If you read the prior book, The Clock Tower and Other Stories, you’ll notice some familiar characters returning in Darker Secrets. But even so, this collection has its own eerie identity. While The Clock Tower was mostly fantasy and science fiction, this book adds the element of mystery with eight stories that focus on detection.
The fantasy element is back as well with a century-spanning vampire story leading off the book, followed by a pair of supernatural themed tales. Two stories have an element of science fiction, and one crosses over into the superhero genre.
The final three stories in the book take place in a run-down eatery in the fictional city of Jamesport. In “Tales From the Strange Café,” you’ll join a literary, male-only, drinking and debating society that exists for the purpose of hearing oddball stories, and deciding on their veracity. Our group, the Wayfaring Strangers, takes on the issues of so-called Brain Warfare, an impossible murder, and the haunting of Texas’ most famous tower.
So order your copy today and discover how many Darker Secrets you can unveil!
Here are some ways to purchase Darker Secrets online:
Direct from the author at Square:
https://planetlogicpress.square.site/...
From Amazon.com:
https://www.amazon.com/Darker-Secrets...
From Barnes and Noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dark...
From ABEbooks.com: https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Book...
Sixteen enticing tales of Suspense and Detection
Story synopses:
• A 150-year-old British vampire is pursued by a private investigator.
• An advertising executive is haunted by his own reflection.
• A man uncovers a tale of seduction and murder after moving into a haunted house.
• Four college chums get together to solve a missing gold mystery.
• The Duval Street gang must crack a murder suspect’s airtight alibi.
• Victims and suspects abound after a deadly substance shows up in Cedar Falls.
• College sleuths must solve a fictional murder and a real one at the same time.
• An amateur detective challenges his friends to solve a contrived murder mystery.
• When Farmer Tom is brutally murdered, his best friend seeks justice.
• On his 21st birthday, a young man must prove to his dead father that he is worthy.
• Two young musicians achieve success at a terrible cost.
• A chain of radio stations turns to subliminal persuasion to increase ratings.
• The Capital Eye agency must solve the brutal murder of a billionaire’s ex-wife.
• The government creates a band of heroes to battle a Russian mind control agent.
• When a reclusive widow is brutally murdered, Detective Todd seeks a missing clue.
• A television production crew searches for paranormal activity atop a deadly tower.
LYNN WOOLLEY is the author of “The Clock Tower and Other Stories” and four books on broadcasting and politics. He currently hosts “Cardle & Woolley” on KJCE Talk 1370 in Austin and the “Planet Logic” podcast. His career has included stints as a radio news anchor in Dallas and Austin, a political writer for The Dallas Morning News, co-host of the Children’s Miracle Network Telethon in the Waco-Temple market, and 24 years as a syndicated radio host. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
August 24, 2020
The Clock Tower and Other Stories - Press Release
Planet Logic Press presents:
THE CLOCK TOWER AND OTHER STORIES
A collection of suspense, fantasy, and science fiction stories by radio and podcast host Lynn Woolley.
Welcome to a world of evil clocks, time machines, vampires, demons, and cows with human intelligence!
I’m Lynn Woolley and I’m the author of this tantalizing tome that features 19 incursions into speculative fiction. How did this book come to be? In a word: coronavirus.
I’ve written short stories since 1967. Six of them have been published in magazines, but most of them have lived a dreary and lonely existence on my hard drive. When COVID-19 struck, and I was following directives to “shelter in place,” I knew how they felt. These stories wanted to get out and into the public!
I decided to edit them, and publish them! Planet Logic Press was born!
Publishing a book is a long, hard grind. Every time you think a story is perfect, you proofread it again, and find a comma in the wrong place, or a typo that you hadn’t seen in twenty previous reads. But it’s a labor of love for those of us who live to write, and constantly have ideas for stories popping into our heads.
This book is what I hope will be the first of three volumes of short stories and novels in the genres that I love most, including psychological suspense, fantasy, science fiction, and mysteries. Some of my stories are comedies, and a few might be considered Christian fiction. My stories are always suitable for all ages.
Prepare to be amazed, frightened, and entertained.
Imagine clock faces looking down at you from tall buildings while plotting to kill you. Imagine an alien creature living vicariously through your memories. Imagine being trapped inside a radio station where the general manager is the Devil himself. Picture a mystical doorway to heaven where you can see your departed loved ones, but only during visiting hours. Consider how the world would react if a cow exhibited human intelligence. And what if you felt responsible for your father's death, and you were offered a magical do-over? Would you take that second chance, even if it might destroy you?
The Clock Tower is a book of ideas and what-ifs.
These stories are written primarily to entertain you by taking you to strange new worlds where unlikely heroes face uncertain challenges. Most of the ideas in this book came from personal experiences and then extrapolating on them by asking the simple question: what if?
Where to find “The Clock Tower and Other Stories” online:
Purchase direct from the author at: https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site
Purchase from Amazon.com.
Purchase from Barnes & Noble.
Purchase from ABEbooks.
eBooks: Amazon Kindle & Barnes and Noble Nook
LYNN WOOLLEY is the author of four books on broadcasting and politics. He hosted the “Lynn Woolley Show” on several Texas radio stations for more than 25 years and currently hosts the “Planet Logic” podcast. His career has included stints as a radio news anchor in Dallas and Austin, a political writer for The Dallas Morning News, and co-host of the Children’s Miracle Network Telethon in the Waco-Temple market. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Contact: Lynn Woolley
Email: lwoolley9189@gmail.com
Find Lynn Woolley at GOODREADS.
Sample copies are available to recognized media that wish to do a story or an interview regarding this book.
THE CLOCK TOWER AND OTHER STORIES
A collection of suspense, fantasy, and science fiction stories by radio and podcast host Lynn Woolley.
Welcome to a world of evil clocks, time machines, vampires, demons, and cows with human intelligence!
I’m Lynn Woolley and I’m the author of this tantalizing tome that features 19 incursions into speculative fiction. How did this book come to be? In a word: coronavirus.
I’ve written short stories since 1967. Six of them have been published in magazines, but most of them have lived a dreary and lonely existence on my hard drive. When COVID-19 struck, and I was following directives to “shelter in place,” I knew how they felt. These stories wanted to get out and into the public!
I decided to edit them, and publish them! Planet Logic Press was born!
Publishing a book is a long, hard grind. Every time you think a story is perfect, you proofread it again, and find a comma in the wrong place, or a typo that you hadn’t seen in twenty previous reads. But it’s a labor of love for those of us who live to write, and constantly have ideas for stories popping into our heads.
This book is what I hope will be the first of three volumes of short stories and novels in the genres that I love most, including psychological suspense, fantasy, science fiction, and mysteries. Some of my stories are comedies, and a few might be considered Christian fiction. My stories are always suitable for all ages.
Prepare to be amazed, frightened, and entertained.
Imagine clock faces looking down at you from tall buildings while plotting to kill you. Imagine an alien creature living vicariously through your memories. Imagine being trapped inside a radio station where the general manager is the Devil himself. Picture a mystical doorway to heaven where you can see your departed loved ones, but only during visiting hours. Consider how the world would react if a cow exhibited human intelligence. And what if you felt responsible for your father's death, and you were offered a magical do-over? Would you take that second chance, even if it might destroy you?
The Clock Tower is a book of ideas and what-ifs.
These stories are written primarily to entertain you by taking you to strange new worlds where unlikely heroes face uncertain challenges. Most of the ideas in this book came from personal experiences and then extrapolating on them by asking the simple question: what if?
Where to find “The Clock Tower and Other Stories” online:
Purchase direct from the author at: https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site
Purchase from Amazon.com.
Purchase from Barnes & Noble.
Purchase from ABEbooks.
eBooks: Amazon Kindle & Barnes and Noble Nook
LYNN WOOLLEY is the author of four books on broadcasting and politics. He hosted the “Lynn Woolley Show” on several Texas radio stations for more than 25 years and currently hosts the “Planet Logic” podcast. His career has included stints as a radio news anchor in Dallas and Austin, a political writer for The Dallas Morning News, and co-host of the Children’s Miracle Network Telethon in the Waco-Temple market. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Contact: Lynn Woolley
Email: lwoolley9189@gmail.com
Find Lynn Woolley at GOODREADS.
Sample copies are available to recognized media that wish to do a story or an interview regarding this book.
July 31, 2020
Great Beginnings
The first sentence of any piece of writing is always the most important.
Don’t worry; I’m not about to stop writing just yet, but I would point out that I’ve already made it clear what this column is about. And that, gentle reader, is the problem I have with today’s newspaper “journalists.” It takes them too long to get to the point.
In today’s Great Metropolitan Newspapers, we are forced to struggle through endless paragraphs of someone’s “story” before we get to the meat. That’s not the way it’s done in good broadcast writing, nor (as a matter of fact) in good books and stories.
Whether we’re talking about great theological works -- “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” -- or great fiction -- “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times” -- that first, establishing paragraph is most important. Well, it is if you want to hook your reader and induce him or her to continue.
I learned this in the newsrooms of radio stations like KNOW in Austin and WFAA and KRLD in Dallas back in the 70’s. A radio news story might be allocated forty seconds of airtime. You simply had to make the most of it, and no words could be wasted.
When the Dallas Cowboys cut their embattled place-kicker, I wrote this opening line:
“The Dallas Cowboys won’t have Effren Hererra to kick around any more.”
Sportscaster Bret Lewis opened his story about poor attendance at a baseball game this way:
“The Rangers played last night before family and a few close friends.”
These were beginnings that told part of the story, and set a sufficient predicate to keep a fickle dial-hopper wanting to hear more. In a long radio news career, I always looked for interesting ways to begin a story, and when I began to write books, articles, short stories, and newspaper columns, I continued in that practice. I have never done it any other way.
So I was quite gratified when I first read the book Danse Macabre by the great horror master, Stephen King. The book is about King’s favorite horror movies and stories, and he discusses the virtue of good opening prose. For example, could you put down a copy of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House after reading the establishing paragraph:
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
I’m already scared; but I want more. The prose is just tingling with excitement and foreshadowing. On the other hand, in his seminal novel, Blind Voices, Tom Reamy takes another approach. Setting the stage for the unnatural events that are to come, he opens up with a beautiful paragraph about the normalcy of a little town:
It was time of pause, a time between planting and harvest when the air was heavy, humming with its own slow, warm music. Amber fields of ripe wheat, level as skating rinks, stretched to the flat horizon and waited for the combines that crawled like painted-metal insects from Texas to the Dakotas. Dusty roads line with telephone poles made, with ruled precision, right-angle turns at section lines separating the wheat from green fields of young maize.
This description of the Heartland as a picture-perfect slice of Americana sets up a nice contrast for what happens when the freak show comes to town. Brrrr.
Short stories, too, need dramatic opening lines. In one of the most amazing science-fiction stories I’ve ever read, “For A Breath I Tarry,” Roger Zelazny proves his mastery of the great beginning:
They called him Frost.
Of all things created of Solcom, Frost was the finest, the mightiest, the most difficult to understand.
This is why he bore a name, and why he was given dominion over half the Earth.”
At this point in the story, you don’t yet know that Zelazny is writing about robots created by Man to guard the planet, and that time has passed and Man has long since vanished. You don’t know that, but you can’t wait to find out.
In Henry Kuttner’s brilliant “Mimsy Were the Borogoves,” the kids decipher the code in Through the Looking Glass to open up a door to another dimension. And that’s where the story opens:
There’s no use trying to describe Unthahorsten or his surroundings, because, for one thing, a good many million years had passed and, for another, Unthahorsten wasn’t on Earth, technically speaking. He was doing the equivalent of standing in the equivalent of a laboratory. He was preparing to test his time machine.
Kuttner’s story starts off with this uncanny description, and never lets down as it builds to a furious climax. (Admit it; you really want to know what happened, don’t you?)
Now, imagine, if you will, a travel agency that might sell you a ticket to paradise. The trick is getting them to cooperate. That’s the premise in Jack Finney’s classic “Of Missing Persons.” The sense of wonder in this story begins with the opening sequence:
Walk in as though it were an ordinary travel bureau, the stranger I’d met at a bar had told me. Ask a few ordinary questions -- about a trip you’re planning, a vacation, anything like that. Then hint about The Folder a little, but whatever you do, don’t mention it directly; wait till he brings it up himself. And if he doesn’t, you might as well forget it. If you can. Because you’ll never see it; you’re not the type, that’s all. And if you ask about it, he’ll just look at you as though he doesn’t know what you’re talking about.
By the way, don’t start this story unless you have a few moments to finish it, because you won’t be able to put it down.
I hope you get similar effect from this next opening paragraph -- because it’s from a story of mine called “A Stitch In Time.” It’s a tale about a man’s quest to find out how he survived his own death. I tried to set it up so that you’d want to read more:
In looking back on it all, I suppose the biggest hassle of my “experience” was dealing with my insurance adjuster. That, and filling out a myriad of government forms. Of course, reporters were very interested in my case also, but who could blame them? It’s not every day that someone returns from the dead!
The idea was to start out with a bang, and then try to make this outrageous premise seem real. You’ll have to find a copy of the November, 1980 Amazing Stories to see whether I succeeded.
By now, you should have a pretty good idea of how to craft a beginning that will provide a “hook” -- much like a popular song would do -- to grab the reader and hold his attention.
Now, see how many of these great beginnings you can identify, and see which ones make you want to read further:
I see...” said the Vampire thoughtfully, and slowly, he walked across the room towards the window. For a long time he stood there against the dim light from Divisadero Street and the passing beams of traffic. The boy could see the furnishings of the room more clearly now, the round oak table, the chairs. A wash basin hung on one wall with a mirror. He set his briefcase on the table and waited.
###
Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw.
###
High in the crow’s-nest of the New White Star Liner Titanic, Lookout Frederick Fleet peered into a dazzling night. It was calm, clear and bitterly cold. There was no moon, but the cloudless sky blazed with stars. The Atlantic was like polished plate glass; people later said they had never seen it so smooth.
###
Who is there who has not felt a sudden startled pang at reliving an old experience or feeling an old emotion?
“I have done this before...”
Why do those words always move one so profoundly?
That was the question I asked myself as I sat in the train watching the flat Essex landscape outside.
###
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself turned into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his dome-like brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes.
###
The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses.
###
The temperature hit ninety degrees the day she arrived. New York was steaming -- an angry concrete animal caught unawares in an unseasonable hot spell. But she didn’t mind the heat or the littered midway called Times Square. She thought New York was the most exciting city in the world.
Each of these works is well-known or considered a classic. So how many did you recognize? Which ones provided a “hook” to make you want to read more? Some of these opening lines were better than others, you say? You’re right, of course, but the writers who penned these classic lines are all world famous; some are thought to be masters. They knew how to get a story started.
Surely by now you have some ideas of your own. Fiction or non-fiction -- it doesn’t matter. Jot down a few notes; do an outline; invent a plot; think up a compelling story. Now get to that word processor and write that opening paragraph. Once you have that Great Beginning, you may find it somewhat easier to craft a great piece of writing.
Oh, by the way, those opening lines above, in order, are from:
Anne Rice: Interview With the Vampire
Margaret Mitchell: Gone With the Wind
Walter Lord: A Night To Remember
Agatha Christie: Curtain
Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis
H. G. Wells: The Time Machine
Jacqueline Susann: Valley of the Dolls
Don’t worry; I’m not about to stop writing just yet, but I would point out that I’ve already made it clear what this column is about. And that, gentle reader, is the problem I have with today’s newspaper “journalists.” It takes them too long to get to the point.
In today’s Great Metropolitan Newspapers, we are forced to struggle through endless paragraphs of someone’s “story” before we get to the meat. That’s not the way it’s done in good broadcast writing, nor (as a matter of fact) in good books and stories.
Whether we’re talking about great theological works -- “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” -- or great fiction -- “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times” -- that first, establishing paragraph is most important. Well, it is if you want to hook your reader and induce him or her to continue.
I learned this in the newsrooms of radio stations like KNOW in Austin and WFAA and KRLD in Dallas back in the 70’s. A radio news story might be allocated forty seconds of airtime. You simply had to make the most of it, and no words could be wasted.
When the Dallas Cowboys cut their embattled place-kicker, I wrote this opening line:
“The Dallas Cowboys won’t have Effren Hererra to kick around any more.”
Sportscaster Bret Lewis opened his story about poor attendance at a baseball game this way:
“The Rangers played last night before family and a few close friends.”
These were beginnings that told part of the story, and set a sufficient predicate to keep a fickle dial-hopper wanting to hear more. In a long radio news career, I always looked for interesting ways to begin a story, and when I began to write books, articles, short stories, and newspaper columns, I continued in that practice. I have never done it any other way.
So I was quite gratified when I first read the book Danse Macabre by the great horror master, Stephen King. The book is about King’s favorite horror movies and stories, and he discusses the virtue of good opening prose. For example, could you put down a copy of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House after reading the establishing paragraph:
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
I’m already scared; but I want more. The prose is just tingling with excitement and foreshadowing. On the other hand, in his seminal novel, Blind Voices, Tom Reamy takes another approach. Setting the stage for the unnatural events that are to come, he opens up with a beautiful paragraph about the normalcy of a little town:
It was time of pause, a time between planting and harvest when the air was heavy, humming with its own slow, warm music. Amber fields of ripe wheat, level as skating rinks, stretched to the flat horizon and waited for the combines that crawled like painted-metal insects from Texas to the Dakotas. Dusty roads line with telephone poles made, with ruled precision, right-angle turns at section lines separating the wheat from green fields of young maize.
This description of the Heartland as a picture-perfect slice of Americana sets up a nice contrast for what happens when the freak show comes to town. Brrrr.
Short stories, too, need dramatic opening lines. In one of the most amazing science-fiction stories I’ve ever read, “For A Breath I Tarry,” Roger Zelazny proves his mastery of the great beginning:
They called him Frost.
Of all things created of Solcom, Frost was the finest, the mightiest, the most difficult to understand.
This is why he bore a name, and why he was given dominion over half the Earth.”
At this point in the story, you don’t yet know that Zelazny is writing about robots created by Man to guard the planet, and that time has passed and Man has long since vanished. You don’t know that, but you can’t wait to find out.
In Henry Kuttner’s brilliant “Mimsy Were the Borogoves,” the kids decipher the code in Through the Looking Glass to open up a door to another dimension. And that’s where the story opens:
There’s no use trying to describe Unthahorsten or his surroundings, because, for one thing, a good many million years had passed and, for another, Unthahorsten wasn’t on Earth, technically speaking. He was doing the equivalent of standing in the equivalent of a laboratory. He was preparing to test his time machine.
Kuttner’s story starts off with this uncanny description, and never lets down as it builds to a furious climax. (Admit it; you really want to know what happened, don’t you?)
Now, imagine, if you will, a travel agency that might sell you a ticket to paradise. The trick is getting them to cooperate. That’s the premise in Jack Finney’s classic “Of Missing Persons.” The sense of wonder in this story begins with the opening sequence:
Walk in as though it were an ordinary travel bureau, the stranger I’d met at a bar had told me. Ask a few ordinary questions -- about a trip you’re planning, a vacation, anything like that. Then hint about The Folder a little, but whatever you do, don’t mention it directly; wait till he brings it up himself. And if he doesn’t, you might as well forget it. If you can. Because you’ll never see it; you’re not the type, that’s all. And if you ask about it, he’ll just look at you as though he doesn’t know what you’re talking about.
By the way, don’t start this story unless you have a few moments to finish it, because you won’t be able to put it down.
I hope you get similar effect from this next opening paragraph -- because it’s from a story of mine called “A Stitch In Time.” It’s a tale about a man’s quest to find out how he survived his own death. I tried to set it up so that you’d want to read more:
In looking back on it all, I suppose the biggest hassle of my “experience” was dealing with my insurance adjuster. That, and filling out a myriad of government forms. Of course, reporters were very interested in my case also, but who could blame them? It’s not every day that someone returns from the dead!
The idea was to start out with a bang, and then try to make this outrageous premise seem real. You’ll have to find a copy of the November, 1980 Amazing Stories to see whether I succeeded.
By now, you should have a pretty good idea of how to craft a beginning that will provide a “hook” -- much like a popular song would do -- to grab the reader and hold his attention.
Now, see how many of these great beginnings you can identify, and see which ones make you want to read further:
I see...” said the Vampire thoughtfully, and slowly, he walked across the room towards the window. For a long time he stood there against the dim light from Divisadero Street and the passing beams of traffic. The boy could see the furnishings of the room more clearly now, the round oak table, the chairs. A wash basin hung on one wall with a mirror. He set his briefcase on the table and waited.
###
Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw.
###
High in the crow’s-nest of the New White Star Liner Titanic, Lookout Frederick Fleet peered into a dazzling night. It was calm, clear and bitterly cold. There was no moon, but the cloudless sky blazed with stars. The Atlantic was like polished plate glass; people later said they had never seen it so smooth.
###
Who is there who has not felt a sudden startled pang at reliving an old experience or feeling an old emotion?
“I have done this before...”
Why do those words always move one so profoundly?
That was the question I asked myself as I sat in the train watching the flat Essex landscape outside.
###
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself turned into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his dome-like brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes.
###
The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses.
###
The temperature hit ninety degrees the day she arrived. New York was steaming -- an angry concrete animal caught unawares in an unseasonable hot spell. But she didn’t mind the heat or the littered midway called Times Square. She thought New York was the most exciting city in the world.
Each of these works is well-known or considered a classic. So how many did you recognize? Which ones provided a “hook” to make you want to read more? Some of these opening lines were better than others, you say? You’re right, of course, but the writers who penned these classic lines are all world famous; some are thought to be masters. They knew how to get a story started.
Surely by now you have some ideas of your own. Fiction or non-fiction -- it doesn’t matter. Jot down a few notes; do an outline; invent a plot; think up a compelling story. Now get to that word processor and write that opening paragraph. Once you have that Great Beginning, you may find it somewhat easier to craft a great piece of writing.
Oh, by the way, those opening lines above, in order, are from:
Anne Rice: Interview With the Vampire
Margaret Mitchell: Gone With the Wind
Walter Lord: A Night To Remember
Agatha Christie: Curtain
Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis
H. G. Wells: The Time Machine
Jacqueline Susann: Valley of the Dolls
July 30, 2020
The Clock Tower and Other Stories coming from Planet Logic Press
The “sheltering in place” mandates caused by the coronavirus pandemic forced me to make a stark choice. I could either huddle here at the Mansion and be bored to death, or I could immerse myself in a major project.
I decided to work on a new book!
The Clock Tower and Other Stories was born.
The book is a collection that combines some of my earliest stories, dating back to 1967 with recently-written tales such as the title story. In all, there are 19 stories that include psychological suspense, science fiction, fantasy, and even a comedy or two.
The book is now available for pre-order. You can order it direct from me at https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site.
As soon as the book comes out, I’ll fulfill all orders. If you wish to have it signed, please advise me at lwoolley9189@gmail.com. I’ll explain other ways to purchase the book at the end of the column.
Why a book? Why not a CD?
That’s a good question and it has a simple answer. I considered the idea of using the sequestration to arrange and record some of my original songs. That way, I could have a CD or two to sell when I play live music. There are two problems with that. First is that live music is pretty much dead so long as the pandemic is with us. Second, to record music, I’d need to go into a studio and work with a producer and other musicians.
On the other hand, I could work on a book at home without taking any risks at all. So the book idea started to blossom.
My inventory of stories is growing, and it’s time to publish.
I created a publishing arm that I call Planet Logic Press, and began to choose from more than 30 stories I’d written over the years. I wanted a sampling from each era of my writing history, which I divided into three segments:
• Early stories written as a teen in the ‘60s
• Stories from the ‘70s and ‘80s written on a typewriter
• Recent stories
I chose The Clock Tower as the lead story because it seemed to resonate with friends who read it, and it lent itself to a cool cover design by Greg Hansen of Tractor Creative out of Waco. (If you need graphics, marketing, or web design, Greg is the best.) The Clock Tower is from the more recent era, and incorporates modern technology in the storyline.
Assembling the collection.
In doing my research for this book, I found stories that I barely remembered – some tucked away in file folders and some lost in the pages of an old comic book “fanzine” called “The Symbol” that I used to publish with some of my collector friends. Of course, the more recent stories were originally written on a computer, so those were easy. Others, I was forced to keystroke, in some cases working from faded hectographed pages of a ‘60s fan magazine.
I literally spent hours keystroking old stories that already been typed twice – one as they were written on an old Royal, and again when I retyped them with a modern electric typewriter, never even imagining the now common marvel of word processing.
Among the files, I rediscovered the following:
• A trove of mysteries written in the ‘70s
• An unfinished novel from the ‘70s
• Four short-shorts form circa 1967 in the fanzines
• An unfinished and abandoned story from the ‘70s
• An unfinished novel that was begun in 2007
Of these stories, six had been published – four in the fanzine, one in Amazing Science Fiction, and one in a magazine called Shadows Of.
So stuck at home, I painstakingly transferred it all to computer, and then began the task of finishing stories that had been left undone. I edited all the stories for spelling and grammar, and finished the two novels after working out new plot details.
I also finished plotting the abandoned short story and brought it up to date with a twist ending. Other stories were dated, and for those I wrote new sequences to make them more readable for a modern audience.
It was grueling work, but it was also fun.
And, as you might expect, while all this was going on, I kept getting ideas, and I wrote two long stories while sheltering in place and doing all this other stuff. That caused me a bit of a problem.
At this point, I had 35 stories and almost 200,000 words in the can, proofed and ready to go. That’s Stephen King length. After discussing it with printers and publishers, I settled on three volumes of which The Clock Tower is the first.
I chose 19 stories for the first book – all suspense, fantasy and science fiction. The second book will deal more with mysteries and private eyes, and the third book will be a trilogy – three related science fiction stories that are longer and more sweeping in scope.
But first comes The Clock Tower and Other Stories.
Nineteen tantalizing tales of Suspense, Fantasy and Science Fiction
That’s the tagline for the book, and here’s a synopsis of each story:
• An insurance executive develops a pathological fear of clock towers.
• A man uses a high tech bedroom toy to foil a home invasion.
• A power-mad extraterrestrial travels to Earth in search of a firearm.
• A street beggar enlists supernatural assistance in his journey from rags to riches.
• Lizard-like warriors from a dying planet battle the nations of Earth.
• An astronaut meets an extraterrestrial that desires to share his most intimate experiences.
• The Devil drops in on two old friends to settle an argument.
• A small town finds itself trapped inside an impenetrable dome.
• A "hunter" from the future travels back in time to prevent a masked vigilante from changing history.
• While driving on a dark highway, an exhausted advertising executive begins to hallucinate.
• A man relates a strange story about losing his one true love to a vampire.
• The world goes crazy when a Wisconsin dairy cow begins exhibiting human intelligence.
• Congress debates the issue of Unidentified Flying Objects
• A newspaper reporter battles the Devil in a darkened radio studio.
• A renowned science fiction writer goes on trial for assisting a bank robbery.
• A man discovers his own personal hell in the words of a country song.
• Alien scientists invent a time machine and use it to trace their roots.
• An advanced broadcast automation system starts making its own decisions.
• A scientist sends a convict back in time to give him a second chance to save his father's life.
How to get your copy of The Clock Tower and Other Stories.
The advent of COVID-19 complicates everything, and so I’ve looked for ways to promote the book at a time when I cannot do speeches at service clubs, a book tour, or hold in-person signings. My local newspaper has indicted they will not do a review, so I’ll have to promote online. I may be able to do a signing at 2nd Street Emporium if we do it outside and socially distance.
Here are the ways to purchase to book:
I have set up a page at Square where all my books are listed. It will work with any credit or debit card. You can click on this link to buy:
https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site
Once the book is published it will be listed at Amazon as a traditional book and as an e-book. Here is my page at Amazon:
https://www.Amazon.com/author/lynnwoo...
You may also email me to order by credit card.
The cost is $14.95 + $4.50 for postage and the envelope. If you buy multiple copies from me, you’ll only need to pay shipping once for up to 5 copies. The Texas sales tax is 8.25%. I will need your name on the card, type of card, number, expiration date, and the code on the back. I will delete that information once I have shipped the book.
My personal email is: lwoolley9189@gmail.com
If you order from me or through the Square site, you can use my personal email address to request a signed copy.
I hope I’m able to sell a few copies and that you enjoy the book. It was 50 years in the making and I could not be more excited!
Lynn Woolley is a Texas-based author, broadcaster, and songwriter.
Follow his podcast at https://www.PlanetLogic.us.
Check out his author’s page at https://www.Amazon.com/author/lynnwoo.... Order books direct from Lynn at https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site.
Email Lynn at lwoolley9189@gmail.com.
I decided to work on a new book!
The Clock Tower and Other Stories was born.
The book is a collection that combines some of my earliest stories, dating back to 1967 with recently-written tales such as the title story. In all, there are 19 stories that include psychological suspense, science fiction, fantasy, and even a comedy or two.
The book is now available for pre-order. You can order it direct from me at https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site.
As soon as the book comes out, I’ll fulfill all orders. If you wish to have it signed, please advise me at lwoolley9189@gmail.com. I’ll explain other ways to purchase the book at the end of the column.
Why a book? Why not a CD?
That’s a good question and it has a simple answer. I considered the idea of using the sequestration to arrange and record some of my original songs. That way, I could have a CD or two to sell when I play live music. There are two problems with that. First is that live music is pretty much dead so long as the pandemic is with us. Second, to record music, I’d need to go into a studio and work with a producer and other musicians.
On the other hand, I could work on a book at home without taking any risks at all. So the book idea started to blossom.
My inventory of stories is growing, and it’s time to publish.
I created a publishing arm that I call Planet Logic Press, and began to choose from more than 30 stories I’d written over the years. I wanted a sampling from each era of my writing history, which I divided into three segments:
• Early stories written as a teen in the ‘60s
• Stories from the ‘70s and ‘80s written on a typewriter
• Recent stories
I chose The Clock Tower as the lead story because it seemed to resonate with friends who read it, and it lent itself to a cool cover design by Greg Hansen of Tractor Creative out of Waco. (If you need graphics, marketing, or web design, Greg is the best.) The Clock Tower is from the more recent era, and incorporates modern technology in the storyline.
Assembling the collection.
In doing my research for this book, I found stories that I barely remembered – some tucked away in file folders and some lost in the pages of an old comic book “fanzine” called “The Symbol” that I used to publish with some of my collector friends. Of course, the more recent stories were originally written on a computer, so those were easy. Others, I was forced to keystroke, in some cases working from faded hectographed pages of a ‘60s fan magazine.
I literally spent hours keystroking old stories that already been typed twice – one as they were written on an old Royal, and again when I retyped them with a modern electric typewriter, never even imagining the now common marvel of word processing.
Among the files, I rediscovered the following:
• A trove of mysteries written in the ‘70s
• An unfinished novel from the ‘70s
• Four short-shorts form circa 1967 in the fanzines
• An unfinished and abandoned story from the ‘70s
• An unfinished novel that was begun in 2007
Of these stories, six had been published – four in the fanzine, one in Amazing Science Fiction, and one in a magazine called Shadows Of.
So stuck at home, I painstakingly transferred it all to computer, and then began the task of finishing stories that had been left undone. I edited all the stories for spelling and grammar, and finished the two novels after working out new plot details.
I also finished plotting the abandoned short story and brought it up to date with a twist ending. Other stories were dated, and for those I wrote new sequences to make them more readable for a modern audience.
It was grueling work, but it was also fun.
And, as you might expect, while all this was going on, I kept getting ideas, and I wrote two long stories while sheltering in place and doing all this other stuff. That caused me a bit of a problem.
At this point, I had 35 stories and almost 200,000 words in the can, proofed and ready to go. That’s Stephen King length. After discussing it with printers and publishers, I settled on three volumes of which The Clock Tower is the first.
I chose 19 stories for the first book – all suspense, fantasy and science fiction. The second book will deal more with mysteries and private eyes, and the third book will be a trilogy – three related science fiction stories that are longer and more sweeping in scope.
But first comes The Clock Tower and Other Stories.
Nineteen tantalizing tales of Suspense, Fantasy and Science Fiction
That’s the tagline for the book, and here’s a synopsis of each story:
• An insurance executive develops a pathological fear of clock towers.
• A man uses a high tech bedroom toy to foil a home invasion.
• A power-mad extraterrestrial travels to Earth in search of a firearm.
• A street beggar enlists supernatural assistance in his journey from rags to riches.
• Lizard-like warriors from a dying planet battle the nations of Earth.
• An astronaut meets an extraterrestrial that desires to share his most intimate experiences.
• The Devil drops in on two old friends to settle an argument.
• A small town finds itself trapped inside an impenetrable dome.
• A "hunter" from the future travels back in time to prevent a masked vigilante from changing history.
• While driving on a dark highway, an exhausted advertising executive begins to hallucinate.
• A man relates a strange story about losing his one true love to a vampire.
• The world goes crazy when a Wisconsin dairy cow begins exhibiting human intelligence.
• Congress debates the issue of Unidentified Flying Objects
• A newspaper reporter battles the Devil in a darkened radio studio.
• A renowned science fiction writer goes on trial for assisting a bank robbery.
• A man discovers his own personal hell in the words of a country song.
• Alien scientists invent a time machine and use it to trace their roots.
• An advanced broadcast automation system starts making its own decisions.
• A scientist sends a convict back in time to give him a second chance to save his father's life.
How to get your copy of The Clock Tower and Other Stories.
The advent of COVID-19 complicates everything, and so I’ve looked for ways to promote the book at a time when I cannot do speeches at service clubs, a book tour, or hold in-person signings. My local newspaper has indicted they will not do a review, so I’ll have to promote online. I may be able to do a signing at 2nd Street Emporium if we do it outside and socially distance.
Here are the ways to purchase to book:
I have set up a page at Square where all my books are listed. It will work with any credit or debit card. You can click on this link to buy:
https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site
Once the book is published it will be listed at Amazon as a traditional book and as an e-book. Here is my page at Amazon:
https://www.Amazon.com/author/lynnwoo...
You may also email me to order by credit card.
The cost is $14.95 + $4.50 for postage and the envelope. If you buy multiple copies from me, you’ll only need to pay shipping once for up to 5 copies. The Texas sales tax is 8.25%. I will need your name on the card, type of card, number, expiration date, and the code on the back. I will delete that information once I have shipped the book.
My personal email is: lwoolley9189@gmail.com
If you order from me or through the Square site, you can use my personal email address to request a signed copy.
I hope I’m able to sell a few copies and that you enjoy the book. It was 50 years in the making and I could not be more excited!
Lynn Woolley is a Texas-based author, broadcaster, and songwriter.
Follow his podcast at https://www.PlanetLogic.us.
Check out his author’s page at https://www.Amazon.com/author/lynnwoo.... Order books direct from Lynn at https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site.
Email Lynn at lwoolley9189@gmail.com.
Vast Write Wing
Lynn Woolley discusses the finer points of being a writer including his own inspirations and favorite books and authors.
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