Graham Parke's Blog, page 3
November 4, 2011
What makes people interesting....
It is not uncommon for writers such as myself to have a keenly developed interest in their fellow man. To be able to spend hours just looking at people, listening to them, finding out all the interesting little synchronicities and ambiguities that make them them.
It’s all precious information to the writer brain. From the way people carry themselves, to their wardrobe of choice, to their hobbies and the friends they keep.
But I don’t.
In fact, I can’t stand people.
And there’s so freaking many of them.
They’re like huge, overblown ants, crawling all over the world and getting in my way.
So, it came as a big surprise to me, yesterday, when I met a fellow human who did not immediately piss me off. Who did not make me want to take a ten minute detour just to avoid making eye-contact, or feel that disgusting little disturbance of air current that inevitable occurs when people come too close.
That is rare.
For brevity sake, I will refer to this person as John. This is because at the moment of writing I held the belief that names should be changed to protect the innocent and that John is the most common English name around. This, then, should make a disproportionately large group of male readers think I might just be talking about them. Which is sad on exactly two levels. The second level being that the smart reader has already observed that the only information I have given you about this person so far is the fact the his name is NOT John.
Unless, of course I’m exceptionally devious, which I am, and which I’ve just told you about, which in turn means I probably decided to switch between his real and his assumed names a few more times. But, how many?
Anyway, this John (or Lem Carmoni, as he calls himself) has a very interesting job. It’s one I didn’t even know existed. Apparently, he’s the guy who decides on the colors for the insides of shoes.
Bet you didn’t know that. Bet you never realized there was a guy out there who spent the better part of a year deciding on the exact shade of tan to use for the inside of the shoe you are now wearing. Or that weird off-white color that you wouldn’t call egg-shell, not only because it’s not exactly egg-shell, but mostly because you never even noticed the color of the inside of your shoe.
And this is part of the brilliance that is John. He’s at the top of his profession. He’s one of the few people in the world who can pull off, without fail, the exact balance between:
1. The outside color of your shoe (designed obviously by hippies and no good marketing managers without a subtle bone in their bodies.)
2. The odd lighting conditions created by the shape of the nose and the height of the heal.
3. And the mood a specific shoe-shape induces.
This balance is needed to create the perfect blend of unobtrusiveness. Now, normally, I would interject a few lines here about what the world must have been like before John started his valiant work. I would re-iterate a couple of examples of the kind of accidents that occurred when people became distracted by the color of the inside of their shoes as they were putting them on. How it destroyed their lives and the lives of the loved ones they fell on.
But I won’t do this. I don’t have the data at hand. To be honest, I think it would be reaching a bit. I’m sure things weren’t that bad. We survived, we’ll probably live on long after John dies.
But this doesn’t make John (or Stan Wilderburg, as his parents call him) and his job any less interesting.
Anyway, drop a note in the comments to tell me about the most interesting job you’ve heard about, and why any of us should care.
It’s all precious information to the writer brain. From the way people carry themselves, to their wardrobe of choice, to their hobbies and the friends they keep.
But I don’t.
In fact, I can’t stand people.
And there’s so freaking many of them.
They’re like huge, overblown ants, crawling all over the world and getting in my way.
So, it came as a big surprise to me, yesterday, when I met a fellow human who did not immediately piss me off. Who did not make me want to take a ten minute detour just to avoid making eye-contact, or feel that disgusting little disturbance of air current that inevitable occurs when people come too close.
That is rare.
For brevity sake, I will refer to this person as John. This is because at the moment of writing I held the belief that names should be changed to protect the innocent and that John is the most common English name around. This, then, should make a disproportionately large group of male readers think I might just be talking about them. Which is sad on exactly two levels. The second level being that the smart reader has already observed that the only information I have given you about this person so far is the fact the his name is NOT John.
Unless, of course I’m exceptionally devious, which I am, and which I’ve just told you about, which in turn means I probably decided to switch between his real and his assumed names a few more times. But, how many?
Anyway, this John (or Lem Carmoni, as he calls himself) has a very interesting job. It’s one I didn’t even know existed. Apparently, he’s the guy who decides on the colors for the insides of shoes.
Bet you didn’t know that. Bet you never realized there was a guy out there who spent the better part of a year deciding on the exact shade of tan to use for the inside of the shoe you are now wearing. Or that weird off-white color that you wouldn’t call egg-shell, not only because it’s not exactly egg-shell, but mostly because you never even noticed the color of the inside of your shoe.
And this is part of the brilliance that is John. He’s at the top of his profession. He’s one of the few people in the world who can pull off, without fail, the exact balance between:
1. The outside color of your shoe (designed obviously by hippies and no good marketing managers without a subtle bone in their bodies.)
2. The odd lighting conditions created by the shape of the nose and the height of the heal.
3. And the mood a specific shoe-shape induces.
This balance is needed to create the perfect blend of unobtrusiveness. Now, normally, I would interject a few lines here about what the world must have been like before John started his valiant work. I would re-iterate a couple of examples of the kind of accidents that occurred when people became distracted by the color of the inside of their shoes as they were putting them on. How it destroyed their lives and the lives of the loved ones they fell on.
But I won’t do this. I don’t have the data at hand. To be honest, I think it would be reaching a bit. I’m sure things weren’t that bad. We survived, we’ll probably live on long after John dies.
But this doesn’t make John (or Stan Wilderburg, as his parents call him) and his job any less interesting.
Anyway, drop a note in the comments to tell me about the most interesting job you’ve heard about, and why any of us should care.
September 30, 2011
Mystic predicts future accurately?
I’ve recently become a master in Goki Feng Ho, the ancient Chinese art of decoding license plates. It has, you can imagine, changed my life dramatically and for the better.
Like most practitioners, I’ve always had this suspicion that there’s more to life. That we can’t be mere random collections of molecules with no higher purpose than figuring out how not to soil ourselves while we keep our bodies running as long as possible. Such a view has always seemed too arbitrary to me. So, ever since I was a child, whenever I saw my initials – or part of my date of birth – pop up on a car license plate, I’d get that uneasy feeling. As if there was something I needed to do, or that I was supposed to realize. As if someone was sending me coded messages. Even at a very young age, I understood that something like Goki Feng Ho must exist, and that I was drawn to it like a moth to a particularly nice lady moth.
So, I was both surprised and not-really-all-that-surprised when a friend gave me this book on Goki Feng Ho. I started reading and became hooked. Even the relatively scarce historical background was interesting to me on so many levels. Although much is lost about how Goki Feng Ho first came to the west, the stories about its initial discoverer, master Hung Lee, survive, and I dare say they’d constitute fascinating reading for even the hardened skeptic.
From the early days of receiving his gift in the mail (though some claim he received it in a dream) to his struggles to find disciples to whom to pass it down, Hung Lee’s story is a heartwarming one. Obviously his life was made particularly challenging by the absence of license plates, or even cars, at the time. I have found no record of what the first Goki Feng Hoos practiced and honed their skills on, but I assume they invented plates for each other to decode, or borrowed some from the Germans.
At the time, though, Chinese mystics were known to keep their gifts a secret, passing them down only to family members. Lee broke this mold when he became the first mystic to offer up his gift to the general public. But even then, the story goes, he had trouble finding anyone who was remotely interested. There are parables of Lee raffling off free Kindles and iPods among his disciples, but, again, he was too far ahead of his time. No one understood what he was talking about. He finally found a handful of willing participants at a local mental hospital, after raffling off a small pig and some sticks. And even though lived to be a hundred and fifty, it is said he never managed to recoup this investment.
Like most practitioners, I’ve always had this suspicion that there’s more to life. That we can’t be mere random collections of molecules with no higher purpose than figuring out how not to soil ourselves while we keep our bodies running as long as possible. Such a view has always seemed too arbitrary to me. So, ever since I was a child, whenever I saw my initials – or part of my date of birth – pop up on a car license plate, I’d get that uneasy feeling. As if there was something I needed to do, or that I was supposed to realize. As if someone was sending me coded messages. Even at a very young age, I understood that something like Goki Feng Ho must exist, and that I was drawn to it like a moth to a particularly nice lady moth.
So, I was both surprised and not-really-all-that-surprised when a friend gave me this book on Goki Feng Ho. I started reading and became hooked. Even the relatively scarce historical background was interesting to me on so many levels. Although much is lost about how Goki Feng Ho first came to the west, the stories about its initial discoverer, master Hung Lee, survive, and I dare say they’d constitute fascinating reading for even the hardened skeptic.
From the early days of receiving his gift in the mail (though some claim he received it in a dream) to his struggles to find disciples to whom to pass it down, Hung Lee’s story is a heartwarming one. Obviously his life was made particularly challenging by the absence of license plates, or even cars, at the time. I have found no record of what the first Goki Feng Hoos practiced and honed their skills on, but I assume they invented plates for each other to decode, or borrowed some from the Germans.
At the time, though, Chinese mystics were known to keep their gifts a secret, passing them down only to family members. Lee broke this mold when he became the first mystic to offer up his gift to the general public. But even then, the story goes, he had trouble finding anyone who was remotely interested. There are parables of Lee raffling off free Kindles and iPods among his disciples, but, again, he was too far ahead of his time. No one understood what he was talking about. He finally found a handful of willing participants at a local mental hospital, after raffling off a small pig and some sticks. And even though lived to be a hundred and fifty, it is said he never managed to recoup this investment.
August 31, 2011
Book of the Year
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As my weird little novel "No Hope for Gomez!" has just won the Foreword Reviews Book of the Year award, I thought I'd celebrate by offering a free spin-off novel:
"Things start to spiral out of control for Gomez when he tries to win back his ex-girlfriend during a very strange New Year's Eve party."
Clinical studies have shown that reading the "Random Acts of Senseless Kindness" eBook is not only likely to make you more attractive to the opposite sex, it will also elevate your random luck by about 9.5%**
So, that's a nice bonus right there.
(**These statements have not been evaluated by anyone of consequence!)
This free eBook is a spin-off of the award winning "No Hope for Gomez!" available for order in all stores now.
Random Acts of Senseless Kindness, Excerpt:
Blog entry: Arrived at the store late, found a homeless guy sleeping in the doorway. Hicks was already inside but gave no indication he’d noticed. I nudged the homeless guy and asked, “How are you doing down there, fellow? You okay?”
The homeless guy grumbled something in his sleep.
“It’s getting pretty cold,” I said.
“Don’t you want to come inside?”
“Inside?” He coughed and opened his eyes.
I pointed out the store, not convinced he’d actually noticed where he’d crashed the night before. “This is my antiques store,” I told him. “We’ve got the heating on inside, shame to waste it on just two people. And it looks like it might start to snow soon.”
The homeless guy gave me a suspicious look. “You want me to come inside? With you?”
“Sure, if you’d like.”
“Is that because you think that if I come inside with you, I’ll let you touch me?”
“What? No!”
“Okay, because I can tell you right now, that’s not gonna happen.”
“Well, I suppose it is good to get those kinds of things clear beforehand. But no, I was just thinking you might enjoy the warmth, maybe a cup of cocoa.”
“A cup of cocoa you say…” He scratched his stubble. “And you’ll be charging me for this cup of cocoa?”
“No, the cocoa is free.”
“I see. So, are you operating under the assumption that if I come inside with you, and I drink your free cocoa, that I will touch you?”
“What? No!”
“Okay, because I can tell you right now, that’s not gonna happen either. Just because a guy is down on his luck, that doesn’t mean he goes around touching people in exchange for cups of cocoa.”
“I understand completely. And thanks again for pointing that out. But no, my friend and I noticed that you were sleeping in our doorway and, well, we’d like to invite you inside.”
The homeless guy turned and peered through the window in the door. He made eye-contact with Hicks, who panicked and went looking for his broom. “That your friend?”
I followed his gaze. “Yeah, that’s Hicks. He’s a bit peculiar, but he’s okay.”
“I see.” The homeless guy pulled on his collar. “And this friend of yours, will he be drinking cocoa also?”
“I suppose. I’m not entirely sure, but it seems likely.”
“I see.” The homeless guy considered this. “So,” he said, after a long moment, “will this friend of yours be expecting me to touch him?”
“No! There is no touching involved in any of this!”
“Okay, calm down,” the homeless guy said. “There’s no need to get all homophobic!”
“I wasn’t!”
“You sounded homophobic to me.”
“Me? You’re the one who can’t stop talking about touching people!”
I noticed people stopping in the street to stare at us. This made me very uncomfortable.
Download Free eBook here.
As my weird little novel "No Hope for Gomez!" has just won the Foreword Reviews Book of the Year award, I thought I'd celebrate by offering a free spin-off novel:
"Things start to spiral out of control for Gomez when he tries to win back his ex-girlfriend during a very strange New Year's Eve party."
Clinical studies have shown that reading the "Random Acts of Senseless Kindness" eBook is not only likely to make you more attractive to the opposite sex, it will also elevate your random luck by about 9.5%**
So, that's a nice bonus right there.
(**These statements have not been evaluated by anyone of consequence!)
This free eBook is a spin-off of the award winning "No Hope for Gomez!" available for order in all stores now.
Random Acts of Senseless Kindness, Excerpt:
Blog entry: Arrived at the store late, found a homeless guy sleeping in the doorway. Hicks was already inside but gave no indication he’d noticed. I nudged the homeless guy and asked, “How are you doing down there, fellow? You okay?”
The homeless guy grumbled something in his sleep.
“It’s getting pretty cold,” I said.
“Don’t you want to come inside?”
“Inside?” He coughed and opened his eyes.
I pointed out the store, not convinced he’d actually noticed where he’d crashed the night before. “This is my antiques store,” I told him. “We’ve got the heating on inside, shame to waste it on just two people. And it looks like it might start to snow soon.”
The homeless guy gave me a suspicious look. “You want me to come inside? With you?”
“Sure, if you’d like.”
“Is that because you think that if I come inside with you, I’ll let you touch me?”
“What? No!”
“Okay, because I can tell you right now, that’s not gonna happen.”
“Well, I suppose it is good to get those kinds of things clear beforehand. But no, I was just thinking you might enjoy the warmth, maybe a cup of cocoa.”
“A cup of cocoa you say…” He scratched his stubble. “And you’ll be charging me for this cup of cocoa?”
“No, the cocoa is free.”
“I see. So, are you operating under the assumption that if I come inside with you, and I drink your free cocoa, that I will touch you?”
“What? No!”
“Okay, because I can tell you right now, that’s not gonna happen either. Just because a guy is down on his luck, that doesn’t mean he goes around touching people in exchange for cups of cocoa.”
“I understand completely. And thanks again for pointing that out. But no, my friend and I noticed that you were sleeping in our doorway and, well, we’d like to invite you inside.”
The homeless guy turned and peered through the window in the door. He made eye-contact with Hicks, who panicked and went looking for his broom. “That your friend?”
I followed his gaze. “Yeah, that’s Hicks. He’s a bit peculiar, but he’s okay.”
“I see.” The homeless guy pulled on his collar. “And this friend of yours, will he be drinking cocoa also?”
“I suppose. I’m not entirely sure, but it seems likely.”
“I see.” The homeless guy considered this. “So,” he said, after a long moment, “will this friend of yours be expecting me to touch him?”
“No! There is no touching involved in any of this!”
“Okay, calm down,” the homeless guy said. “There’s no need to get all homophobic!”
“I wasn’t!”
“You sounded homophobic to me.”
“Me? You’re the one who can’t stop talking about touching people!”
I noticed people stopping in the street to stare at us. This made me very uncomfortable.
Download Free eBook here.
July 19, 2011
Journey
Looking into my past lives. Am convinced some of these still owe me money.
July 13, 2011
Summer of Gomez Winners
"Every once in a while you come across a novel so fresh and new it reacquaints you with feelings of childhood wonder. The novel my neighbor, Warren, wrote was my first example of the exact opposite of this."
-- Gomez in 'No Hope for Gomez!'
Blogger Kindle Winner:
Serena from SavvyVerseandWit.com
Reader Kindle Winner:
Arthur Hall (US)
Reader iPod Winner:
Lynn Bassler (US)
Limited edition Winners:
Ebehireme Iyoha (US)
Yasmin Raad Muhi (Mal)
Sarah Bibi Setar (SA)
Gemma Richardson (UK)
David Lane (US)
Thanks to everyone who decided to make the summer of 2011 an official Summer of Gomez! I for one had a lot of fun and lost only a little bit of hair (and a few teeth) over the administration. A small price to pay of course.
Let's try something great next year as well.
-- Gomez in 'No Hope for Gomez!'
Blogger Kindle Winner:Serena from SavvyVerseandWit.com
Reader Kindle Winner:
Arthur Hall (US)
Reader iPod Winner:
Lynn Bassler (US)
Limited edition Winners:
Ebehireme Iyoha (US)
Yasmin Raad Muhi (Mal)
Sarah Bibi Setar (SA)
Gemma Richardson (UK)
David Lane (US)
Thanks to everyone who decided to make the summer of 2011 an official Summer of Gomez! I for one had a lot of fun and lost only a little bit of hair (and a few teeth) over the administration. A small price to pay of course.
Let's try something great next year as well.
June 30, 2011
Another cover-up at mysterious crash site
I have recently uncovered the last taped conversation of ace reporter Kent Worthington. According to my calculations, it was made a day before his mysterious disappearance, and I dare say it contains some vital clues… (Some names may have been changed to protect my innocence)
Kent: Colonel, what can you say about the reports of an object coming down over the Boswell fields?
Colonel: It appears that a foreign passenger plane has come down.
Kent: So how do you respond to claims that no passenger planes were scheduled to fly over Boswell fields at the time?
Colonel: Eh, well, someone must have lost some paperwork somewhere. Happens all the time.
Kent: Colonel, I feel you are not completely open with me here. If you are going back on your word concerning total disclosure, I’ll hang up and run the story as I have it now.
Colonel: Okay, okay. Look, it's an alien vessel, that’s all I can say. We don't know where it came from exactly, or what it wants, but we know that it is not of this world.
Kent: An alien craft? Really? You must think I'm a moron!
Colonel: Excuse me?
Kent: Do you really think I'm going to print that? Alien craft down in Bosswell fields? Forget it!
Colonel: Well, I'd really rather you didn't print that, but, yes, it's the truth. That's what we're looking at here.
Kent: Colonel, I have it on good authority that the object that went down in Bosswell is in fact a military weather balloon!
Colonel: What? No! I'm telling you the truth, it's a space ship!
Kent: It's a damn weather balloon and you know it!
Colonel: It's not, honest! Look, I can't show you the site, you’d never get clearance, but I can send you some secret documents…
Kent: Colonel, this is a cover-up. I can smell it!
Colonel: Please, whatever you do, don't print the weather balloon story. I implore you!
Kent: I have to. This is simply too big to ignore. A yearly budget of 30 billion and you can't even make a decent weather balloon! The people have a right to know. I mean, how incompetent do have to be, really? It's a damn balloon. Its natural state is being up in the air!
Colonel: There were… unforeseen circumstances.
Kent: My five-year-old can make a balloon that doesn't crash. And he has no budget at all. Can’t even tie his shoes, in fact.
Colonel: Look, it’s not that simple. The balloon has equipment aboard. Then there’s wind speed, thermal dynamics. It’s all rather complicated.
Kent: No, it’s not. It’s nothing that the field of aviation hasn’t already solved a century ago. Here’s your problem, Colonel; NASA can put a man on the moon, send a probe to follow the Haley comet, explore the surface of mars, but the military still has problems keeping a damn balloon a few feet up in the air.
Colonel: It’s a few hundred feet, actually. Look, you don’t know what you’re messing with here. There are important people involved. People who won’t be happy.
Kent: I’ll tell you who won’t be happy. The taxpayers won’t be happy. I'm writing this story!
Check out the Summer of Gomez!
Only 5 validated entries so far, so you're almost guaranteed to win ;)
Get free books and win a Kindle or iPod.
As reviewers have been calling “No Hope for Gomez!” the perfect summer read - light, fast, fun - I decided to give this summer's Gomez readers some exclusive content and the chance to win prizes.
May 27, 2011
Summer of Gomez: free books and prizes
As reviewers have been calling “No Hope for Gomez!” the perfect summer read - light, fast, fun - I decided to give this summer's Gomez readers some exclusive content and the chance to win prizes.
About No Hope for Gomez!
It's the age-old tale:
- Boy meets girl.
- Boy stalks girl.
- Girl already has a stalker.
- Boy becomes her stalker-stalker.
We've seen it all before, many times, but this time it's different. If only slightly.
When Gomez Porter becomes a test subject in an experimental drug trial, he is asked to keep track of any strange experiences through a blog.
What Gomez isn't ready for, is so many of his experiences suddenly seeming strange; the antiques dealer trying to buy his old tax papers, the phone-sex salesman who hounds him day and night, the super sexy lab assistant who falls for him but is unable to express herself in terms outside the realm of science.
But when one of the trial participants turns up dead and another goes missing, Gomez begins to fear for his life. No longer sure who he can trust and which of his experiences are real and which merely drug induced delusions, he decides it's time to go underground and work out a devious plan.
Read a chapter.
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Nominated for Humor Novel of the Year by ForeWord Reviews, USA Book News, and the IBA Awards, here's what reviewers have to say about "No Hope for Gomez!":
“Extremely witty and clever writing.” -- California Chronicle
"An unputdownable read. a Coens Brothers' film in book form." -- BookReview.com
"A veritable page turner of nonstop laughs!" -- Reader Views
"A Party for your Brain!" -- Warren Baxter
Warning: clinical studies have shown that reading this novel is likely to make you more attractive to the opposite sex and elevate your random luck by about 9.5%**
(** These statements have not been evaluated by any person of consequence!)
With every cool summer party comes a gift bag, so here's just some of the stuff all summer readers will get:
- Exclusive new story collection
- No Hope for Gomez: The Lost Chapters
- Making of Gomez: behind the scenes eBook
- Signed hi-res poster + bookplate
Additionally, several lucky readers will win a prize. I'm raffling off a Kindle, an iPod Nano 8GB, and five exclusive spin-off paperback novels that are not available elsewhere!
All you have to do to have a "Summer of Gomez", is get the book from any store before July 12th 2011 and forward your receipt to nohopeforgomez@gmail.com.(Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Amazon CA, Amazon UK, Amazon DE)
Every purchase counts as an entry so increase your chances by stocking up on some extremely cool birthday presents ;)
Points towards additional entries are gained by getting your friends to join in, and tweeting/blogging/face-booking (is that a verb?) about the summer of Gomez.
Bio:
Graham Parke is responsible for a number of technical publications and has recently patented a self-folding map. He has been described as both a humanitarian and a pathological liar. Convincing evidence to support either allegation has yet to be produced.
www.grahamparke.com
www.grahamparke.blogspot.com
GoodReads
Cool Summer Blogs:
I am a reader Not a writer, cuzinlogic, Books R US , The Minding Spot , Book Noise, The True Book Addict, Mom in training, Getting Naughty between the stacks, Tifferz Bookreview , Ellabella Reviews, Freda's Voice , Books for Company, Sunday Drawing, NYX Book Reviews , Coffee For The Brain , The Book Connection
, The Book-ish Type , Man of LA Book, The Secret Writer
May 23, 2011
Curious case of Mr. Miller
[image error] Blog entry: Saturday. Decided to do a little detective work and find out what made one of my fellow drug trial participants pass out. Headed over to the hospital and queued up at the front desk to ask if there were any visitor’s hours that day.
Continued in "No Hope for Gomez!"
Check out the Summer of Gomez!
Get free books and win a Kindle or iPod.
As reviewers have been calling “No Hope for Gomez!” the perfect summer read - light, fast, fun - I decided to give this summer's Gomez readers some exclusive content and the chance to win prizes.
“Sure,” the nurse told me. “Who did you want to see?”
“A Mr. Miller. Mr. Joseph Miller. He was brought in two days ago.”
The nurse consulted her computer, frowned, then shook her head. “No, I’m sorry,” she said. “Mr. Miller is dead. He died late last night.” She looked up from her screen. “Would you like to see somebody else?”
“What? No! I really need to talk to Mr. Miller. Are you absolutely sure he’s passed away?”
“I can recheck if you want.” She typed away. “Sometimes this program mixes up some of the… ah, I see what I’ve done now.” She gave me an apologetic smile. “Stupid little me,” she said. “I had the stats of several files mixed up.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “So, he didn’t pass away?”
“Oh, no,” the nurse said, shaking her head, “he’s still dead, but he died this morning rather than last night.” She held up her hand with a small amount of space between her thumb and index finger. “You missed him by that much.”
“I see,” I said. “Does it at least say what he died of?”
She browsed her screen, bit her lip, and mumbled, “Yes, no, wait a minute. I saw something about…. Ah, yes. Yes, it does.” She looked up again. For a long moment we stared at each other. When I finally arched an eyebrow, she said, “Are you a relative? I’m not supposed to give out this kind of information to just anybody.”
I tried to think fast. I really needed that information but I didn’t know Joseph other than from the clinic waiting area. We’d never even spoken. Then, out of nowhere, the perfect answer just occurred to me. I told her, “Yes.”
“Okay then.” She was about to tell me when her face clouded over again. “You really should be getting this information from his doctor, though.”
I waved it away, told her it would be okay.
“Well,” she said, reading from her screen, “it says here he died of dehydration and malnutrition.”
“He was found passed out in his apartment,” I told her. “Apparently he’d been out for a while. Does it say what caused him to lose consciousness in the first place?”
The nurse perused the file for a long time, then shook her head. “No, sorry,” she said. “I’ll have to get the doctor for that. Just a moment.” She reached for the phone.
“That’s okay,” I said, not wanting to get into trouble for impersonating a relative. “I need to go. Pressed for time. Thank you.”
As I turned to leave, she called after me, “Are you sure you don’t want to visit anyone else? There are some really nice people up on the second floor. Much nicer than Mr. Miller. They’d love to talk to you.”
Continued in "No Hope for Gomez!"
Check out the Summer of Gomez!
Get free books and win a Kindle or iPod.
As reviewers have been calling “No Hope for Gomez!” the perfect summer read - light, fast, fun - I decided to give this summer's Gomez readers some exclusive content and the chance to win prizes.
May 12, 2011
Shortcut to bestseller-dom
As you probably know, to become an internationally best-selling author, you need to sell three books. This is not an easy task, but once you’ve managed to rack up these three sales, the rest is more or less a done deal.Now, these sales themselves will not put you on the best-seller lists. They won’t even put you within a million spots of the bottom of the lists, but what they will do, and what they do every time, is spark a slowly growing buying frenzy that will get you there.
These three people will love your book, they will tell another five people, who in turn tell another seven. Within roughly four-and-a-half weeks, you finally make your first million.
That’s how it happens. Every single time.
But, how does an author tackle this monumental task? Where does he find these three readers?
I myself was quite lucky. When my novel appeared on Amazon I already knew over five people. What’s more, some of these people even liked me, somewhat. So I set out to become an internationally best-selling author by convincing at least three of these five people to buy my novel.
I started with my mother. Of all the five people I knew, I probably knew her the longest. I showed her my Amazon page and she nodded approvingly. She did not, however, make any attempts to buy a copy. So I logged on for her, navigated back to my novel’s page, and left the mouse pointer conveniently positioned over the BUY button.
She read the novel description again, searched-inside-this-book, and nodded some more. When I asked her if she’d like to buy a copy, she scrunched up her nose and said;
‘But what if I don’t like it?’
I told her not to worry. ‘It’s a really good book,’ I said. ‘I should know. I’ve re-written it like 50 times. It’s really funny and interesting.’
My mother wasn’t convinced. ‘I’m not really into comedy writing, though,’ she said.
‘It’s not just a comedy,’ I pointed out. ‘It has a real story; it’s a mystery. And it has twists and turns and believable characters.’
My mother hesitated. ‘Maybe I should just play it safe and buy another Stephen King novel…’
I ended up having to offer a personal money-back guarantee, and purchase a copy using my own credit card for the time being, but she finally cracked. I’d made my first sale!
Next, I prodded my wife. Although she did like words in general, she wasn’t sure she was up for reading and entire book full of them. ‘Is this like your usual stuff?’ she wanted to know.
‘What usual stuff?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Is it like listening to you talk?’
‘What’s wrong with they way I talk?’
‘Nothing. It’s just, well, sometimes you talk a lot of nonsense.’
I waved it away. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I am much more interesting and ‘telligible’ on paper.’
Long story short; my second sale is almost in the bag. Now I just need to find one more person to buy my novel, and I’ll be set for life!
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April 25, 2011
The Dorkiness Equation, p2
Read part I first.
I'd fully understand if, at this point, you were in complete and total awe of me. If you had trouble believing any one person could be this insightful. And that’s fine. That’s natural at such life changing moments. But, really, I cannot take full credit. I happened to witness an event early in my professional career that gave me a vital clue to the puzzle. Without it I would not have figured this out. I had help. In fact, it was more or less spelled out for me.
Here’s what happened:
I was doing an internship at a large corporation. My first involvement with the corporate world. With the ‘nine-to-five grind’. With the ‘picking each other up for lunch and suffering each other’s company in the cafeteria’ kind of deal. The lunches were mostly boring, because the only thing everyone at the table had in common was their jobs. But one day something strange happened. Something that fascinated me. A scientist-type sitting diagonally across from me decided to fill his glass from a jug of water. He did this by holding his glass over his plate and heaving the jug above it. On that particular day, he managed to spill a great deal of water over his plate before realizing what he was doing. And I do mean a great deal of water. His potatoes were basically floating. I watched him do this in awe, and then I watched him silently put the jug back and continue his meal.
What happened next taught me much more about my colleagues than the whole week of working with them had. Because what happened next was: nothing.
Not a single thing. Although I couldn’t possibly be the only one who witnessed this incredible display of dorkiness, not a single person at that table gave any sign they’d noticed. They were embarrassed enough for the guy to pretend nothing had happened. And the reaction of the victim himself told me this was unlikely to be the first time he’d done this.
If it had been me, I’d have slapped my forehead and grumbled profanities, followed by something like, ‘I can’t believe I just did that!’ Then I’d follow it up by joining in with my colleagues as they fired off the mandatory jokes, after which I’d inspect the damage to my meal very carefully. I would do this to assess whether there was any way I could finish my lunch without having to walk back to get another one (choose the lazy solution whenever possible, you’ll live longer). I might indeed continue my meal, true, but not before very serious deliberation!
That day I understood, at least on some level, that I’d witnessed something of monumental importance, even though it would take me years to figure out exactly what that was.
Thinking back, another vital clue was the fact that I didn’t for an instance feel like sniggering. Without ever having spoken to the guy, his general demeanor had already informed my subconscious that he was indeed a dork, and so my initial reaction was one of sincere pity and compassion.
Which wasn’t very nice of me. I realize this now. And so, if by some strange coincidence I ever run into this guy again, I will apologize for joining in with the rude behavior of my colleagues, and then I’ll finally do the decent thing and laugh at him.
I'm really interested in hearing about similar experiences you may have had. Please abuse the comment section below to chronicle your ideas and happenings.
Bio:
Graham Parke is responsible for a number of technical publications and has recently patented a self-folding map. He has been described as both a humanitarian and a pathological liar. Convincing evidence to support either allegation has yet to be produced.
No Hope for Gomez! is his fiction debut:
Boy meets girl.
Boy stalks girl.
Girl already has a stalker.
Boy becomes her stalker-stalker.
I'd fully understand if, at this point, you were in complete and total awe of me. If you had trouble believing any one person could be this insightful. And that’s fine. That’s natural at such life changing moments. But, really, I cannot take full credit. I happened to witness an event early in my professional career that gave me a vital clue to the puzzle. Without it I would not have figured this out. I had help. In fact, it was more or less spelled out for me.Here’s what happened:
I was doing an internship at a large corporation. My first involvement with the corporate world. With the ‘nine-to-five grind’. With the ‘picking each other up for lunch and suffering each other’s company in the cafeteria’ kind of deal. The lunches were mostly boring, because the only thing everyone at the table had in common was their jobs. But one day something strange happened. Something that fascinated me. A scientist-type sitting diagonally across from me decided to fill his glass from a jug of water. He did this by holding his glass over his plate and heaving the jug above it. On that particular day, he managed to spill a great deal of water over his plate before realizing what he was doing. And I do mean a great deal of water. His potatoes were basically floating. I watched him do this in awe, and then I watched him silently put the jug back and continue his meal.
What happened next taught me much more about my colleagues than the whole week of working with them had. Because what happened next was: nothing.
Not a single thing. Although I couldn’t possibly be the only one who witnessed this incredible display of dorkiness, not a single person at that table gave any sign they’d noticed. They were embarrassed enough for the guy to pretend nothing had happened. And the reaction of the victim himself told me this was unlikely to be the first time he’d done this.
If it had been me, I’d have slapped my forehead and grumbled profanities, followed by something like, ‘I can’t believe I just did that!’ Then I’d follow it up by joining in with my colleagues as they fired off the mandatory jokes, after which I’d inspect the damage to my meal very carefully. I would do this to assess whether there was any way I could finish my lunch without having to walk back to get another one (choose the lazy solution whenever possible, you’ll live longer). I might indeed continue my meal, true, but not before very serious deliberation!
That day I understood, at least on some level, that I’d witnessed something of monumental importance, even though it would take me years to figure out exactly what that was.
Thinking back, another vital clue was the fact that I didn’t for an instance feel like sniggering. Without ever having spoken to the guy, his general demeanor had already informed my subconscious that he was indeed a dork, and so my initial reaction was one of sincere pity and compassion.
Which wasn’t very nice of me. I realize this now. And so, if by some strange coincidence I ever run into this guy again, I will apologize for joining in with the rude behavior of my colleagues, and then I’ll finally do the decent thing and laugh at him.
I'm really interested in hearing about similar experiences you may have had. Please abuse the comment section below to chronicle your ideas and happenings.
Bio:
Graham Parke is responsible for a number of technical publications and has recently patented a self-folding map. He has been described as both a humanitarian and a pathological liar. Convincing evidence to support either allegation has yet to be produced.
No Hope for Gomez! is his fiction debut:
Boy meets girl.
Boy stalks girl.
Girl already has a stalker.
Boy becomes her stalker-stalker.
