John R. Phythyon Jr.'s Blog, page 10

LITTLE RED RIDING HOODIE Features Benefits of Drama

Among the various jobs I’ve held in the strange adventure that is my life is youth theater instructor. Like many of the best things we experience, I came to it by accident.

I was working as the Sales and Marketing Director at a community theater, which had a vibrant and growing youth education program. One particular camp, they were short instructors. I’d been acting and working backstage there for several years, so the Youth Education Director, who was also a friend, asked if I’d step in and help.

That was the start of my career as Mr. John. I’d worked with youth before, coaching high school swing choir and music directing a production of Fiddler on the Roof at my alma mater. And I found that working with young people was a lot of fun — particularly elementary school kids, who haven’t yet realized they can take high school and community theater too seriously.

Somewhat to my surprise, I was popular with the kids, and it was gratifying to see some of my former students go on to volunteer in the program as teachers, earn roles in the theater’s mainstage productions, and go to college as confident public speakers. Shaping youth through the arts is an incredibly rewarding experience.

So when I was working on a novel set in middle school, it was perhaps only natural that one of the subplots would concern the school play.

Little Red Riding Hoodie: A Modern Fairy Tale features an ambitious sixth-grade English teacher, who has both the courage and the insanity to not only teach Romeo and Juliet to 11- and 12-year-olds, but to attempt to stage it. He’s young, and no one has told him you can’t do that yet.

Romeo and Juliet sits at the center of the action of LRRH. My protagonist, Sally, auditions and wins the part of Juliet, beating out the school bully, who already didn’t like her. She’s cast opposite the cutest boy in the entire grade, which further infuriates the bullies and sets up romantic tension between Sally and her co-star.

But the play isn’t just a plot device. It’s a vehicle that brings the characters together, reveals who they are, and strengthens their relationships. Consider this exchange between Sally and her Romeo, Brian.

“So, Brian, what’s up?” Sally said, trying to change the subject.

“Oh,” he said. “I almost forgot. I was wondering if you could help me with the play.”

She cocked her head quizzically. Alison shot her a suggestive look. Sally ignored it.

“How,” she asked.

“Well, I’m having trouble with some of the lines, and since you seem to be pretty smart about Shakespeare and all, I thought you could help.”

Sally blushed. The only person who had ever asked her for help with homework before was Alison.

“Sure,” Sally said. “When did you want to get together?”

“Well, final bell is at 2:45,” he said. “Play practice doesn’t start ’til three. Do you want to meet in the auditorium right after school?”

“Um, sure,” Sally said. “I can do that.”

“Cool,” he said. He smiled broadly. “Okay, well, see you, Red.”

He looked at her for another moment, as if trying to think of something else to say. Then he sauntered off, looking back over his shoulder once as he went.

“He liiiikes you,” Alison drawled.

“Shut up,” Sally said, blushing.

“He totally likes you. You’re gonna be in the auditorium making out after school.”

“Shut up!” Sally said, grinning. “He doesn’t like me. He just wants help with the play.”

On the surface, the scene is about the play, but it reveals a lot about Sally and Brian. Brian confirms what Alison has told Sally earlier in the novel (and what her being cast as Juliet illuminates) — she’s good at understanding Shakespeare. Brian asking for help reaffirms Alison isn’t just telling Sally she is good. Someone else believes it too.

It also demonstrates his budding romantic interest in Sally. He could have asked the teacher for help, but he asks Sally instead. And he’s clearly at a loss for words on how to end the interaction — a classic sign of a boy trying to stay cool and not admit how much he likes a girl.

Alison underscores that fact by teasing Sally about it after Brian leaves, and Sally reveals she doesn’t believe in herself, because Brian is really cute, and she figures there is no way he would be interested in her.

It’s a short exchange, but there is a lot of material packed into it. Romeo and Juliet is a subplot in the novel, but it also reveals a lot about the characters as the story unfolds.

It also is a means for the characters, particularly Sally, to self-actualize. When the novel opens, she lacks confidence. Alison has to force her to audition, and Sally is convinced she will never be cast, regardless of how talented she is. Good things happen to other people, not to her. But in this scene in Chapter Two, she begins a transformation into someone different.

Deliberately, she tried to convince herself that there was no way a girl like her could be in a play as special as Romeo and Juliet. She was ugly. She was nothing. She was the dumb girl, who couldn’t pass a social studies quiz. Mr. Pipich wouldn’t want someone like her in the most amazing play ever.

She willed her mind back to the defeatist attitude she had had prior to reading yesterday. If she believed she didn’t deserve this, couldn’t hope to ever get it, she would not be disappointed when she did not. It would hurt less than if she got her hopes up. Hoping to get Juliet was like hoping for Mom to come home.

At last, the crowd parted enough for her to reach the front. Sally closed her eyes. She drew in a deep breath and steeled herself for disappointment. Then she opened her eyes and read the cast list.

And there it was in black ink:

JULIET CAPULET — SALLY PRESCOTT

Her heart stopped. She couldn’t possibly have read that. She read it again. It hadn’t changed. She, Sally Prescott, had gotten what she wanted; she’d been cast as Juliet.

A lump came up in the back of her throat. Then a freight train of emotion crashed through her. She began weeping. Tears streamed down her face as the sheer joy of her accomplishment overwhelmed her. For the first time in her life, she understood what it was to cry from happiness.

Getting Juliet starts Sally on a path of self-discovery, wherein she learns to believe in herself. Prior to auditioning, she can’t envision getting anything she wants. But afterwards, she starts to think maybe she is better than she believed.

As a youth theater instructor, I saw this happen so many times. Kids discover they can do things they didn’t believe possible. Some of them start out terrified of getting up in front of others and transform into loud, clear speakers, floored by the praise they receive.

Some of them are naturals, who take to drama like the proverbial fish to water, but grow when you challenge them with more difficult roles and to hone their craft.

But they all learn to be more than they imagined. Under the direction of caring instructors, they actualize into amazing people.

So when I was writing a novel about a young woman who is forced to grow up quickly and save her family, it seemed both natural and obvious to me that theater would be a vehicle for her to learn self-confidence.

Little Red Riding Hoodie: A Modern Fairy Tale is part of the Kindle Scout program, which uses crowd-sourcing to help determine new books for Amazon to publish under its imprint. You can help me bring its messages — including the benefits of drama — to young readers by nominating it for publication. Follow the link below to learn more and to vote for Little Red Riding Hoodie.

Thanks for your support, and don’t forget the words of Mr. John to his students before every opening — “Remember: It’s called a ‘play’ for a reason; it’s supposed to be fun.”

Click here to nominate Little Red Riding Hoodie: A Modern Fairy Tale for publication by Amazon.

Filed under: Little Red Riding Hoodie, Writing Tagged: Drama, John Phythyon, Little Red Riding Hoodie, Theater, youth theater

Supporting Your Author Friend

John R. Phythyon, Jr.:

This is a fantastic post. There are so many ways to support authors you know that don’t involve spending money. Great summary of things you can do to help an author friend build an audience.

Originally posted on Laura Best:

This post could have been written by my family and friends. It’s all about how to support your authorly friends out there, and since my friends and family have been awesome enough to support me through the publication of two books I wanted to let others in on their tips for supporting an author friend. (I bet most of them didn’t even know they had such tips!) Through the years my friends and family have come up with some ingenious ways to put the word about my books “out there.” I thought I would share these with everyone else out there who would like to know ways to support a certain author but are a bit uncertain about how to do that. Believe me there are plenty of ways, and my friends have done a super, stupendous job.

1. Buy the book-– A lot of my friends bought the…

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Filed under: Uncategorized

The Five Dumbest Christmas Carols of All Time

One of the most prevalent and, indeed, important pieces of the Christmas season is music. No matter where you go — shopping malls, work, even just traveling somewhere in your car — the “sounds of the season” are being crammed in your ears  by radio stations and satellite Muzak services.

And I actually kind of like that. As I mentioned in my Christmas mini-memoir (You have a copy, right? Here’s a link if you don’t. It’s only 99 cents!), my mother always kicked off the holidays by putting as many Christmas records as would fit on our turntable and blasting them through the house. I was in choir in high school and college, so Christmas music was a must for those December concerts.

But as much as I enjoy carols both modern and classic, some of them are just plain dumb. You listen to them, and you think, “What in the name of Kris Kringle were they thinking when they wrote this?”

As a special holiday service, I have compiled a list of the five dumbest Christmas songs ever. Because I’m “special,” this top-five list has more than five songs on it. What can I say? I’m a writer, and math was never my best subject in school.

So here they are — the five, er, eight, dumbest Christmas carols ever!

#5: “Jingle Bell Rock” / “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”

These two songs are part of the Rock ‘n’ Roll revolution of the 1950’s. There were a whole slew of songs aimed at The Establishment (before it was called The Establishment) that essentially said, “Rock ‘n’ Roll will never die; it’s the new music thing; you stodgy old bastards can’t stop us; blah-blah-blah.”

Into this morass came “Jingle Bell Rock” (1957) and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” (1958). Sure these are Christmas songs, but they were recorded specifically to make Rock ‘n’ Roll Christmas songs. They pandered to youthful listeners and raised a collective middle finger to older listeners. That’s not really in keeping with the Christmas spirit.

The lyrics are bad and dated, as well. “Rockin’ around the Christmas tree at the Christmas party hop?”How many of today’s listeners even know what a hop is? (And isn’t use of the term a deliberate marketing play towards the youth of ’58?)

Every time one of these monstrosities comes on the radio, I’m diving for the channel-switch button. Here’s a tip, folks: write songs about Christmas, not songs with a Christmas theme designed to appeal to a certain demographic.

#4: “The Holly and the Ivy”

“The holly has a prickle as sharp as any thorn / And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ on Christmas in the morn.”

Um, what?

This is one of the prettiest songs  ever written, but doesn’t make a damned bit of sense. Holly and ivy are pagan symbols frequently associated with Winter Solstice and Yuletide traditions that someone apparently decided to try to musically graft into Christianity through powerful metaphors of the birth of Christ. Except that the Christian and pagan images don’t have anything to do with each other, and as evidenced by the lyrics I quote above, the association doesn’t work at all.

This song is a mess of confusing metaphors, missing points, and false logic. It sounds lovely . . . as long as you don’t listen to the words.

#3: “Jingle Bells” / “Sleigh Ride!” / “Winter Wonderland”

Why are these Christmas songs? They don’t have a thing to do with Christmas. They’re winter songs, and in the case of the first two, they’re celebrations of something that doesn’t even happen anymore – taking a ride in a horse-driven sleigh.

Why don’t you hear “Winter Wonderland” in January? Why isn’t “Sleigh Ride!” a big Valentine’s Day hit?

To be fair, I should probably put “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” on this list too, but it’s jazzy and cute, and  I kind of like it, so I’ll leave it off.

Besides, then I’d have nine songs on a top-five list, which is really one short of a top-ten list, and that would hurt my brain too much.

#2: “The Twelve Days of Christmas”

This is the Christmas carol that will not end. Does anyone know all the words to this one without the sheet music in front of them? Does anyone have fun singing this one?

It’s pretty telling that this is the most mocked Christmas song of all time. Parodies of this musical disaster such as “The Twelve Pains of Christmas,” “The Twelve Days After Christmas,” and Bob and Doug McKenzie’s rendition show just how reviled this carol is.

It’s tolerable as written as long as it’s done comically, such as when the Muppets perform it, but please don’t do this one for real. Anyone coming to my house and launching into this carol approximately the length of a Tolstoy novel gets thrown off the porch for a) singing a bad song, and b) attempting to let all the heat out of the house as they drone on through 12 verses.

#1: “The Little Drummer Boy”

But without question, the all-time stupidest Christmas carol is “The Little Drummer Boy” for its utter ridiculousness.

All of you out there who have had a baby, I want you to picture this. You had to give birth in a barn after traveling on foot for miles and miles. The new arrival has finally fallen asleep. And some kid you don’t know shows up and celebrates your joyous 12 hours of labor by banging on a snare drum, waking your baby and sending him into a fit of squawling that makes your teeth rattle and gives you a migraine God himself can’t fix.

There is no mother on Earth who would want this, and no father who wouldn’t break the little urchin in half. If Mary nodded (pa-rum-pa-pum-pum), it was because she was still under the effects of the Demerol.

So there you have it – five, er, eight Christmas carols to make you say “Bah! Humbug!”

Clement Moore wrote, “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!” I wish you the same, but I’m sure it will be happier and better if you leave these eight disasters off your playlist.

Filed under: Uncategorized

More of LITTLE RED RIDING HOODIE Excerpted

If you haven’t heard, my new novel, Little Red Riding Hoodie: A Modern Fairy Tale, is part of the Kindle Scout program. That means readers can vote to have it published by Amazon. (Click this link to vote for it.)

As part of the book’s campaign, Amazon puts the first several pages of it on the Kindle Scout site to give you a taste. But for LRRH, the preview cuts off in the middle of Chapter Two!

That’s too bad because, not only does it leave you hanging, the excerpt cuts out before we get to see Sally’s strange dreams and the first hints of the novel’s magical elements appear.

Want to know how the chapter ends? I thought you might! You can read the first chapter-and-a-half on Kindle Scout and then pick it up below. Don’t forget to nominate Little Red Riding Hoodie for publication!

Little Red Riding Hoodie Chapter Two Excerpt (Cont’d)

After the meal, she put the dishes in the dishwasher and then went to her room to do her homework. She sat at her tidy, little desk, switched on her Disney Princess lamp, and got out her math. Mrs. Lamay had assigned thirty problems tonight. Sally didn’t think the woman understood that sixth-graders had better things to do with their evenings than puzzle over math. She always assigned a lot of homework. Fortunately, Sally had gotten half of them done at school, so the evening’s task wasn’t quite as daunting.

As if on cue, Alison texted.

OMG, can u believe how much math we have?

 

Yes, Sally could believe it. She didn’t understand why Alison always seemed shocked by Mrs. Lamay’s assignments. She replied:

 

Shoulda done em in school

 

She hadn’t finished the next problem, when Alison texted back.

 

Who has time for that?

 

Sally told her she had gotten half of hers done at lunchtime, while they were talking, and she told Alison she’d never get them done if she didn’t get on it. The texts came in less frequently after that.

When she finished her math, she got up and went to the dryer, got out Tommy’s sheets, and made his bed. With that done, she went out into the living room. Her father was watching SportsCenter, but his eyes were only half-open. Tommy was again engrossed in a game.

“Time for bed, Tommy,” she said.

“I don’t hafta ’til Dad says,” he replied without looking up.

Sally looked over at her father. She doubted he would be saying anything more tonight.

“Don’t mess with me, Tommy,” she said. “You know your bedtime is 8:30.”

“Aww.”

“Come on,” she said. “The game will be there tomorrow.”

He got up and shut off the tablet, leaving it on the floor as he headed towards his bedroom. She sighed and picked it up, so her father wouldn’t accidentally step on it if he somehow managed to get off the couch and into bed.

“Tommy, don’t forget to go to the bathroom,” she called after him. “We don’t want a repeat of last night.”

Ten minutes later, he was in bed, and she tucked him in.

“Sleep well, Little Man,” she said as she turned off the light.

Then she went back to her own room. She still had to do the reading for Mr. Frank’s Social Studies class, which she’d been dreading. She really should have done it first, but she thought it would be easier than the math, and besides, she hated Mr. Frank and Social Studies.

She was only a page into the path of a bill through Congress, when her eyelids grew heavy. It had been a very big day. Try as she might, she couldn’t keep them open. Moments later, she was fast asleep.

 

***

 

Sally heard a clinking in the hallway. She couldn’t say for certain what it was. She scanned the hall of the school, examining the smoke-swirl pattern in the grey tile floors, looking for the source of the sound between the gun-metal grey lockers. After a moment, she saw it. A gold coin rolled down the hall and then, as though possessed of a mind of its own, turned a corner and continued out of sight down the adjoining hallway.

Then she heard something else. It sounded like a whisper – a deep and ominous whisper. She could not make out what was being said, but it sounded as though someone was chanting over and over again. It came from behind her.

She turned around. Up the stairs came a pack of the most frightening dogs she had ever seen. They were large – bigger than she – with strong, wide legs and thick, white hair and wolfish faces. Their eyes were the most malevolent red she had ever seen, and their jaws dripped with hungry drool. They growled excitedly and charged straight towards her.

She ran. She ran as best as she could. She could hear their claws skittering on the tile floor, struggling to find purchase. She could feel their breath hot on the backs of her legs.

She turned the corner, hoping to delay them. It worked a little. The first two dogs had trouble cornering on the slick surface, and the remainder crashed into them, sending the whole pack tumbling down the hallway. But the dogs at the back recovered quickly and renewed the chase.

Panting desperately, she ran from door to door looking for shelter. Every one was locked. She struggled briefly and then moved on. The dogs were gaining ground.

At last, she found one unlocked. She opened it and rushed inside. She slammed the door shut just as the lead dog crashed into it. The force of the blow knocked her backward. Terrified, she returned quickly to the door and locked it. The rest of the pack arrived and barked and growled angrily at the glass window on the top half of the door. Some of them left their saliva on it as they clawed and bit at it in their desire to sate their hunger for her.

“Hello, Sally,” a voice said behind her.

She turned around, startled. It was Mr. Pipich. He sat on his desk and smiled at her. He seemed oblivious to the attack she had narrowly avoided.

“I wonder if you’ve met our new student,” he continued. He gestured to the other side of the room.

There was a girl in a red dress and cape standing there. She looked up. She had a wolf’s head.

Sally woke up with a scream. She couldn’t remember ever having had such a terrible nightmare. Her heart pounded, and she felt cold. Her hands shook.

She stood up slowly. Her back ached from having fallen asleep at her desk. The clock read, “12:23.” Numbly, she got undressed and slipped between the sheets.

She left the light on. The images from the dream were too intense, too near. She pulled the covers up tightly to her chin and feared she wouldn’t be able to sleep again tonight.

But the day’s events were overwhelming, and they, in addition to the fear her nightmare generated, exhausted her once again. Without realizing she was even slipping away, she was soon unconscious and didn’t dream again before morning.

Click here to go to the Kindle Scout page and vote for Little Red Riding Hoodie: A Modern Fairy Tale.

Filed under: e-Publishing, Little Red Riding Hoodie Tagged: John Phythyon, Kindle Scout, Little Red Riding Hood, Little Red Riding Hoodie

LITTLE RED RIDING HOODIE Accepted to Kindle Scout

I am very excited and pleased to announce that Little Red Riding Hoodie, the novel I spent half of October and all of November madly writing/rewriting, has been accepted by Amazon’s Kindle Scout program.

So what does that mean? Well, now I’ve got 30 days to drum up support to convince Amazon they should publish it. From December 10 to January 9, LRRH will be featured on the Kindle Scout site, where readers with an Amazon account can nominate it for publication. If it gets enough votes, it’ll move on to the final phase — consideration by Amazon’s publication committee. They make the final decision.

I’d love for that to be a yes. Not only would it mean a publishing contract with an actual advance, Amazon would market the novel to customers, which would give me access to more potential readers than I’ve ever had. That could make a huge difference in my career. Plus, everyone who nominates the book gets a free copy if it’s green-lighted. That’s a nice thank you for support.

To vote for Little Red Riding Hoodie, follow this link. You can read an excerpt from the novel and check out answers to a few questions about the book. Please feel free to spread the link far and wide.

Need more information? Here’s the full blurb on the book:

Sixth grade is hard enough. When the school bully is on your case because you got the lead in the play instead of her, when the cutest boy in the whole class might actually like you but never makes a move, and when your dad is an alcoholic and you have to cook, clean, and take care of your little brother, the last thing you need is more trouble.

But Sally Prescott has more trouble than she ever imagined when she starts having strange dreams of demonic dogs, magical keys, and a wolf-headed spirit bent on her destruction. Her best friend knows a secret that may help, but she refuses to tell, claiming Sally made her promise not to.

As Sally’s dreams start bleeding into reality, she realizes she is the only person who can save her family. With a little bit of magic and a lot of determination, she’ll get one chance to change her destiny and theirs. If she succeeds, she’ll solve her problems at home and at school. If she fails, she’ll lose everyone she ever loved.

Turns out sixth grade is tougher than she thought.

Little Red Riding Hoodie: A Modern Fairy Tale is a contemporary take on the classic story. Blending surrealism and magic with a modern middle school setting, it is a story of bravery in the face of hopelessness, taking responsibility when others won’t, and finding your inner strength. Funny and sweet, scary and strange, Little Red Riding Hoodie celebrates friendship, love, and courage at that most awkward time of life – middle school.

Click here to nominate Little Red Riding Hoodie for publication.

Filed under: e-Publishing, Little Red Riding Hoodie Tagged: Amazon, John Phythyon, Kindle Scout, Little Red Riding Hood, Little Red Riding Hoodie

“Sleeping Beauty” FREE This Week

The Christmas giving continues! This week’s free book is my “Sleeping Beauty: A Modern Fairy Tale,” my contemporary take on the classic.

In this short story, the titular character is put into a magical coma by her father, who believes he must protect her from the budding urges of the boys at school. But one of them loves her more deeply than he suspects, and his wife is not interested in having her Pretty Princess lie in a coma until her husband’s handpicked suitor comes to call.

A cautionary tale that remains timeless in a landscape of purity balls and sexism, “Sleeping Beauty: A Modern Fairy Tale” is a creepy, little story that’ll give you shivers.

It’s free all week! Get it here.

Filed under: Sleeping Beauty Tagged: Christmas, fairy tales, free, Kindle, Sleeping Beauty

Tree Trials: Getting a Christmas Tree

We’re getting a Christmas tree this weekend.

This is one of my favorite holiday rituals. Every year, I am unable to leave the house without quoting The Old Man in Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story:

“If we don’t hurry, we’ll miss all the good trees!”

I’m not quite sure why I find this annual exercise exhilarating. It’s just one part of holiday decorating that isn’t that much more special than pulling out the stockings or the nutcrackers.

And now that I have children old enough to think all my opinions are moronic, picking out a Christmas tree also means an annual argument over which exact tree to get.

The first Christmas we had all three children together (Jill and I each have kids from previous marriages), we took a picture with them by the tree after we’d gotten it. Only The Boy is smiling. Both girls look grumpy, because they lost the argument on which tree to get.

And of course, getting it set up is an arduous adventure in itself. Trying to make sure it is actually standing straight in the stand takes at least half an hour. My mother taught me to make sure the wires from the lights don’t show, so I spend hours obsessing over how the lights are going on. The children always hang all the ornaments on the front, causing it to lean precariously in one direction due to excessive weight and me to scold them about spreading them around.

There was one year it fell over in the middle of the night.

Another year I came home to discover it knocked over by a cat, who thought the ornaments were his personal play toys.

But there’s just something about the tree that tells me really, truly Christmas is here. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and getting the tree confirms we are in full swing.

More than the shopping. More than all the Christmas songs.

So I’ve got to get going. If we don’t hurry, we’ll miss all the good trees.

***

John R. Phythyon, Jr. LOVES Christmas. Check out his new mini-memoir, “Naughty & Nice: My True-Life Adventure with Santa Claus.” It’s only 99 cents! Click here to get it.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Christmas, Christmas tree

NaNo Wrap Up

NaNoWriMo is officially over, and I am still alive, which is a vast improvement over last year at this time, when I was terribly sick with a vicious flu.

But I’m not satisfied with not making myself ill. After swearing I wasn’t going to do NaNo, I jumped in with both feet by trying to write three books at once, publish another, and start a fourth. So how’d I end up? Let’s take a look.

“Secret Identity: My True-Life Adventure as a Superhero”

I set a publication date of Monday, November 3 for my first mini-memoir. Most of the work on the book had been done already, so there wasn’t a lot I had to do.

Still, I had yet to publish a book this year that hadn’t been some sort of unnecessary adventure, and this was no exception. I published Sunday night to have the book approved and on sale by Monday morning. Amazon, which usually takes four to six hours to authorize a title for sale, took over eighteen this year. I finally had to call customer service and get them to look into it. “Secret Identity” made it out on time, but it wasn’t easy. You can get it here for only 99 cents.

Status: Done

“Naughty & Nice: My True-Life Adventure with Santa Claus”

The second mini-memoir was scheduled for Monday, December 1. That one had a lot more writing to be done. I had just made it through the first draft by the time the month began. I wrote four drafts in two weeks and got an unproofed manuscript uploaded to Amazon for its prerelease program (the first time I had tried this) and had my final edit uploaded before the November 21 deadline. “Naughty & Nice” released yesterday in time for Christmas shopping. Get it here for 99 cents.

Status: Done

“An Unexpected Blessing”

Once again, after thinking I wasn’t going to, I attempted to write a short story for inclusion in Five59 Publishing’s Winter Tales. About a month before the November 21 deadline, I finally got an idea and started working on it.

At only 2500 words, the story developed quickly, and I sent it in well ahead of the submission date. “An Unexpected Blessing” was accepted, and the book hit shelves yesterday, meaning I actually published two pieces in one day. You can get Winter Tales here for $1.99.

Status: Done

Little Red Riding Hoodie: A Modern Fairy Tale

This book is really the reason NaNo had any significance for me at all. Writing two short pieces at once is no big deal. Writing two short pieces and a complete novel is.

Wanting to jump on the Kindle Scout Program as close to the beginning as possible, I pulled an old novel out of the figurative drawer and madly started rewriting it. The original manuscript was so different I was nearly creating something brand new from scratch. Some of the events of the original are still there, but the characters, sequence of events, plot, and to an extent, the setting all changed.

I had just about finished the first draft when NaNo began. I managed to write a draft a week and got the thing into final, submission shape by the end of last week. I really wanted to be able to submit by November 30, but a medical emergency and the holiday conspired to keep that from happening. I also was running out of gas by the end of the month. Working this many projects at once is something that can be done, but you can’t keep up that frenetic a pace forever. Particularly in the final week, my progress slowed.

Still, I got the whole book written, and Jill designed the cover. This week I’m working on the marketing materials, and I should be submitting by Friday.

Status: Nearly Done

“Domestic Disturbance: My True-Life Adventure in Sibling Rivalry”

This third installment in the mini-memoir series is slated for a January 5, 2015 release. That means I need to be writing it now!

I was hoping to finish the first draft before the end of the month. That would set me up to have it moving through the pipeline at the right pace, especially since Christmas will screw with my ability to get work done.

The exhaustion and other problems with the fourth week of November I mentioned above prevented me from doing that though. I have nearly completed the first draft today. I need to rewrite the intro (because I got stuck and abandoned it so I could keep moving on), and I haven’t figured out that perfect button ending just yet. But I’m on pace to have a second draft to my editor by the end of the week.

Status: Not Done

So looking it over, I’d call that a pretty successful NaNoWriMo. I tried to publish one book, write two more and get them published by December 1, write five drafts of a novel, and begin the first draft of a fifth book. I accomplished every single one of those things. I was hoping to be a little further along on the last two projects, but given that “Naughty & Nice” is 15,000 words, Little Red Riding Hoodie is 72,500, and “Domestic Disturbance” is currently 10,000, I’ll take it. This has been a very productive month, and if I keep my schedule for the remainder of 2014, I should be very well set up for next year.

Hope your NaNoWriMo was successful too and that you hit all your goals!

Filed under: Little Red Riding Hoodie, Memoir, NaNoWriMo Tagged: indie author, indie publishing, memoirs, NaNoWriMo

Holidays Kickoff with New Stuff and Free Stuff

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

Christmas season is officially on, and I’m celebrating with my biggest month ever as an independent author. Two – count ‘em, two — books drop today!

First is my new mini-memoir, “Naughty & Nice: My True-Life Adventure with Santa Claus.” As a boy in the 1970’s, I was obsessed with catching Claus on The Big Night. In 1977, I actually pulled it off. You can read about that, as well as my misadventures surviving winter in Wisconsin, decorating the Christmas tree, and treating the Sears Wish Book like the Bible in this short piece that makes me look like the fool I was. Click here to buy it for only 99 cents for Kindle.

Secondly, Five59 Publishing’s new short story anthology, Winter Tales is on sale today. I’ve got a piece (“An Unexpected Blessing”) in this collection of holiday-themed shorts from a group of indie authors I am lucky to be a part of. Mine puts a twist on the usual tale of good cheer. Get the book here.

As if that wasn’t enough, I’ll be giving away a free book every week this month. This week, it’s my short story, “Passion Play.” Set in a fantasy version of medieval France, Juliette is a witch who can make fields fertile, cure disease, and make people fall in love. But when the new king ascends the throne, he plans to institute strict laws forbidding witchcraft. Juliette must find a way to stop his oppressive plan, and if she can’t persuade the local bishop to help, she’ll take matters into her own hands.

You can get this short, political thriller with plenty of magic for free through Friday. Click here to download it to your Kindle!

Happy holidays, everyone! Hope you enjoy the season as much as I!

Filed under: e-Publishing, Memoir, Passion Play

Things I Shouldn’t Be Thankful for but I Am

It’s Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. today, when we are supposed to take stock of where we are and be thankful for what we have.

I’m in the middle of my 40’s, and I don’t know many people thankful for that. It’s also been a very difficult and transformative decade in my life. It would be easy to look around at the hardships and the tragedies and not be thankful for those.

But I am making a concerted effort to be positive. No one likes to be around a cranky bastard, and I am fortunate enough to live a in nice, warm house with enough to eat, and I’m healthy. The ailments from which I suffer are minor and bearable. Even the sciatica, which kicks my ass at random, unannounced times, can be managed with a little more sitting and the judicious application of ibuprofen (and sometimes vodka).

So despite my personal tragedies and not being rich, I really have a lot, if not to be thankful for, to not complain about.

Today, though, I’m going to take it a step further. Today, on Thanksgiving Day, I will take the horrific things that happened to me in the past five years, and I will make them things to be thankful for.

I do not believe that “everything happens for a reason” or that “God won’t give me more than I can handle.” There is no justifying bad stuff.

But I do believe you can make lemonade out of lemons (especially if you add vodka) and that a positive attitude makes anything easier to do.

So here’s my list of things I am thankful for, even though they hurt me.

I am thankful for betrayal.

I won’t go into detail on what happened and who was responsible in a public forum, but suffice to say I’ve endured a few of the most shocking betrayals of my life in the past five years.

I see better now. I watch more carefully. It’s not that I’m suspicious. I still genuinely believe in the basic goodness of most human beings.

But I don’t put up with bad situations for as long as I used to, and I am much more alert to danger signs than I used to be. I’d rather not have the scars that got me here, but at least they taught me something important I can use later.

I am thankful for bad relationships.

I spent most of my life in these. Some were worse than others. Some were better. All were at least 50% my fault.

But I have a much better idea of what I want from a relationship and how to get it. I am a better partner.

Most importantly, I learned not to stay in a relationship just to avoid being alone. I can be alone for awhile. Something better will come along eventually.

And being alone beats being miserable.

I am thankful for losing my job.

I got laid off in 2011. At the time, it was one of the worst things to ever happen to me. I’d been laid off before, but I was single this time. I was in debt. I had to rely on unemployment, and the payments were so small I was just subsisting, since I was trying to manage debt.

There is a certain freedom that comes from being absolutely screwed. When you hit bottom, virtually anything you choose is up. You can start completely over.

That’s what I did. I had dreamed most of my life of being a novelist. While I spent the days looking for a new gig, there was a lot of time I needed to fill.

The Brave New World of independent publishing was taking off, and I had most of the skill set necessary to jump in. So I did.

Three years in, I have 10 books for sale and another 13 on the way.

Getting laid off gave me the freedom to stop dreaming of being an author and to become one. I am nowhere near my goals for sustainability and sales, but I am so much happier doing this than selling my talent to write marketing copy.

I am thankful for being poor.

I’m actually not really poor. Not in the sense of living below the poverty line or needing state assistance to get by.

But I spent a year on unemployment, and I’m still trying to correct the financial mistakes I made following my divorce. Money remains tight every month.

And that’s taught me how to live within my means. If I’d understood what I do now five years ago, I wouldn’t be in his situation now.  But I can now get a lot of mileage out of each dollar, and I’ve learned how to be entertained cheaply.

If I hadn’t made dumb decisions in 2009, ’10, and ’11, I’d have a lot more freedom now. But at least I learned how to be more careful with money and how to make it stretch as far as possible.

So there they are — things I’m thankful for that maybe I shouldn’t be. Sometimes I’m really resentful that this stuff happened to me. But I cannot change that they occurred, and I am trying to see how they put me where I am today.

And that place is mostly good — nice, warm house, enough to eat, healthy, loving wife, three children, three pets, and pursuing my dream. I’ll take it.

So I’m thankful.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Thanksgiving