Randy Attwood's Blog, page 15

Presentation, Book Signing, and Everything Else

I had great fun doing a presentation "This Brave New ePublishing World" a couple of weeks at for the Community of Reason group that meets at the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus on Sunday afternoons. Very nice turnout. I go over how and why I got into ePublishing, what I've learned since doing so in the spring of 2011, and what still baffles me. It also gives me a chance to talk about each of my works and offer them for sale afterwards.
I'd be happy, and am searching for, other venues within a four-hour driving distance of Kansas City that would be interested in such a presentation. My bookshelf on Amazon is now 16 works deep. 
Last Saturday, I went to Emporia, KS and joined 56 other authors at the Town Crier, an wonderful Indie bookstore in downtown Emporia. A nice number of buyers and lookers came in and although I only made three sales, I'm happy I went because I think other on line sales resulted. Also, the fellow sitting beside me was Dave Burns from Ottawa, who started the Ottawa Writer's Guild and teaches creative writing. His website is here. Thank you Cheryl Unruh for the picture. He sold more books than did I (probably just because he's cuter than I am). However, on the way out of town I stopped at Mike's Tavern for a libation and the bartender asked about me. I explained who I was and why I was there. She started shouting about a local author being in the bar and her friend, Jennifer bought two books. Bottom line: new readers and enough profit to pay for the gasoline and slab of ribs from Williamsburg, still the best around. Whenever I break even, I'm happy.
I'm 30,000 words into a novel that is set in the future that has a couple of elements that are really working for me. It's called Stop Time because the stoppage of time is one of the elements. That's been done many times (I think John D. MacDonald's The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything was one of the first I read.), but one of the characters who is unaffected by this time stoppage is a student artist, a realist painter. Can you image what it would mean for a realist painter to be able to paint during a time stoppage when the model doesn't move and the natural light values of the sun don't change? It's also important to present the mechanism for the time stoppage and I use a spell from a Wiccan healer and a really cool trick for why the student painter isn't affected.
America has been destroyed by the barbarians from within, but the Kansas City Plaza Enclave has saved itself behind walls that protect its civilization, and, for all they know, perhaps the only spot of civilization left in the country. Beyond the walls is Scumtown. No need for prisons in the Plaza Enclave. Misbehave and just get booted into Scumtown.
The internet is so incredibly helpful. I've networked now with Wiccans to help me on those details. And I've also hooked into a couple of people very familiar with the APC (armored personnel carrier) that plays a role in the story. The APC has been combat locked so how do you open it with no power tools or welding torches at your disposal?
And wait until I tell you about the steam locomotive train expeditions into Western Kansas!

Author Returns to Larned for All-School Reunion and Setting for "Crazy About You"

Thursday, June 6, I left KC for Larned, KS to attend the three-day, first, all-school reunion. This means all classes were invited back. Larned now is a town of 4,000 people. This reunion returned it back to the population it had when I lived there: 5,000 people.
Glad I reserved my motel rooms eight months ago!
My father was the dentist at the mental hospital just west of Larned and we had housing on the grounds. One of my first jobs was working in its cafeteria. I got to know a lot of "crazy" people.
That background became the basis for Crazy About You, which I took to the reunion to sell and, wow, what fun it was. Capitalist bottom line: I sold enough books to pay for the trip. Emotional bottom line: I had so many people come to my signing to tell me they had already read the book and loved it. It doesn't get better than that.
Best buzz: my book signings were at a bar and grill recently opened by a fellow classmate (Max Galliart) who bought a building downtown (built in 1883) to live upstairs and run the business downstairs. Their 20-something bartender started to read the copy I gave Max and his wife, Donna, as a thank you. I'd never watched anybody read any of my books. It was obvious she was getting into it. The last day, when I had packed up, she gave me the price of the book and said she wanted her own, signed by me. Thank you, Reese!
I took pictures of all the houses I lived in while in Larned: three in town and two on the grounds of the mental hospital. They all looked so small! Then I realized that the psychological spaces in our memories are so much larger than the physical reality where they were created. What is happening in our psyche is always huge. The physical dimensions really don't matter. That the physical spaces, when we return to them, seem puny, make no less large the psychological events that made us as the person we are today.
Before taking pictures at Larned State Hospital, I stopped a security vehicle to tell them what I was doing. The grounds now house a prison and sexual predators unit, so security is tight. They said I needed permission from the Supt. Went to his office and his secretary told me he was out of town. She knew who I was and the book I had written and called the acting Supt. He said she needed to call Topeka. The wonderful woman did and quickly got me permission to take the photos. (I think I'll do a separate post of photos that relate to Crazy About You.)
I think one of the great things about having grown up in a small town is that when you return, not a lot has changed, so you can quickly connect the streets and buildings with your memories.
It was not easy to put this reunion together. There were a lot of naysayers. But the organizers prevailed. To see the joy of so many classmates and friends re-encountering and hugging was worth the price of admission, which was all of $35 and included a banquet.
I am so proud to call Larned my high school. I am so grateful for the experiences that allowed me to write Crazy About You.

Re-examining Those All-Important First Sentences for Works of Fiction

I'm fiddling with a new fiction project, The Fat Cat , and I really liked its first sentence:I hadn't seen that good-lookin' motherfucker for almost a year when he walked in with his partner to ask me about the dead dancer found that morning in our dumpster.It made me think how important first sentences are.I've always hated the cute little human relation's phrase: "You only have one chance to make a first impression." But, with fiction, it is so true. It really has to feel right. It's like the opening line of a song, and I think writing is like music. If you get the words right and the rhythm right, you make a kind of music in the reader's brain that resonates.
Made me go back and look at my first sentences and comment on them.
I like the first line for The Fat Cat I think because the phrase: ...the dead dancer found that morning in our dumpster really hits those d sounds and creates great imagery.
Some other first lines, in no particular order:
The Notebook I had two phone calls from Don before he killed himself.I like the simplicity. It tells us something important happened and that someone should have know it was going to happen.
Tell Us Everything Cricket carefully backed her crummy car, which needed a motor mount bolt replaced, down her cousin’s driveway.I like this simple introduction of this character. I think it sets the tone right away.
It Was Me (I) On my drive home from work Friday evening I stopped at a traffic light, glanced left over at the driver in the other lane and saw myself.How better else to start off this Rod Serling "Twilight Zone" type of story?
Blow Up the Roses Mr. Brown closed the door on the whimpers and walked up the stairs to take a shower.How can you not want to know more about Mr. Brown?
Blue Kansas Sky There really is a Kansas sky, wide as the land is flat.Lyrical intro for a story based around a snooker game.
Downswing It wasn't until the 15th green that I realized how alone I was.Really? You play 15 holes of golf and then realize you are alone on the course? Must be something else going on.
Innocent Passage The skies were cloudy all day.Any Kansan knows our state song with the verse "And the skies are not cloudy all day." Yet there are some days that are cloudy all day and that sets up the anomaly for this loss of innocence short story.
One More Victim The most important summer of my life began with a house-shaking thunder boomer that woke me up on a Thursday night in 1958 near the end of my fifth-grade school year.Sometimes you just set the opening like you were laying a foundation stone.
Rabbletown: Life in These United Christian States of Holy America Bob Crowley, drunk and very tired, almost tripped over the broken toy truck before kicking it out of his way then trudging around the side of the house to the back of a former duplex that now housed six families of 50-some Christian souls.This is a first sentence as a simple, but engaging scene setter.
The Saltness of Time "I like these kinds of snows. They cancel things out."I don't open many stories with dialogue, but this I thought would draw a reader in.
SPILL Fred Underwood was driving his 15-year-old, once-white, now rust-speckled Nissan pickup six miles over the speed limit on his way to deliver the head of a dog to the state’s vet school for rabies testing when several things happened to him.Another scene-setter opening sentence, and if that head of a dog doesn't get you to read the next sentence, nothing will.
The 41st Sermon The Volvo in the closed garage purred quietly as it exhaled the gas that Jim Garrison inhaled.
I think this opening line imparts so much information and tone. I really like it. The use of exhale and inhale creates a great rhythm.
The Strange Case of James Kirkland Pilley Edward Hawthorne had no premonition of the first disturbing and later horrifying consequences that would result from his joining the Friends of Pilley Park Garden Society.This is my homage to the great horror writer H.P Lovecraft. I hope this is the kind of sentence that he would have written and would have loved the phrase "Friends of Pilley Park Garden Society."

Gas Prices Bumping $4 Got You Down?

As gas prices start to bump that $4 level you might need some comic relief that SPILL can provide. Here's the opening: 

Fred Underwood was driving his 15-year-old, once-white, now rust-speckled Nissan pickup six miles over the speed limit on his way to deliver the head of a dog to the state’s vet school for rabies testing when several things happened to him.

He saw a sign announcing—as though proud of the fact—that gasoline at the upcoming station was selling for $4.15 a gallon. He looked into the rear view mirror when he heard a siren and confirmed that, indeed, a police car was chasing him. He uttered, “Shit,” but then felt his body swept with euphoria: an idea smacked him that would make him rich.

And here's a review that just came in the other day, from England of all places!

This darkly satirical comedy, depicting a failed schoolmaster's attempt to take on the American political system evokes memories of Our Man in Havana. Mr Attwood has the true comedian's lightness of touch, and there is hardly a dull moment in it. Particularly fine were the descriptions of Our Hero's experiences as a schoolmaster. The action moves well throughout the book, and although I found the ending a little abrupt, on reflection I don't know that the more conventional, drawn-out epilogue chapter would have added anything worthwhile to it.
Comic fiction lives or dies by its characters, and this is a particular strength in Spill. Even minor characters are lovingly drawn; no cardboard cutouts here, they are all real and alive. A traditional third person narrative is used, with subtle shifts to its tone depending on the point of view. I have always felt that it is in his use of narrative that a writer shows his true quality, and Mr Attwood passes this acid test with flying colours.


SPILL: Big Oil + Hot Sex = Game On

Rabbletown Connects With Former Fundamentalist

Rabbletown: Life in These United Christian States of Holy America really connects with many people. It's a dystopia work set in 2084 when the Religious Right has been in the control for decades and the Pastor President and Pastor Governors rule with a Bible in each fist and the computer in your hovel. I worked on it for a long time, ever since Pat Robertson got involved in influencing elections. But I had written myself into a corner, and it just sat there until one day I revisited it and realized I had to let Bobby, the son of a stone mason, do his thing.
Katy Sozaeva is a top 500 Amazon reviewer, which means this woman reads A LOT OF BOOKS. She wrote her longest review for Rabbletown, and she has said it is the best book she HAS EVER READ. I think the caps are justified. I'll include the video she let me do about that review here, but just in is another review from a reader who really connected with the work. This kind of response is extraordinarily gratifying for a writer. And I really liked the last two sentences.
WOW! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. This book touched my heart in such a way that I can't explain in words. Growing up in a fundamentalist church, understanding, later in life, the damage it did to me, makes this book terrifying in one way but so outrageously funny in another. This book takes place in the future. Everyone has nuked each other and there's not much left in the United States. The United States has turned into dictatorship run by the descendants of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. There are many parallels from the Bible, for example, a savior comes in the form of a boy named Bobby, a stone mason's son (instead of a carpenter's son, like Jesus). I don't want to give away too much of the plot without ruining it for you. But you have to read this. It's different from anything you've ever read. What a mind this author has. It makes me wonder about his background.
The review is here:

Raven Book Store in Lawrence, KS Takes Three Of My Titles

Raven Book Store in Lawrence, KS is one of the most successful, respected, independent bookstores in this region. I am so delight that after meeting with its owner, Heidi Raak, she has decided to carry three of my titles.
Book Number 1 Crazy About You is my most popular novel. It's a coming-of-age story and so much more. I really did grow up on the grounds of Larned State Hospital because my father was the dentist for that mental hospital and the state provided us free housing. Here is one Amazon five-star review:By Mark Shoup
If the folks over at the New York Times Review of Books are looking for fresh novels by other than established writers or well-connected new ones, they should dust off their keyboards and surf over to Amazon, where they'll find an astonishing new novel by Randy Attwood.
Crazy About You is set in the most unlikely of places, in and around a state mental institution in west central Kansas. Attwood's protagonist, a high school student nearing the end of his junior year, is at once naïve and wise beyond his age. These qualities, combined with growing up on the "asylum" where is father works, have created within him a gut-wrenching combination of empathy and Everyman's selfishness that shape him forever and come to a head during one wildly dramatic week when his father and estranged mother are out of town.
Given the protagonist's years, one might dismiss this as a coming-of-age story. It is not. Less a psychological thriller than a psychiatric adventure, the novel fearlessly reveals ways in which human beings face their choices and emotions and those of others -- from loyalty and deceit to cruelty, despair, and joy -- things we all sometimes learn to deal with but never totally control. It is at once gripping, brutal, and tender.
Crazy About You defies categorization, but suffice to say that those looking for pure excitement and good story telling will not be disappointed. Nor will those who thrive on the deeper layers of psychological tension. Although the novel often deals with forces out of the protagonist's control, it also tackles tough moral choices that indelibly shape our lives, all within the context of a fantastical drama that will leave the reader musing for days. But ultimately, this is a story about absolution. If you have not laughed out loud often and shed a few tears by the end, you'd better see a shrink.
(I donate $1 of every sale of Crazy About You to Headquarters Counseling Center in Lawrence because those good folks work the suicide prevention hotline for this part of the country.)
Book Number 2 Then and Now: The Harmony of the Instantaneous AllSet in that turbulent spring of 1970 in Lawrence.
Another five star Amazon review: By Terry Needham
If you were alive during the late 1960s, then you will totally relate to this story. If you were not alive then, chances are pretty good you have heard about the 60s all your life, most likely from your own parents. Well, here is your chance to immerse yourself into the world of the late 1960s, on one of the most beautiful and respected college campuses in the nation--the Kansas University at Lawrence, Kansas. Yet this story is not unique to KU, but very typical of the social revolution that took the youth of this country, and around the world, to challenge and defy the "man" . . . government of all forms. As a heady blend of drugs, acid, jazz, rock & roll, sex, the draft, Vietnam, and many other issues compelled them into the ubiquitous search for "it" . . . whatever "it" was . . . as well as the search for the "self" too--whatever that is. Or, long-hair hippies "just doing their thing" --whatever that is, yet, as one character says, "I really think something new is going on. Maybe it's a return to good old American pragmatism, utilitarianism and individuality. That's what `do your own thing' really means." And another character, Dan, commented, "You know, from the coalescence of these kinds of diverse elements . . . revolutionary progress is made." This was a transformative time that left a lasting mark globally that is still being felt to this day. The author recreates this era faithfully, with the sensitivity and insights available only to someone who was there. Yet, even more, woven within the chaos and pandemonium brewing on the campus is a tender love affair that emerges at the very heart and core of this story . . . and it takes you places you do not expect, nor could even imagine. This is the third book by this author that I have read. Each was very unique and entertaining, as well as thought provoking in a way that stayed with you for days after reading. Plus, each book by Attwood has shared one common thread--his gift for creating a "cast" of diverse and interesting characters, and then weaves their lives together in a plausible, and realistic series of events, toward the most unpredictable and so often amazing outcomes. I look forward to my next read of this author's books and highly recommend you do too.
Book Number 3 The41st Sermon
 Walker Percy fans, pay attention. I sent the first few chapters of this novel about a Episcopal priest at midlife and mid-faith crisis to Walker Percy and he read and sent me a not telling me to send him the rest. Send him the rest I did and waited and waited. Six months later I read his obit in The Kansas City Star. Reprint of that note is in the opening pages of The 41st Sermon.


Here's a review from Katy Sozaeva, a top 500 Amazon reviewer:
Father Christopher Talley, an Episcopalian priest, spends a week each year at a resort in the Ozarks. This gives him a chance to escape the constraints of his life as a minister - to fish, to drink, and to spend some time with a woman other than his wife. He also writes his sermons for the coming year. This year, while at the resort, he runs across one of his parishioners, the lovely Molly, who says she is thinking of divorcing her husband and has come to the resort to think about things. That isn't why she is there, of course - but she's bored and decides to seduce her handsome pastor.
This was a strange story - Randy asked if I could assign a genre to it, but honestly, I can't think of any genre it fits into neatly. There is a bit of mild erotica, there are definitely lots of different themes - finding yourself, redemption, finding faith, learning what life is all about - but none that relates itself to a specific genre other than general fiction. I really liked the book, though - it had a lot of good things to say, and I thought the story was one in which many people could find enjoyment, once they get past feeling shocked about some of the issues that come up. I warn that you need to be open-minded about the story, but if you are willing to do so, you should find something in here to love.

The Holy Grail: A Reader Who Really Connects With Your Books

I cannot adequately express how gratifying it is to find a reader who really connects with one's work, especially when you don't know them from Adam. Terry Needham is from Kansas City, but now lives in Illinois. I can't remember how he encountered my fiction, but encounter my titles he did, Racing through them he is. And in paperback! I hope Terry doesn't mind, but I thought I'd group here the reviews he's done to date.
A Wickedly Funny and Engaging Read! SPILL is much like a game of POOL, you rack the balls carefully, line up the cue ball carefully, them smack those balls by ramming the pool cue with furious intent-- into the racked triangle of pool balls--to slam at least one ball into a pocket, any pocket so you can continue shooting! Alas, the balls ricochet off each other, the cushions, and the result is always a series of unintended consequences, revealing that POOL, as in life, and this hilarious book--SPILL is "racked" (pun intended) with unpredictable consequences.
The down and out protagonist imagines a clever fantasy wherein he enters a hopeless political primary to just shake things up a bit, setting in motion a series of unintended, but intriguing, enlightening, and revealing consequences . . . in a very humorous context, out of which "spills" an amazing array of characters (yes, pun intended again, sorry!). These colorful and genuine characters, as in the first break of those "racked" pool balls, begin crashing about the story--each pursuing their own intentions, while generating a wickedly funny and revealing series of unintended outcomes. This delicious story unfolds at a steady pace and the unpredictable characters are so real, as are their crazy intentions which yield amazing, yet, rarely intended outcomes--that it keeps the reader fully engaged while flipping those pages.
This great book would make a wonderful movie! I cannot remember the last time I had so much fun reading a book, or found myself longing for a second serving...sequel...if you please, Mr. Attwood?
Living with the Sane and Insane CRAZY ABOUT YOU is the second book by Randy Attwood I have read, and my admiration for his writing skills grows with each page as I read. This story takes the reader for a trip into the strange space between the sane and insane--a mist-blurred world full of angst, mystery, surprises, plus bizarre and unpredictable behavior . . . with an array of characters that are so well developed your heart reaches out to them. Well, most of them, but there is much more. An evil presence drives the story into even darker places that you do not expect, at a pace that turns the pages as fast as you can read. This is an engaging and compelling coming of age tale that will haunt the reader for days, and leave you wishing for more. Yet, it is also satisfying and fully resolved in a way that touches your heart. The main character, Brad, living in the early 1960s world of a Kansas mental institution ponders at one moment--"You can't summarize what you are, only what you've done, which is why so many of us feel so empty--what we've done is never even close to what we are." Well, based on what Randy Attwood has done, I can summarize that he is a great author with a unique gift and exceptional talent for story telling. You will agree.
http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-About-You-Randy-Attwood/dp/146631222X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1311167216&sr=1-3

A heartrending love story in the turbulent late 1960s Then and Now: The Harmony of the Instantaneous All If you were alive during the late 1960s, then you will totally relate to this story. If you were not alive then, chances are pretty good you have heard about the 60s all your life, most likely from your own parents. Well, here is your chance to immerse yourself into the world of the late 1960s, on one of the most beautiful and respected college campuses in the nation--the Kansas University at Lawrence, Kansas. Yet this story is not unique to KU, but very typical of the social revolution that took the youth of this country, and around the world, to challenge and defy the "man" . . . government of all forms. As a heady blend of drugs, acid, jazz, rock & roll, sex, the draft, Vietnam, and many other issues compelled them into the ubiquitous search for "it" . . . whatever "it" was . . . as well as the search for the "self" too--whatever that is. Or, long-hair hippies "just doing their thing" --whatever that is, yet, as one character says, "I really think something new is going on. Maybe it's a return to good old American pragmatism, utilitarianism and individuality. That's what `do your own thing' really means." And another character, Dan, commented, "You know, from the coalescence of these kinds of diverse elements . . . revolutionary progress is made." This was a transformative time that left a lasting mark globally that is still being felt to this day. The author recreates this era faithfully, with the sensitivity and insights available only to someone who was there. Yet, even more, woven within the chaos and pandemonium brewing on the campus is a tender love affair that emerges at the very heart and core of this story . . . and it takes you places you do not expect, nor could even imagine. This is the third book by this author that I have read. Each was very unique and entertaining, as well as thought provoking in a way that stayed with you for days after reading. Plus, each book by Attwood has shared one common thread--his gift for creating a "cast" of diverse and interesting characters, and then weaves their lives together in a plausible, and realistic series of events, toward the most unpredictable and so often amazing outcomes. I look forward to my next read of this author's books and highly recommend you do too.
A Timely...Thoughtful...and Enthralling Read! Ironically, I read RABBLETOWN the week between Good Friday and Easter--a period of time that is clearly at the very core of the Christian faith. The book projected the reader into a future world of Evangelical Fundamentalism morphed into a neo-Fascist world government. Perhaps actually a dream scenario for those who adhere to that extreme viewpoint. Yet, clearly a nightmare for the faithful masses. The author retraces an all too familiar tale, yet in a style and context that holds the reader and keeps the pages turning. One is left in the grasp, along with the well-defined characters of this tale . . . of those sanctimonious hypocrites who use religion to gain power, wealth, influence and control over others who believe in them, as a matter of simple "faith". This is a somber and important reminder that faith in your God does not require absolute faith in those who say they speak for God, or God speaks through them. They must be judged by what they do and not what they say. This book is a thoughtful and important reflection on issues that have influenced human society since the beginning. It offers a reminder of lessons that each generation seems destined to learn and re-learn, over and over again . . . before it is too late. Therefore, this engaging book is highly recommended to anyone who wonders . . . about faith, the future . . . and everything else.

Ethereal...Amazing...Beckoning you to read on! ONE MORE VICTIM (Paperback)A haunting, compelling and memorable collection of four short stories from Randy Attwood, a master weaver of tales that make you ache for more.
One More Victim--a tale of innocence lost and timeless love, woven into the fabric of ironic connections and overlapping lives with unpredictable and tragic consequences. A haunting, emotional, moving and memorable love story.
The Saltness of Time--a spooky tale in the ethereal atmosphere of a Kansas blizzard unfolds as a stranger reveals a tale to four stranded college students. The story time travels a century into the past of tortured and guilt-ridden lives, seeking resolution and redemption.
Blue Kansas Sky--A glimpse inside the mind of adolescent boys in a pool hall of a small town where a sudden revelation of a truthful insight is revealed--just a moment too late.
Innocent Passage--Another tale of innocence lost, as two adventurous boys discover tragic hidden secrets and their own true nature . . . that boys will be boys.
Each of these stories share the common element of being set in Kansas, as Attwood reveals his roots, and his wonderful ability to weave a compelling tale. Kansas is not a cozy place. Nor a comfortable place to hide from life . . . No, not from the inundating Flint Hills to the quiet prairie, where the spacious sky meets the horizon to merge into a blurred edge of blowing dust, or gathering storm clouds. Kansas is so vast, so spacious, that you realize your terrifying insignificance . . . a mere speck of a soul in the vastness of ancient seas . . . now frozen in time . . . a place of lethal weather extremes and lonely roads that disappear in the distance . . .  beckoning you to come . . . explore me--I will amaze you.


Terry, too, is an author and also a poet. Check out his author's page on Amazon.

Two Novels Accepted by Curiosity Quills, But...

I am pumped that Curiosity Quills, the small press in the DC area that published the very dark/suspense work  Blow Up the Roses has now accepted two more novels. But.
These two mystery/suspense novels feature the same protagonist: Philip McGuire. He is burnt-out foreign correspondent who had his hand mangled in torture by the Hezbollah and quits journalism to return to his college town to buy and run a bar. Adventures come his way.
The two works (may be more; I don't know) was a kind of homage to the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. I read that series not so much for the story, but because it meant I got to spend more time with Travis. His reflections on life, his mini editorials, his romances were wonderfully created by the master. I was hoping readers would want to spend time with Philip.
The first novel, Heal My Heart So I May Cry establishes his background and gives him a situation where he ends up encountering the torturer who mangled his hand when he was kidnapped in Beirut and gave up all the details he knew of the Marine compound that was later blown up with the loss of 237 soldiers.
In this novel, he has a bittersweet romance with a university journalism student that has an O. Henry ending (boy, does that date me).
Here's a taste from the beginning:
The car stopped. The hood was taken off my head. My good hand was untied from the interior car door handle. The bright sun of Beirut blinded me. My pupils squeezed tight. My eyes adjusted a little by the time they had the back door open and were pulling me out of the car so I could look again at the face of that son-of-a-bitch, the one they called Mohammed, who had taken so much joy looking into my eyes while the cutter had done his work on my hand, the hand now wrapped in the dirty napkin as I held it high against my heart. I looked at that motherfucker's face and felt the hope that hate gives. The hope that I'd see that face again and have a fair chance to get even. Fuck that. Have an unfair chance. Have any chance to get even. You and me someday, Mohammed. Give me that, God, I prayed. But God hadn't answered any of my prayers lately. Maybe I'd be due someday.  In the second novel, a half-Navajo and half-white character who believes he is a witch plays a major role. He calls himself "Koyoteh" (coyote). Both novels are set in Lawrence, KS, which is home to Haskell, a college for American Indians. Two Navajo girls have come up missing. Researching the Navajo culture led me to their creation story, which is as complicated and fascinating as Greek mythology. I think, and hope, I have created a full retelling of that story that is better than any that exists in any fiction work. I titled this work "A Heart to Understand." To make this novel even more complicate, the romance in this novel involves an illegal Chinese immigrant trying to sneak out of the US to go back to China and with an ulterior motive for contacting Philip.
Here's a taste of that work:
"Another Indian girl's missing, Phil.""That's two now, isn't it.""In two months. No bodies found. Yet. Officially, it's another missing person's case. The police still take the attitude that Indian students from Haskell run off all the time. But Navajo aren't solo runaways. Being in a group is too important to them, especially girls.""Navajo?""Both have been Navajo. Could just be the odds. Highest percentage of students at Haskell are Navajo. Both had friends, left behind too many personal possessions to be runaways. Got to be kidnappings. When I was in law school I did a summer internship in a law office in Gallup. Did a lot of reading into Navajo culture and Native American sovereignty rights. Word gets around. I began to represent Native Americans around here. Some of them came to me asking if I could help them make the police investigate more. But, hell, there's not much they can do unless a body turns up. Shitty thing, isn't it, hoping a body will turn up? They're all upset and angry. Not a good combination. The Navajo believe in this cause and effect deal. They don't like having these ugly effects without understanding or knowing the cause. I'm afraid it could be a serial killer with a thing for Indian girls. And one of my clients has a daughter whose Navajo girlfriend is really spooked. I've talked to her and I've got a favor to ask.""What's that?""I'd like to hide her out here.""Out here?""Sure. The kidnapper must be prowling the Haskell area. He wouldn't be prowling around here. And she's really shaken. Something going on she won't tell me about. And you could use the help now that you're laid up. How about it?""Well, sure. If that's what you want," I said as I watched him walk to the window on the other side of the room that looked out over the drive up to the house."Phil?""Yeah.""That Chinese girl. You said she had really long hair?""Down to her butt. And we're talking a tall girl here.""Really beautiful?""Stunning. Even features. Sexy mouth. Full lips. High brow. Why?""She's walking up to your front door."
Okay, here's that but.
Editor doesn't like the titles and urges me to change them to something more consistent with the genre of mystery/suspense. I have to admit my titles, Heal My Heart So I May Cry and A Heart to Understand sound more like romance novels. I have lived with these titles so long it has become very hard for me to brainstorm within myself for new ones. But I have also learned that a writer should heed an editor's suggestion.
Friends: any ideas?
Happy to share manuscripts with anyone really interested in all of this. Guess if you're reached the end of this long blog, you may well be!

Over-The-Top Reviews

Sometimes I worry that a review is over the top, and readers will think it's phony, like the reviews below. But I didn't pay for them. I didn't exchange reviews. I don't know these persons. These are the real reactions from readers who bought these books.
One More Victim
I could not put this book down. It was absolutely mesmerizing. First of all, I have a thing for books about loves that start in childhood, so it had me hooked right there. But also, this writer is just amazing. The way the language flows makes you want to keep reading. There is something very erotic in the story too, even though it was not cheap eroticism. I like that, when a book is sexy without overdoing it.
Crazy About You
`Brilliant' and `original' are about how I would sum this sweet tale up. And I don't use those words (or 5 star ratings) without meaning it. Seventeen year old Brad lives on the grounds of an insane asylum with his sister and Dad. When Dad goes on a work trip, Brad has no idea that he will spend the week grappling with questions about sexuality, sanity and death. And some of the answers aren't pretty.
While the main character is a young adult, this is no kid's story! The tightly woven script is replete with humour, thrills, tension, mystery and the occasional flashes of inspired insights into the true definition of insanity that left me wondering if `normal' is really as normal as we like to think. There are a few infrequent slipups on grammar but nothing distracting. I would highly recommend this book.
And then this one, for
Rabbletown: Life in These United Christian States of Holy America

Current Listing of My Titles Now Available

Just completed an interview with a local paper and with it included a current list of the fiction works I have available now online. Good time to update my blog as well.


Crazy About You:Asylum brats grow up on the grounds of mental hospitals where their parents work. Asylum brat Brad's week in 1964 that tests his sanity and grows him up faster than he could have ever wanted. Set at Larned (KS) State Hospital. $4.99
Rabbletown: Life in These United Christian States of Holy America :America has a pastor president, the states have pastor governors and they rule with a Bible in each fist. Set in 2084 in Topeka. Don't miss Stoning Fridays in Fred Phelps Plaza. $3.99
SPILL: Big Oil, Hot Sex, Game On : Fired English teacher scams the political system, runs for office on a platform to nationalize Big Oil, gets the girl, the money, and a killer skateboarder video game. $4.99
Then and Now: The Harmony of the Instantaneous All:Stan Nelson, in his forties, is mired in nostalgia for the 1960s and the woman he lost then. He figures his only way out is to write about why he is so frozen. He creates in words the times and characters of then. $4.99
The 41st Sermon:An Episcopal minister suffering from mid-life and mid-faith crisis gets involved in a phony kidnap plot with his sexy blond parishioner. $4.99
Blow Up the Roses : How much pain, horror, and anguish can one cul d'sac endure? Why is so much murder, mystery, and sexual brutality condensed among the few duplex homes built so close together on the Elm Street cul d'sac? The answers lie within the language of flowers; and the language of flowers can be brutally frank. They can also save your life. $4.99

Novellas

One More Victim :This novella starts in 1954 and ends in 1994 as we meet and follow Greg through his three most important stages of his life and the girl he met in the fifth grade. $2.99



The Saltness of Time :A Kansas snowstorm forces a car of college students returning home for the holidays to take refuge in the hotel of a small town where they encounter a fellow traveler with a story to tell. $2.99


The Strange Case of James Kirkland Pilley : An H.P Lovecraft style tale of the horrors that surround the simple draining of a park pond and the modern day research that leads back to the Civil War. $2.99
A Match Made in Heaven :The Mormons have left the Earth to populate the planet Moroni, finding their destiny among the stars and themselves. $2.99

Short Stories:


By Pain Possessed :Alien invasion. Can the weakest human save us all? 99 cents
Downswing :A short story about fusion: the mechanics of golf and the feelings of the soul. A lone golfer finds a new freedom during his best round ever. 99 cents


Blue Kansas Sky :A tale of snooker on the Kansas Prairie. 99 cents



3 Very Quirky Tales :Contains three stories. Tell Us Everything in which a Goth girl uses her piercing to connect to the reality of the world and then, to the world's dismay, broadcasts those truths. It Was Me (I) in which a man look over at guy in the next car and sees that it is himself, not has he is today but as he was 20 years ago. Are there makeovers? The Notebook: Visiting professor stops by his old college apartment to see if the notebook he left in the house's attic might still be there. The truths he and the home's owner uncover will shock them both. $2.99
The Richard Dary Weight Loss Institute :The best diet program is the one you don't remember taking. 99 cents





Print on Demand :

All the novels are available in paperback.
Two story collections are published:
One More Victim contains that story, The Saltness of Time, Blue Kansas Sky, Innocent Passage (not yet available ereaders), and Downswing.

Very Quirky Tales contains Tell Us Everything, It Was Me (I), The Notebook, The Strange Case of James Kirkland Pilley, A Match Made in Heaven, and By Pain Possessed.

All available through Amazon.