James Alexander's Blog, page 4

Air Conditioner From Hell

“What do you want for it?” Ted asked the clerk as he examined the strange white block on the floor in front of him.

About three feet high, Ted imagined it must be an air conditioner. One of the portable ones that won’t break your back since it didn’t need to be set in the window. It was odd though, there didn’t appear to be any exit vent. Chalking it up to perhaps a special model that didn’t need a vent, he let it go.

The clerk looked up from what he had been reading on the store counter and adjusted his glasses with his finger. “What? That?” he scoffed. “Oh I dunno – I don’t think it works,” he paused and looked up to the ceiling thoughtfully, “Five bucks and it’s yours.”

“Five Bucks?” Ted smiled. “Five bucks for an air conditioner. That’s a deal.”

“Ahuh. Like I said, I doubt it works. Been sitting there for years.” The clerk, clearly annoyed, went back to reading whatever it was he was reading before.

Ted reached into his pocket and withdrew a five dollar bill and stepped over to the counter to hand the money to the clerk. The other man didn’t raise his head, but instead talked to his paper, “Just leave it on here” he patted the counter.

Ted paid little attention to the annoyance and set the money on the counter. Worth ten times that, he thought and carried out the air conditioner. It was heavy and he had all he could do to get it to his rusty truck. That was all he needed, a broken back. Especially with a boss like the one he had.

Having only a GED wasn’t any help in landing a decent job. Instead, he had taken employment from his father in law’s friend, Roy, whom he despised. Roy was what Ted considered to be an ambulance chaser. Ted would run errands for Roy and was expected to be at his beck and call at all times. The thought of taking orders from that man was enough to send his blood pressure spiraling into the danger zone.

Ted pulled up to the office and began to unload the heavy unit when Roy stepped out of the office building. Wearing his standard, all gray suit, Roy looked at Ted and pulled his belt up to cover his big waistline.

“What the heck you got there Ted?” He asked, squinting at the sun shining down on them.

“I picked up an air conditioner.” Ted replied and heaved as he pulled the unit off the truck to set it on the ground.

“I’m not buying a darned air conditioner. You got a fan already.” He replied as he shook his head.

“You didn’t buy it, I did.”

“You’re not installing that junk in my office.” Roy turned his back and began to enter the office.

“If you want me to do my job and keep my mouth shut about that affair you are having with the new assistant, you’ll let me install it.”

Roy turned and glared back at him frowning and slowly eased up into a smile, “Sure. You go ahead Son.”

Ted watched him leave and then began hauling the unit to his small closet where Roy had set up a space for Ted to work. Roy required Ted keep the door shut and there were no shades in the space. The sun would beat down on him during the day and it would get stifling.

Again, checking the back of the unit, there were in fact no vents. The only thing attached to the unit was a black cord which he plugged into the wall. A neon blue light began to blink. Ted reached out and pressed the button.

The room appeared to melt away as if the walls were made of butter. Ted felt his head spinning and soon all he saw was blackness. Stars surrounded him and light flashed, causing him to raise his arm up to keep from being blinded. A moment later, he found himself in a dense forest. Clicking sounds of nearby woodland creatures echoed in the trees.

Ted gasped and scanned his surroundings. It was more than he could imagine. It was beautiful. He could not see the sky, as he appeared to be deep in a forest of some sort. Yet, he did not recognize the trees. They had an exotic look to them. Mysterious fruit hung from the limbs high above him. Turning around, he saw the black cord of what appeared to have been from the air condition unit. A few feet ahead, it disappeared into a white cloud where he could make out the slightest bit of his office.

Incredible, he thought. That machine – it made a portal. Ted laughed hysterically. He didn’t know if he was going crazy or if this was in fact real.

Cautiously, he took a few steps. The ground was soft and mushy. Curious, he knelt down to feel the earth below his feet. He fell back at what he saw. The ground was moving. What he had thought was overgrowth, was in fact, worms. Lots of worms.

Ted tripped and fell backward. Bugs of all forms began crawling up his legs. Frantically, Ted screamed and jumped to his feet. What had been the clicking noise he discovered had actually been the worms on the ground ripping at the soles of his shoes.

”This can’t be. What is this place?” He shrieked.

He felt his back press against a tree trunk and it felt, not like bark, but more like a sticky, rubbery substance. He tried to pull free, but he was stuck.

The white portal was not far ahead, in front of him. He tried to pull away from the tree, but he was glued. Dark voices whispered in the woods and with each word, grew louder as they approached.

Ted thrashed as hard as he could and ripped one arm free, but his other shoulder was still firmly stuck to the trunk of the tree.

“Hungry.” A dark voice whispered and something cracked in the woods followed by piercing laughter.

More voices chimed in. “Hungry. So Hungry.”

Ted could make out large shadowy shapes now to both sides of him. His feet were burning. The worms had burrowed into his shoes.

Panic set in deeper and he thrashed harder, wrenching free his other shoulder. He dashed to the portal and heard whatever had been talking running for him. He could almost feel as though they had him. He leaped into the portal.

Crashing into the door of the small room, Ted was back at his work. Feeling a pull to the portal, he kicked with his foot at the power cord, knocking it from the outlet. The portal faded out and he took a deep breath.

Slowly getting to his feet, he cursed at the pain he felt. He amazed himself at how calm he was. He should be scared, but he wasn’t. There might be a use for this machine, he thought.

Ted sat down and smiled as he stared at the machine. Years of putting up with Roy, he might finally have his revenge. It made him wonder, why hadn’t Roy fired him years ago? It was obvious Roy hated him. Well, it doesn’t matter now. Ted giggled. He would win.

Listening for Roy to leave for the day, Ted waited patiently for the others in the office to leave. When the last employee had left, Ted walked to Roy’s office and took out the window air conditioner unit. It was heavy, and Ted was tired, but the thought of revenge was so sweet.

Ted put a note on the unit:

“Broken. Took A/C from closet”

Signing it as the janitor, the task was almost complete.

Next, Ted dragged the mysterious machine to the office and plugged it in. The blue neon light began blinking. Ted smiled. Tomorrow is going to be great, he thought and walked back to his office. He’d stay there for the night. He didn’t want to miss this.

Morning arrived. It seemed to take forever. Ted jumped from his chair when he heard Roy’s voice.

”What the heck is this?” Roy asked no one.

Footsteps followed and shortly after a knock at Ted’s door. Roy didn’t wait for his answer and opened the door.

Ted tried his best to look mad. He didn’t wait for Roy to question why his A/C had been replaced. “I bought that unit with my own money, Roy.”

Roy smiled. “Yeah, sometimes we need to make sacrifices.” Turning, he let the door close behind him.

Indeed, Ted thought.

Ted listened for Roy to start the machine. A minute passed and Ted quietly made his way to Roy’s office and peered inside. Roy was not there. A black cloud hung behind the machine. Ted stepped a little closer to where the cord was plugged in the wall.

Cautiously reaching for the cord, he could almost hear screams from far far away. Have fun Roy, he thought and smiled before yanking the cord free. The cloud vanished.

“Not bad for five bucks.” He smiled and went back to his closet office.

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Published on June 29, 2013 06:04

Novel News

I am excited to announce that I’ve finished a rough first draft of my next novel. I have yet to come up with a title – so yes, it’s still quite early. It has been particularly hard to complete due to being pulled in too many directions and letting it sit too long. I’m one that once I start a project, I need to keep going until it’s finished without too much time getting in between breaks.

I started this novel last spring, shortly after I released my first book, “Conduit: The Beginning”. Somehow, I got pulled away and other life activities kept me from getting back to finishing the work I started. So, to me this is big news. I am excited at wrapping this story up – though I have the hardest phase ahead of me – editing.

As much as I dread the editing process, I’m excited to go back to the beginning and clean the story up. I think this novel will be an exciting one that will be worth the wait.

Keep posted for more information on my latest project!

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Published on March 12, 2013 18:32

Store now open!

My own web store is officially open! I’ve been working hard to get all my content loaded. I’m still working on adding more formats, but currently ebooks can all be downloaded as PDF which most electronic readers will recognize. This includes the Nook, Sony Reader, and iPad. My story, “Conduit: The Beginning”, is also available in .MOBI format which the Kindle will recognize.

I am experimenting with a different way of selling my books. I have broken my stories down to multiple parts for those that would rather read the story in pieces rather than buy the entire book at one time. As a free offer to those reading my blog, I am offering a free download of the first part of my book, “Conduit: The Beginning”. Simply click the link to browse to my webstore and enter the coupon code, COND100, after adding the story to the shopping cart. At the end of part one, I’ve also included another coupon code to either download part two or the full version at a discounted price!

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Published on February 27, 2013 16:43

Where Have I Been Lately?

Swamped as usual – not enough time in a day to get everything done, I have been actively working on my site. Going against sound advice as usual, all because I like to be in control of all aspects of my writing – I am working on my soon to be open web store which has become incredibly time consuming.

Why would I be insane enough to do this you might ask? Partly due to the fact that I am slightly insane, but mostly because I love technology and always want to learn more about it. Also, I have always wanted to offer PDF versions of my work. Granted the market for PDF documents might be smaller, but I want my work to be available to all, regardless of what reader they use or if they even have one. Another big reason is that by offering my products through my website, it makes it that much more convenient for readers to obtain my work.

I’m also going to be dabbling with a new method of offering my books. Today, people are incredibly strapped for time. I’ve decided that by providing multiple version of my work, it allows for even more flexibility. I will be splitting my novel into smaller versions. A reader will be able to either purchase the full novel for the full price or they may purchase the split versions as they complete the story for a fraction of the cost. This means that a good portion of the story is available for sampling without having to pay the cost of an entire book.

I’ll be starting with PDF for now and working my way to add other formats as time allows.

So stay tuned – updates are coming soon!

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Published on February 21, 2013 09:40

Pear Fetish?

This post really is not about a whole lot today. I’m not even sure what category to place it in. I suppose it will go in my “pet peeves” category since it’s a bit of a rant.

The newest hobby of mine is to make wine. I’ve been making wines from kits and have slowly been building up my equipment supply since some of it is quite costly. With a few kits completed, I decided it was time to move on to using fresh fruit.

After checking local prices, I found pears to be the cheapest. I called around and located the store with the cheapest rates on pears. I ended up ordering 25 lbs of pears to make 6 gallons of wine. Aside from a few crazy looks when picking up that volume of pears, everything was fine. It was at the checkout that brings me to my rant though.

I purposely went to the customer service line because I knew I had a strange order and it may need someone who was a little more experienced.

After glancing at all the pears I had, the checkout lady, I’ll call her Mrs. Prim for this post, gave me yet another crazy look. It’s just pears, I thought to myself, Only a lot of them. What’s the problem?

Mrs. Prim began weighing them out in a few bunches at a time even though I told her the weight – but I don’t blame her for it as I know people probably try to sneak things by all the time. She paused a moment and looked at me and said, “Whatchya got? Some kinda pear fetish?”

I had to repeat it to myself for a moment to make sure I heard it right. I remember thinking to myself, Did she just ask if I had a pear fetish? A bit stunned, I replied that I was making wine and needed a lot of pears. I almost felt like saying, “Right. I’m going to take each one of these pears and use them for my kinky desires. All 25 lbs of them.”

I know, it’s an off topic post tonight, but it is Friday so I think I’m allowed a free pass, and this is the beauty of a blog – I can write stuff just for the heck of it. :)

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Published on January 18, 2013 19:11

Excuses, Excuses

Yes, I know it’s been some time. I promise though, that I do have some updates on my progress with my next novel!

Always one with excuses, I will lay blame to the holidays and the nasty cold season that seems to be infecting everyone lately including myself. Between those two things and the last promotion I had for Beautiful People (which was excellent!), time has been quite limited.

Enough with the cry fest though. I have been working hard on my next novel. I had left it for some time and am having a really hard time getting back into it. I’m one of those that if I leave a half-finished project, it’s hard to get back to finish it. Luckily though, I had created a chapter summary for most of the chapters I had already completed.

After rummaging through each chapter, I see I had a good book lined up. The problem is though that the chapters are still quite disjointed. This led me to finding an amazing application called FreeMind.

FreeMind is an open-source, meaning that it is a free download. Basically, it is a mind map application. After downloading the application, I decided to give it a test drive using my stalled novel. Now I’m on the tedious task of entering all my chapters and characters into the program. I can see how it will help me organize my thoughts visually so that I can get back on track easier and speed up the editing.

I can’t wait to start my next project from scratch. This time, I will not set the project down until it’s done!

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Published on January 15, 2013 12:41

Beautiful People Amazon Promotion Announcement!

For those that love a freebie – Beautiful People will be free on the dates 1/2/2013 and 1/3/2013! If you own a Kindle and like free books – please grab a copy. If you enjoy the story, I’d love to get some reviews on my Amazon product page.

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Published on December 20, 2012 12:39

Building a Brand? I’m Not a Jar of Mustard!

I’ve decided to open up a category called “Pet Peeves” for all my pet peeves. I do have a lot – but I will try to keep it limited to all things writing.

If anyone has been following my posts, they know that writing is not my primary work. I actually work full time as a business analyst. In the evenings, I’m always searching for new ways to promote my writing and to improve on my craft. One thing that is always explained to authors starting out is to “build their brand”.

I have always read this and put a little consideration into it. The idea behind building one’s brand is to find a niche and to focus on that niche in all social forums and communications. Perhaps make a slogan and use that slogan in your signature. Define who you want to be and try to build popularity around that image.

This is all well and good. I agree, one should focus on the direction they would like to go with their online presence. What really got me going today though was that the “building your brand” topic has even reached into employment. Not only are we building brands outside of work, but now we are also building brands inside of work.

Maybe I’m being a bit naive but I really hate the idea of thinking of myself as a product. I have the belief that one needs to be true to themselves. Focus on what you want, not what is going to sell. I’m not a product, I’m a human being and I take offense to the idea of “building a brand”. I hate the notion that I need to fit someone else’s ideal image. If someone doesn’t like what I have to say or how I look, well I guess I don’t really care.

The reality is, if you focus too much on trying to meet the ideals of a majority, you will never be happy. In my mind, building a brand is like building a silo, separating you from other opportunities. Say, you want to write a steamy novel but your brand is focused on horror? You could have the next Fifty Shades in your head, but you will never gain any traction because your brand is horror.

Why not focus on what gives you enjoyment in life instead of focusing on your “brand”? If I am shooting myself in the foot with this post – fine. At least I’m being honest with myself and I’m not considering myself as a product sitting on the shelf. I’m not a brand, I’m a human being. When I speak, I speak honestly and true. If that means I’ll only sell one book, so be it. At least I won’t be up at night thinking about how I affected my brand by a random comment that I made or a post in my pet peeve category.

I enjoy writing and speaking my mind without regard to brand. I know that there will be a lot of folks that will disagree with me – that’s fine. If they want to think of themselves as a product, that’s sad, but so be it.

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Published on November 19, 2012 07:21

My Methodology for Writing a Story

Yes, I know, it’s been awhile since my last post. The fact is, I’ve been pulled away and have had very little time to do much writing. This does not mean that I’ve shelved everything aside forever. In fact, I made progress yesterday on my latest novel! After having put it aside until things settled down a it, I decided I couldn’t let it sit any longer.

This post is not just about my latest project, but also a note to other authors just starting out on their first works. So here is my advice in a nutshell: Don’t let a project sit for awhile. Yes, I know this goes against some other advice of walking away to clear the mind. I admit, sometimes it is necessary. In my case, it was just that I had been too busy to focus on it. Now, I am facing the reality of trying to get back into the groove of the story. I find my ideas tend to flow better when I’m in the middle of my work. If I let it set too long, it is harder for me to get back into the process of writing. The longer it sits, the longer it will take me to get in the writing mode.

The good news is that I broke the procrastination phase I had wedged myself into and began to write again. My next novel will be a full length novel and I’m currently around 42,000 words. I tend to write a little differently than others where I like to get my structure down first.

When I think of a story, I generally know where it will begin and where it will end. I tend to get the beginning down and as I do this, additional ideas come to mind. I don’t focus on a word count goal, but instead hone in on the structure. In the end, I usually am short on word count compared to other works. This is because I don’t focus too much on the details to start with. The next phase is where more detail is drawn around the story.

With the structure in place, I then go through my story and find weak points or areas that need more detail and start the process of what I think of as the inflation phase. This is where I add meat to the story – maybe even side stories. I might even create new characters that I think the story needs to add more color.

My last phase is a cutting phase. Here I go through and cut where I think I might have added to much from the prior phase. This is what I consider the editing phase which usually turns out to be around three full edits. This is the hardest part for me, but the most necessary.

Looking at this phased approach, I would say I’m in the first phase of writing the structure. Still a long way to go, but I’m determined not to shelve it again!

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Published on November 17, 2012 18:04