Kyle Pratt's Blog: Musings & Rantings, page 28

July 11, 2014

Meeting Sandy Crowell

I recently met Sandy Crowell as she led a meeting of the Southwest Washington Writers.

This group of local writers is planning a one day conference for September. She and the others in the group seemed nice so, at the end of the meeting, I volunteered to help.







Sandra Crowell, author of A Land Called Lewis, and Kyle Pratt





Sandra Crowell, author of A Land Called Lewis, and Kyle Pratt









A week later, as the next planning meeting wound to a close, Sandy and I were talking about our writing when she mentioned, “I wrote a book called, A Land Called Lewis.”

“I bought that book,” I said. “I’ve got it at home.”


My wife later reminded me that it was a Christmas present from my sons, but I did have it, and when I got home I found it on the shelf. Since receiving it, I have spent many hours reading and leafing through the 200-page volume. For Lewis County, the land I call home, it is the definitive local history book.  

Sandy agreed to sign her book at the next planning meeting. While I was there I also got this picture of both of us with it.

I’ll be posting more about the conference the Southwest Washington Writers are planning, in the days ahead.

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Published on July 11, 2014 13:23

July 9, 2014

Visiting a Beta-Reader

One of my beta-readers, DeLynn, is a longtime family friend.







Kyle and DeLynn









Life has taken her away from the area where I live; however, when she came back, to visit family and friends over the 4th of July, we visited.


Most of the time was taken up with reminiscing, eating and fun, but I also had to discuss some business. She was previously a beta-reader for Through Many Fires and has volunteered to do the same for A Time to Endure.

Some of you may be wondering, “What is a beta-reader?” Wikipedia defines it as, “a non-professional reader who reads a written work, generally fiction, with the intent of looking over the material to find and improve elements such as grammar and spelling….”

Every author I know has a group of these precious individuals. My beta-readers receive a digital copy of the manuscript before it is released and, using the Microsoft Word track changes function, mark grammar, spelling and continuity errors. They need to be quick readers (2 – 3 weeks to read a book) and a bit of a grammar Nazi. In return they get a signed first edition of the book they read and my gratitude.

At one point, DeLynn mentioned she would like to have her name used for a “nice character” in A Time to Endure. I obliged. Such a sweet character, too bad she dies horribly in the last chapter. (Just kidding, DeLynn!)

My beta-readers will soon be getting chapters of A Time to Endure to read. I’m always looking for a few more readers. If you’re interested in joining the cadre of beta-readers use the contact page on my website to let me know.

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Published on July 09, 2014 11:34

July 3, 2014

Writers Group Meeting at My Home

I meet with a group of five local writers on a weekly basis. This group started meeting nearly twenty years ago, but I’ve only been a part of it for ten.







Bob Hansen, author of A Bully's Doom.





Bob Hansen, author of A Bully's Doom.








The only time I don’t attend is when I’m out of state. 

While occasionally someone will leave, and a new person will be found, there are still two original members, Bob Hansen and Carolyn Bickel. Four of the five current members are published authors.

The group usually meets at a local church, but today there was a change of venue. The group met at my home and I decided to take a few pictures.

Currently I’m working on A Time to Endure, book two of the Strengthen What Remains series, and sequel of Through Many Fires. These pictures, taken in my dining room, show the group critiquing chapter 12 of A Time to Endure.







From right to left: Barbara Blakey, Debby Lee, Carolyn Bickel and Bob Hansen.





From right to left: Barbara Blakey, Debby Lee, Carolyn Bickel and Bob Hansen.









As readers of this blog will know, I write thrillers and science fiction, but the members of the group write everything from fantasy, historical fiction, romance to cat stories.


We also have different styles and methods. One thing we do have in common is our Christian faith, but often our stories aren’t so much faith based as faith friendly and beyond faith and friendship we share a desire to write good stories.

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Published on July 03, 2014 19:19

June 19, 2014

A New Beginning

I’m late posting this because I’ve been so busy, but I need to make the announcement.

I’ve retired.







Kyle relaxing in his hammock





Kyle relaxing in his hammock








No, I don’t spend the day in a hammock (well, not all of it) and I haven’t quit writing. For the last seven years I’ve been teaching in Alaska during the school year and spending my summers working on the family farm in Washington State. Writing has been something I did whenever I could.

While I have worked on A Time to Endure every spare moment, finding those moments has often been difficult. However, with the release of Through Many Fires, sales have been strong enough that my family has encouraged me to write full time.

With much trepidation I gave notice in early April that I would be retiring from teaching. My retirement became effective at the end of May.

Now all I have is a small farm to maintain and finishing A Time to Endure.

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Published on June 19, 2014 11:00

May 30, 2014

Titan Audiobook Released!

We started working on the audiobook of Titan Encounter in early March. We started by having Micah Hansen design a cover and moved on to listening to auditions. It didn’t take long to select actor Jeffrey Fellin to produce and narrate the novel. Jeffrey has extensive experience in both film and theater and the right voice for the book.









Titan audiobook.PNG










As Jeffrey completed the chapters my wife, Lorraine performed the first quality check, then beta-readers listened and finally it came back to me for a final QC.

There were delays and technical problems but by mid-May we turned the project over to Audible.com for final technical checks.

Titan Encounter is now available in paperback, Kindle, online in most other ereader formats and now as an audiobook on Audible.com. It will soon be available on iTunes.

Click here to go to the Titan Encounter page on Audible.com.

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Published on May 30, 2014 16:34

May 19, 2014

A Weird Coincidence

A week ago Loni, the Eek School secretary, said, “I just met someone with your name.”

“My first name, Kyle?”

“No your whole name, Kyle Pratt,” she replied.







Kyle Pratt meets Kyle Pratt at the Eek airfield





Kyle Pratt meets Kyle Pratt at the Eek airfield









She went on to say that he was there as part of the ongoing project to bring running water to the village and had already left. The idea that someone in the village would have the same first and last name was amusing. “If he returns to the village, let me know.”


A few days later, the agent for one of the bush airlines came up to me with a puzzled look. “I have a crate of weatherization materials with your name on it.” I told him about the other Kyle.

Alice, the Eek postmistress told me. “A guy came in and said he was Kyle Pratt. I said ‘No, you’re not.’ But he was.”

The next day I met the other Kyle Pratt just as I was getting breakfast ready for the students and opening the school. We didn’t have long to talk, but I found out he was from Washington state. “The whole thing just got weirder,” I thought.

I didn’t see him for several days and then on Friday it was time for me to leave Eek and this time for good, (More on that later.), I saw him walking from the school as I rode in a trailer behind the school ATV. I was on my way to the village airfield and thought that was the last time I would see him.

Our plane landed on the dirt runway as we grabbed our bags from the trailer. Suddenly Kyle, on another ATV, rounded one of the buildings at the airfield. He came up to me and said, “I just have to ask you a question. The woman at the clinic said we have the same birthday.”

I told him mine.

He shook his head. “That is unreal.” He told me his birthday.

We not only share the same first name and last name,

And we are both from Washington state,

And, that day we were both in the same remote Alaskan village.

We also have the same birth month and day. (But different years.)

I am still shaking my head in puzzlement. What are the odds?

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Published on May 19, 2014 16:17

April 30, 2014

Stamps and More Stamps

When you live in a rural Alaskan village the post office becomes a lifeline.

Eek is hundreds of miles off the Alaska road system. There is only one dirt road in the village. It runs from the airport through the village to an old airport on the other side. It doesn’t connect to any other road. This rough and often muddy lane is used by ATVs, snowmobiles and as a walking path.

















There is one general store in the village but, as you can imagine, many things are just not available. But, when the weather is good, the mail plane lands in Eek six days a week. So, my family regularly sends packages. Post office flat rate packages are a godsend here. That is how I came to receive the package pictured here. I asked my wife if she put all those stamps on it. She said, “No, I just paid for it and left.”


I guess they had a few extra stamps they needed to use. Also, notice the five cent postage meter stamp in the corner.    

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Published on April 30, 2014 21:45

April 29, 2014

A Lesson in Irony

One definition of irony is an event that “seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.”

















With that in mind I submit this picture. It was taken in the hall of our school here in Eek, Alaska. Posted above the lockers the sign declares both in English and the local Yup’ik Eskimo language, “We put our stuff in our lockers.” This is a small community, doors are often unlocked and theft is rare. Lockers are small and most have no locks. If space is tight things, like shoes, are often left out. That is why the sign was there, to encourage the students to be neater and put their personal items in their locker.


The shoes remained beside the sign, and on top of the locker, for days.  

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Published on April 29, 2014 22:26

April 27, 2014

A Good Weekend

Through Many Fires continues to sell well, but yesterday it did really well
















The problem always is, how do you inform readers about your book? Yesterday we did some promotion with a company called eBookSoda and dropped the ebook price in the United States, Canada and Britain for this weekend. That worked really well. Yesterday Through Many Fires ranked #461 among all Kindle books and this morning it is #456.

Through Many Fires reached the #2 spot on the Amazon post-apocalyptic bestseller list and the #3 position, above a Tom Clancy novel, on the Amazon war fiction bestseller list. These are both the highest rank for the book since its release in August of last year.

It has been a good weekend.

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Published on April 27, 2014 10:26

April 20, 2014

Renewal at Easter

My oldest son James posted this picture online and I found myself pondering it.

Many think that Christmas, not Easter, is the most important holy day of the Christian year and many of them don’t know the story of Barabbas
















Easter, of course, is the celebration of Christ’s resurrection, but I always think of it as a time of rebirth and renewal. I don’t know if it is a coincidence that Easter comes in the springtime or if it is some Godly metaphor, but for me, Easter and spring shout renewal.

For us in the northern hemisphere of the planet the long winter is over, the snow is melting, and the birds are returning. There are flowers on the fruit trees, the fields are sprouting and tiny chicks are chirping. Chores on our small farm that waited all winter can now be done. Every year is much the same, but still glorious.

I often wish that for our nation there could be a similar renewal. In proverbs 29:18 we read, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” When the nation was young it was energetic and purposeful. As a nation we knew who we were. We were a free people in a free land, but more than that, we were a Christian people.

Today, so many of have forgotten, or never learned, our heritage that we have lost our way. We are stuck in an endless winter. Many years ago C.S. Lewis said, “The real job of every moral teacher is to keep on bringing us back, time after time, to the old simple principles which we are all so anxious not to see; like…bringing a child back and back to the bit in its lesson that it wants to shirk.”

There is a Roman saying that has come down to us, “bread and circuses.” The Roman people, who had thrown out kings, established a senate and had the mightiest army and navy on the planet, had grown fat and lazy and now cared only for food and entertainment. So that is what Roman politicians gave them, cheap food and the mass entertainment of the coliseum.  

At one time the Ten Commandments and Judeo-Christian principles were the foundation of our law and government. Now the government that we elect literally tears down the cross of Christ, displays of the commandments and ignores the principles the Founding Fathers embraced.

Perhaps we are shirking lessons, or perhaps we never learned them from our parents, but we, as a nation have lost our way. We need to return to the faith of our fathers and those simple principles that we know are true and stop voting for the government that gives us more bread and circuses.

If we don’t we are just part of the crowd shouting, “Barabbas.”

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Published on April 20, 2014 12:34