Elgon Williams's Blog, page 34

A Sport Becomes A Political Football

You may have seen something about this in the news – political pundit calls soccer un-American – or something to that effect. Not wanting to get into the silly polarized political debate on just about everything that plays out daily on the 24/7 news channels (and spills over into broadcast and print media as well) I do have some observations that may help put a different spin on everything.

First of all, calling any sport un-American is patently absurd.

We are a nation that seems to love sports and competition. Some things we watch I might personally feel are quasi-sports. I may like some more than others. But it is a matter of personal preference not national interest or patriotic support. All you need to do to confirm Americans’ love affair with athletic endeavors is channel surf on any given weekend. It’s there, all there, and in a variety that will astonish you. For most Americans I think a favorite sport depends on the season we are in. I love baseball, for example. There’s nothing more American than that, unless it is the middle of football season. Then there is basketball.  I also like tennis. I’ve been known to watch bowling and golf but usually I end up taking a nap at the same time. But that’s just me. A lot of people watch racing events. Some people question whether that is a sport. Controlling a car that does;t have pose steering while it is doing a couple of hundred miles per hour takes some strength and skill, especially when it is in close proximity to other vehicles. So, I have never personally questioned where professional racing drivers are athletes.

Let’s conclude that Americans like to watch sports.

Some people participate in sports at some point in their lives. Whether it is in a youth league, during high school or college or in adult leagues, we have all dreamed of making the winning play or being the fastest or strongest  or most skilled at something on any given day. Those who don’t participate directly in a sport can always be a spectator.

You see, Americans like to watch competition. That’s what we do. We pick a side and support the team or individual. Maybe the competitive nature of sports spills over into our domestic politics at times as well. National championships teams and star world class athletes usually get invitations to the White House. But that’s all about photo ops and publicity, not really about politics per se. By the way, publicity is what all the comments about soccer being somehow un-American is all about, promoting some agenda and calling for support of some cause whether real or contrived.

How can anyone think that soccer is un-American? Maybe it’s because the sport wasn’t invented here. That is the only somewhat valid reason I can think of for having that point of view. Its the old us against them, isolationist mentality. Americans enjoy being different and doing things our own way – even if at times it proves inconvenient or wrong over the course of time. We have our own set of weights and measures – even though those are borrowed from our English heritage. We have our own special variety of football, which is why we call a sport, which is known to the rest of the world as football, soccer. But I think millions of soccer moms across America are scratching their heads over the pundit’s comments, though. How is it that soccer is not American enough to meet anyone’s standards?

Politicians and political pundits seek publicity. They will leverage anything to advantage, even something that should be as politically neutral as a sport. While we should all be supporting an American team participating on the world stage and taking pride in the successes and advancement in a prestigious tournament, the politicization of the sport has for a moment drawn attention away from the real competition, which contains is national pride.  It is dangerous to associate politics with any sport and it needs to be avoided in the interest of maintaining the purity of of competition and the sense of fairness.

Sport should be about competition at the highest level possible, pitting sides against one another chosen on any basis other than something as crass as political agendas. Sport should be purely about athletic excellence and endurance, pushing the limits and showing heart and courage to put forth one’s best effort. It must never be about left verse right or being somewhere in between on the ideological scale.

Promoting one sport over another as a national pastime is advertising not reality. As Americans we can all get behind a national team and show enthusiastic support as one people divided on everything else but united in at least one thing, that we are all Americans. Suggesting that love of one sport in some way diminishes our love and support of other sports that are, for whatever reason, traditionally called American sports is wrong. Soccer is a sport, for God’s sake. A lot of patriotic people enjoy watching it. So, just let them enjoy watching what they choose to watch. As always, if you don’t like it you can change the channel. There is always some other sport you can watch. Just don’t tell any of the rest of us what we can or should be watching or attempt to limit our freedom to do so.

#soccer #football #American #politics #sports

Odd In That Funny Kind Of Way

Before I realized that odd and funny weren’t really synonyms, my life was a lot more carefree. Whenever someone called me odd or said that anything I did was unusual I took it as a compliment. Who knew it wasn’t? And now all my friends from way back when know why I had no problem whatsoever being that kind of guy…the one who boasted of my prowess at burping and farting.

It seems that the mistake was not uncommon, though. There were an awful lot of other odd people around me. At times we congregated and everything was fine – as long as there was proper ventilation, of course.  Anyway, I felt more comfortable around the so called odd people than I ever did being around the so called cool people. What is not to like about hanging out with a bunch of guys who have contests to see who can belch the loudest or longest while others attempt to fart the Star Spangled Banner. Hitting that high note without crapping your pants is an achievement.

When we’re young we naturally want to fit in somewhere, don’t we?  And usually that is with people who share out interests. They like the same music we like and speak the same language even if it is unintelligible to outsiders. Belonging is important because being a total social outcast and loser is embarrassing to say the least. So we wind up dressing the same, hanging out at the same places and usually we like or hate the same teachers. At some point we start to realize that we have to do something to distinguish us from the crowd to succeed in life and for a few finding out what that is becomes an adventure. For the rest we integrate into larger society, another member of the seemingly mindless masses. We learn that the gift of being able to burp and/or fart at will isn’t as socially acceptable anymore as it once was.

What’s an even bigger surprise is how little importance there is to being cool once you’re int he working world. The entire objective is showing up to work on time, doing as instructed, working until your break time, returning on time from your break and working until its time to clock out and go home. That’s a large part of being an adult.

There are those things you live for. You have a spouse and kids. Maybe they adopt some of the goals you forsook in your effort to find true happiness. You come home from that thing called work, do chores, clean up a bit for dinner, hit your favorite chair or stretch out on the couch and attempt to watch whatever is on TV. Sometimes the kids need help with their homework – except that stuff never made sense while you were in school so how are you suddenly a resident expert? Is it just because you have the title of Dad? If you’re lucky you married well and your wife – aka Mom – is better at the schoolwork stuff. In fact, for a while the kids may believe Mom knows everything and Dad is around just to reach the stuff on the top shelves in the kitchen, periodically clean out the garage and do yard work on weekends. Mom does everything else, doesn’t she?

We pay some passing homage to those who somehow convinced others that they have enviable talents as musicians, actors, comedians whatever. Those were the dreamers who never gave up on their dreams. They give us songs that we hum along to as we navigate the pitfalls and sand traps of life. They bring characters to life in a fictional world that is much more interesting that our mundane lots. Sometimes they give us a moment to laugh at the absurdity of the human condition around us. Also we tend to want to know what all is going on in their lives because they turned out to be much more interesting tun us. That is pretty much how you get through the middle of your life as it blows past you measured out in workweeks and and days off. You look forward to doing nothing on your time off but that never happens. A day or two off a week is never enough.

Now that I’m on the backside of all that, my working life is winding down, my kids are adults and they are learning some of what it means to be out on their own, I realize how ill-prepared I was for being an adult. Theres no one to blame for it. I might have been my fault. I could have missed the briefing on being normal. But then, I never wanted to be normal int he first place. Being odd has its benefits too. You see, by the time we get to be my age, within a decade of retirement, the differences between self and others diminish in profound ways.

Sometimes we reconnect with people we haven’t seen for a while and they look nothing like we remember them. He was always so skinny before and look at the gut now! She used to look so sweet and innocent, what happened? There are a those few who demonstrate that they were born with superior genes or maybe they just took good care of themselves. They look almost like they used to, just a little weathered and worn. For the rest it is all about the number of changes we notice and tactfully don’t point out as we lie about how great everyone looks. Unless you’re odd and then you may mention some of the more striking changes.

That’s what a high school reunion is for, isn’t it? It’s a sobering experience for bonding with others who have survived the journey – somehow. We realize how truly insignificant the differences are between us and that maybe we were all odd in that funny kind of way.

#reunions #life #working #odd #funny

An Exercise In Publicity

 

We are always defining and refining ourselves, even before graduation from high school. But maybe that’s the first time most of us really begin to think about the real world in terms of ‘now what?’

Some like me deferred answering that question completely, extending adolescence artificially, going away to college. But it was always there, int he background. I’m not sure I ever truly answered that question. Maybe fact we never do. There is always something else, isn’t there?

For publicity’s sake I need to define who I am in succinct sound bites that can be offered rapid fire during interviews. Why? Because most people in the media have the attention span of a gnat. But then, they are merely a reflection of their audience. Who wants to hear about my life when they could  get all the latest dirt on the Kardashians?

Here is what I know about me. I’m a storyteller. Always have been; always will be. It’s what I do now, though not yet for a living. But that is also why I’m doing this exercise in publicity.

My storytelling began long before high school but I think it was around the time I was in Mrs. Hibbett’s 9th grade English class that I first decided I wanted to be a writer. She told me that was a mistake. Her actual words were I’d never be a writer. By the time I was a senior she;d forgotten ever having said that.

In college I expanded the whole storyteller concept to encompass a broader range of expression. I suppose part of that came form dreaming of being a rock star. My single greatest achievement was writing a rock opera based on Beowulf. That fact you’ve never heard that composition indicates the effort skyrocketed my band and into obscurity. But throughout the beginning part of college I was marking time until I became famous. I was absolutely convinced I would be famous once day, After all with a name like mine, Elgon, one hardly anyone can pronounce correctly, I had to do something great. Yeah, I’m aware that’s not logical but that was how I thought in the mid ’70′s. I figured I could use my first name alone. After all, other than my dad who never went by it, no one else I knew was named Elgon.  There is a mountain in Kenya and a cosmetics company in Italy. As far as I know that’s it for namesakes and those are coincidences. I was named for neither. I think my grandmother couldn’t spell. Either that of the story about the traveling salesman who had a similar name was true. But we won’t go into that.

So, in college I studied mass communication, which by definition is communicating to the masses, right? I was a DJ at a campus radio station. I produced an old school radio drama and a TV news show about music. I interned for a local TV station and at a local newspaper. At the end of all that I figured out I didn’t really like being a journalist. So I decided to focus more on public relations advertising and such. That’s how I got interested in marketing.

I studied Spanish in high school and college, not enough to be fluent, but I can read it to some extent and I generally get the gist of what someone is saying. Seeing how important Spanish has become as a second language,especially where live in Florida, perhaps I should have spent more time learning it. I should have learned a lot of things in college but didn’t. Despite my stubbornness I learned some things, though. One was that regardless of the level of education nothing guarantees you success, or a job for that matter. Eventually I stocked shelves in a grocery store by night and worked part time for a small advertising agency by day. Although I was good at doing both, neither position struck me s having great potential for advancement. So, on a whim and figuring I had a college education, I decided to follow in my sister’s footsteps and join the Air Force. I wanted to be an officer like her but they were being particularly picky about college majors and mine wasn’t what they were seeking. However, in the process of taking the tests for military service, someone figured out I had language ability. Imagine that!

You see, after college I interviewed with a lot of companies for positions in management. The economy was limping along in recession so businesses were looking for excuses not to hire people  One of the companies I dealt with was a particular large international bank with an operations center in Miami. After a series of interviews they decided not to hire me. In the rejection letter that stated that based on my at my resume which largely consisted of college transcripts that I lacked sufficient ability to learn a foreign language. How ironic was it that merely a few years later the US military was going to pay for me to learn Chinese Mandarin because I tested very high in the ability to acquire a language over a short span opt training.

I ended up on the other side of the planet for a while, saw a lot of places and met a lot of people I wouldn’t have met otherwise. On balance, despite all the bad aspects of being in the military, it was a valuable experience. One thing I learned was that people are people no matter where you are and we all figure out solutions to our problems in culturally distant ways. Another thing I learned was that people in other countries like Americans but don’t necessarily like our government and its policies. A third thing I figured out was that I didn’t always need to speak another person’s language to be able to communicate.

Upon returning home and leaving the military my role as a communicator shifted to training and leading others in retail management. As things evolved, I began to train customers about products as well. For someone who was painfully shy as a child, comfortably leading training seminars and giving presentations to hundreds of people at times was an extreme departure.

All along my journey I was only delaying what I set out to do, tell stories. During college I wrote in my spare time. In the military I wrote in my spare time. Even after marrying, having children and working seventy plus hours a week in retail management , I wrote in my spare time. When the hobby evolved into a vocation did not happen over night. I had been working on my first novel for years. The second one took less time. Then novels three through twelve came all at once. Over a twelve year span I produced forty stories of novel length, twenty of them in some semblance of a finished state as manuscripts. Still, even though I was a published author I didn’t think I was a professional writer. I wasn’t making a living at it, anyway.But I have always been a storyteller.

I guess as writer you are always seeking a story. Some of it comes from experience, a lot of it comes from inspiration but most of it comes from determination. Writing is an art. Like most artistic endeavors it is not particularly lucrative. Money isn’t why artists produce what we do. To be successful as an artist you need to market the art and that takes publicity, building a support base of fans and general exposure to the the public through some form of communication and networking.

One of the many lesson I learned from the study of communication was a rather basic one. You cannot NOT communicate. Even the decision not to talk to someone is communicative. As much as I’d love to be able to just write the only way to persuade anyone to read what I write – which is the entire point of writing professionally – is to promote it in some way. That requires communication whether through media or more directly, one on one.

#writing #communication #language #culture #education #experience #publicity #newreleasebook

Fried Windows Comparisons

I’m flattered when readers compare Fried Windows to The Wizard of Oz or Alice In Wonderland – the original books not the movies. Like those masterpieces the story has a touch of political satire and along with the playfulness there is some dark overtones. Like Dorothy and Alice, Brent is on a quest to discover something about himself as well as what the heck is going on.

Although the book does not contain offensive language or adult scenes it is not a children’s book. I suppose there are precocious ten year olds who would enjoy the book but I considered the base age group for the story was high school aged. There is a lot going on in the book so I feel it is intended for more developed minds. There is a pule metaphor throughout the book. I think you have to be more mature to notice and resolve the riddles.

I’m a little surprised that people think Fried Windows is a children’s book. Although I have edited some children’s and middle grade books in the past I have never really written anything designed specifically for younger readers. There is a special art to that and I’m not sure I am blessed with it. My next book Becoming Thuperman may be as close as I ever come to writing a Middle Grade or Young Adult book. The main characters are kids discovering they have some super human abilities. What kid doesn’t dream about that. But it’s really not a kids book either.

Ironically, another book that is close to being in production, Spectre of Dammerwald, started out to be a children’s book. I had completed the draft of One Pack, which is now five books. I was working on the draft of The Last Wolfcat, which is now three books. And I was editing a MG book for a friend. I did a detailed substantive edit for him and suggested adding in a couple of chapters to increase the intensity of the climax. As a result the idea was suggested that I should try to write a children’s book. I was at a point in The Last Wolfcat that I realized I needed to know a lot more about the main characters’ pasts, things that happened before One Pack begins. So I set out to do what Tolkien did with The Hobbit, writing a children’s book as a prequel to the trilogy – in my case an octology in progress. So I started writing Spectre Of Dammerwald and about two chapters into the story it was clearly not going to turn into a children’s book. As the inspiration continues it became two books that rounded out the ten books that are The Wolfcat Chronicles.

Brent, the main character in Fried Windows appears in The Last Wolfcat. Characters from One Over X who are friends with Brent appear in One Pack. Without giving away any secrets, there is a character introduces in Spectre of Dammerwald who is Brent in disguise, but you really don’t find out who that is until later on in the One Over X saga.

Yes, the stories are interconnected in some ways. Even Becoming Thuperman connects to the Brent Universe in a tangential way. In Fifteen Days of Danielle, a story about Brent as a college student, he mentions a cape-less superhero who talked with a lisp – Thuperman. Also in Becoming Thuperman, Will’s mother knew Terry Harper, a physicist who appears in One Over X and The Wolfcat Chronicles as well as some other books, in high school and they stayed in touch for many years after.

In general the supporting characters in one series end up being main characters in another. I figure if you are going to create an alternate universe and populate it with characters, there are billions of individual stories that can be told. I’m working on a few of the stronger associations.

#newreleasebooks #mustreads #friedwindows #ElgonWilliams #fantasy #WizardofOz #AliceInWonderland

Como crear tu biblioteca digital en amazon libros

Originally posted on Jerry Gomez Shor, Jr.:

click aqui en mis libros disponible en amazon    :)

      Incentivar la lectura es la mejor forma de expandir conocimientos y abrir la mente a nuevos pensamientos y formas de ver la vida. Cuanto mas se lea,  mayor sera la comprensión de lectura.

     La forma favorita de leer mía es la forma tradicional en libros físicos; el sentir la paginas al pasar unas a otras, oler ese típico aroma de la tinta desgastada por el tiempo, el color del papel hace vivir al lector el sentimiento que el escritor puso en su obra.

    Pero, hoy en día existe otra estilo de libro que esta modificando el comportamiento del lector, y esa es el “ebook”.  La ventaja de estos nuevos sistemas es que se puede cargar con su propia biblioteca en un simple dispositivo electrónico; sea tabletas, notebook, o los llamados teléfonos inteligentes…

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Another day, another five-star review for Fried Windows

This one comes from Jeff Skinner, Toronto, Canada based author of the soon to be released The Vaccine’s Agenda:

Don’t let the title fool you, this book is quirky and fun. It’s not the serious tome the title implies. I started the story with a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory feel, where you enter a world of pure imagination where everything is possible. The Carlos storyline was an interesting twist, and most authors would be content with this storyline. Elgon takes us further; the book changes to include the darker side of thought and the effects they can have long after you think you stop thinking. Elgon is able to take the reader on a ride, straddling the line between dream and reality, where the confines of one are not as defined as they are for most of us.

As a father with a young daughter, I was drawn in by the danger in this book and how Elgon was able to make it feel real.

This was a book I enjoyed reading and would gladly recommend to my friends.

#fivestar #bookreview #FriedWindows #ElgonWilliams #newreleasebook

It’s Going To Be A Good Day

It’s nice to wake up to a five-star review for Fried Windows In A Light White Sauces, especially come from Rose Montague, an author I respect and whose writing I enjoy. So, whatever today throws my way, it’s going to be a good day.

In case you missed the notice but have been thinking of reading Fried Windows, here’s your chance. There is a free sample promotion going on. Send me an email to my authors email at elgon.williams@pandamoonpublishing.com and you’ll receive the first six chapters for free. That’s over 15% of the book – more than you can sample at Amazon.com. Of course I think that once you start reading the book you’ll want to continue:

Leave your world behind and enter an adventure forever lost but never forgotten, where only magic is real, and anything is possible.

When Brent Woods, a middle-aged computer technician delivers a new system to Strawb, an eccentric lady who lives in a house with no windows, she offers to reconnect him with his childhood dreams and fantastic imagination. Alongside his best friend Lucy, Brent explores the seemingly infinite possibilities of the “Inworld” where she lives, a place where everything about anything can change with a thought. But in the process of remembering his past as Carlos, Lord of Bartoul, Brent exposes a dark potential that threatens his family, and his home.

After his youngest daughter is attacked in her dreams by the very forces that took away his kingdom, and Lucy’s, Brent seeks answers that lie somewhere in the truth of what happened in his past, and how he lost his connection to the Inter-Realm. He must find a way to correct his mistakes and solve the puzzle of his best friend’s life.

Fried Windows (In a Light White Sauce) is an unforgettable journey into imagination. It is a feast of delightful characters whose perspective of their worlds will change the way you think about yours forever.

#fivestars #friedwindows #reviews #freesample #promotion

How to Become An Author – Or at Least a Better Writer

WARNING – this is not a ‘how to’. It merely contains thoughts and observations from direct experience.

If you’re like me you have wanted to be a writer for all your life. You have let a lot of other things get in the way – like life, for example, but always the inclination to write has been there.

There was a time in the early 1980′s when I tried to run away from being a writer. I threw away all my accumulated drafts and journals – a journal is a diary by another name because no self respecting writer will admit to keeping a diary – and I dedicated my time and energies to doing something practical for once in my life. It came with the territory, I suppose. I was studying business administration at the time.

The reason I gave up (or at least deferred) my dream was actually a pretty good one. I give myself kudos for deciding that I needed more experience at living before I could really write about it in a meaningful way. It was absolute bullshit, but it is exactly the sort of crap that other people, those who don’t write, could understand. For my parents, family and cadre of friends who were worried about me before, my choosing not to write  even showed a remarkable level of maturity that I had never before exhibited.

Up to that point in my life I thought I had a handle on my overall direction. I studied mass communication, particularly radio and TV production, broadcast journalism, public relations and advertising. Then I studied marketing with the intention of becoming a professional media consultant or advertising copywriter. hat seems to be the best way to focus my creativity in a potentially productive way. I even dallied ay bit into taking some literature and creative writing courses as electives. By the way, if you want to write better, avoid creative writing classes, especially those that would be authors teach. You will suffer through each and ever instance of your instructor’s rejections.

What I learned very quickly was that just deciding not to write anymore and suddenly becoming practical was not the real answer to lifelong success and happiness. You see, writers really do not have much of a choice about being who and what we are. We may delay the inevitable but eventually we will write.

Now, I’m not saying everyone who professes to be a writer is a writer or even that most of those who are making valiant attempts at writing should be writing. After all, who am I to judge what is and what is not art? Right? I fully believe that a number of us – whatever that number is – were born with the inclination to be creative. Whether we become painters, sculptors, architects, police sketch artists, rock stars or Pulitzer prize winning authors, there are some people who are born to be different. They are gifted in some socially acceptable way. Also, I believe there is a little artistic ability in almost everyone but in most cases it really is suppressed early on in life and by the time one becomes an adult it is negligible if apparent at all.

The simple truth is that if you are destined to be artistic you figure that out sometime between pre-school and reaching puberty. Making the crucial decision of what to study or pursue as one’s life’s ambition may or may not be related to an honest self-appraisal. After all, around the time you are expected to make such decisions you are a bundle or nerves powered by unstable hormones and uncontrollable emotions. You are more concerned about that cyclops zit in the middle of your forehead and whether it will heal up in time for the school dance on Friday night. Considering a life-long calling when you’re a teen is, at best premature. However, I believe every artist has a inkling of what is ahead and those who are wise try like hell to avoid it if, in fact, they want to take the easier course.

Being artistic is painful more often than it is rewarding. . You see, artistic types are  born a little more sensitive than so-called normal people. In fact most artists would consider being called normal a personal affront. Normal is like being average. Who in the hell wants to be average? I know I never did.

Still, at some point someone somewhere is going to figure out that sometimes you are able to see the world in an interesting way. If you are inclined to write, they see it in the way you construct a sentence and the words you chose in that memo that was sent to everyone in the department. The mere fact that  your sentences have subjects verbs and objects along with appropriately positioned adjectives, adverbs and various other parts of speech is a dead giveaway. If they are really observant it is patent that your paragraphs are structured as well. It will come as a revelation to everyone else around the office. Instantly, you are labeled ‘a writer’ and become the de facto go-to person for proof reading anything important before it is sent out. Don’t expect any extra pay, though. After all, we all know – or at least those of us who have accepted our lots in life as writers – that being a writer is generally not a lucrative enterprise. Your ability to write will haunt your ass until finally you submit to the reality of your birth and write something with the intention of publishing it.

Now, that you have a better understanding of the avoidance mechanism and the futility of not writing for a writer you may wonder how do you become a better writer? How can you be good enough at the craft to be published?

First and foremost, how well you write has no direct correlation to wether you will be published. There are countless examples in evidence. If you are a celebrity for any other reason than your skill at writing you can and usually will have a book published, sooner or later. You don’t have to write it. If you are a journalist with a major newspaper, magazine or appear on one of the news networks, at some point,  you may be expected to write a book. It helps establish your credentials as a subject expert. It will sell well enough because of your notoriety. That’s why publishers will take on such projects.

If you write fiction and happen upon a storyline that attracts attention in the prevailing pop culture, your book may be published regardless of how much professional plastic surgery, a.k.a. editing, must be performed in advance of printing. And you will become a celebrity because of the popularity of your book, not the quality of the material you write. At that point it becomes irrelevant whether anything you write is good or not. For a while anything with your name on it will sell. You will have established a brand and as long as there is demand in the marketplace you will be successful.

For the rest of us schlubs, writers in quest of the elusive prize winning, bestselling novel, it actually is important to become a better than mediocre writer. You need to develop a voice in your fiction, hone your skills as a storyteller and, moreover, learn how to entertain a reader with a piece of literature that will hold attention from start to finish. If you want to write that kind of book, the page-turner that produces spontaneous insomnia, you have to start by becoming an avid reader of fiction in whatever genre you enjoy. You see, if you like reading a particular sort of story chances are that’s the one you will be most comfortable in writing.

The secret to becoming a better writer is no secret at all. There is no right or wrong way about doing it or arriving at the end of a long, arduous journey. There is no certain level of experience required, just the ability to express what your senses provide, set in words that any reader can appreciate. If you can make a reader see with your eyes, hear, feel, touch and taste through your wiring, you will have mastered your craft. Does that mean you’ll be successful? No, but it means you will succeed at your objective, writing better. You will acquire a following because readers enjoy the experience of sharing fictional escapades that spare them the excruciating tedium of modern existence that is watching reality TV, or worse, 24/7/365 news babble.

If you are truly an artist who writes, having someone read what you have labored over and not only appreciate it but also enjoy the journey is all you want or expect. When you arrive at that point, you will be an author. Nothing else will matter, at least until this months bills arrive in the mailbox.

#author #writer #writing #creative-writing #storyteller #artist

Reflections on Yesterday

Father’s Day always seems a little flat now that the kids have grown up and set out each in his or her own direction. They still contact me on the holiday, though. That’s nice and welcome. It’s good to be remembered. How could anyone forget me, right? It happens though, but not family.

I’ve spent a good bit of my life disappearing from the lives of people I knew whether it was in school, the military or work. The past few years I have made some reappearances and reconnection, welcomed or not.

Yesterday, I thought a lot about my dad. I was reading another author’s manuscript and part of it brought back some memories I guess it was the setting – the midwest – and the characters’ reflections on their families. I always thought I had pretty good parents and, despite the quarreling, pretty good sisters. Maybe everyone thinks that until they get older, gain the perspective of seeing how other families function and all that. I mean in some way or another I’ll bet every family has a touch of dysfunction. There is always that oddball relative. And yes, for many in my family, I am that person. I got used to that when I decided to be a writer. It comes with the title and lifestyle.

Anyway, yesterday was a good day for me. My schedule had me in to work later on in the evening so I had the time to share a sit down dinner with the family where I am staying. It was nice of them to invite me. I was sort of in a rush toward the end to get to work, though. It would be nice if I made a living with the author/publicist gig alone. I could afford to be more social. But that will come in time, with more titles released and a larger following from those who, for now, are strangers.

The few fans I have garnered over the past years have been faithful enough. The other authors I’m in contact with, those under counteract with my publisher and those who are not, have been supportive of my recent book launch. Some of that is quid pro quo as I have supported their book launches. But many have become friends for other reasons beyond sharing a the craft. Authors are a curious lot and, like other artists, tend to understand one another fairly well in an intuitive sort of way. I wrote a piece a while back about how authors are really not in competition. I believe that.

Largely I’ve given up on receiving direct or indirect support from anyone in my past who has not already stepped up and offered. And that’s fine. No hard feelings. Whatever your reasons, it’s okay. Don’t feel obligated to by a book you don;t plan on reading.

Maybe some of you expected a free copy or something, just because we went o school together. I received a limited number of complimentary copies. I gave them out to people who helped me here and there along the way. People I promised to give a free copy to because I needed to in consideration for what they did. Simply knowing me or hanging out with me for a while doesn’t qualify. Sorry.

That seems appropriate, does;t it? I gave away digital copies to people in exchange for reviews. Some have responded. Others, well… I guess they’ll get around to reading the book eventually, won’t they?

One of the things I recalled about my dad this father’s day was a conversation I had with him when he was int he hospital. It was a few months before he passed away. I had a book with a publisher then. He knew it was going to be out in print eventually. He told me how proud he was of me. But he also advised me not to quit my job. Dad was pragmatic. Also he really didn’t think of writing for a living as actually working. To him work required sweating and straining to make something or grow something. Writers do that but not int he same way that farmers do. Dad had trouble seeing things from my perspective not hat.

He asked me if I was going to be famous. I confessed that might happen but it wasn’t an immediate goal. It still isn’t. He told me something that struck me yesterday as I was reading someone else’s book and having moments of reflection. “You know you’re famous when more people know you than you remember ever meeting in your whole life.” I chuckled when he told me that and I laughed at the memory when it came yesterday. He had it right, of course. That’s how everything works in the world. Most people don’t care about all that many other people outside of family and a few close friends.

We know a lot of people – coworkers and the like. We know friends of our friends and some of their relatives. We may even brush against someone with some degree of celebrity whether local or wider from time to time. But no one cares about obscure acquaintances until they are, in some way, less obscure.

For example, who cares to notice a book from an obscure author until everyone else he or she knows says they should read it? Then they buy the book even if they never really intend to read it. They may see the movie and even claim to have read the book. The book is better than the movie, they will claim, whether it is true or not. Of course since they know the author personally they will claim to have some unique insights. Maybe they will, but probably not because they didn’t pay all that much attention to that weird sonovabitch loner who was always claiming to be writing.

I want people to read my book, otherwise I would have never submitted it to a publisher and gone through a year of editing, revising and waiting for it to be released. I need people to buy the book so I can afford to continue being a writer and stop doing other things that interfere with writing fulltime. Otherwise, I might be inclined to give the book away for free. It’s a good book and doesn’t deserve to be given away, though. Friends, family, coworkers and acquaintances past and present should read it now, but if not now I promise you will eventually. Why? Because I will continue to write and my books will continue to be published. Sooner or later the weight and volume of stuff out there will compel at least a modicum of curiosity – especially if we met way back when no one expected I really meant it when I said I was writing a friggin’ book.

My family in the 1980′s

#fathersday #writing #newbook #author #quidproquo

A Father’s Day Treat – The Redemption CH 1 from Candy Apple Red

Although this story is fiction, it is based on the kind of relationship I had with my father, Bruce Williams, and why, since he passed away in the spring of 2000, I miss him as much as I do. The pictures I have included ware the actual First State Bank building in South Charleston – though it has long since been bought out by a larger bank – and the house I lived in back in the ’60′s.

The Redemption – Chapter One of Candy Apple Red

Elliot looked at the time on the wall clock. The use of the letters I, V and X was an effort to be fancy, he guessed. From what his sister Jean said about them when he asked her about it he wasn’t far from the truth. Continuing to watch the clock’s pendulum swinging hypnotically back and forth, measuring each passing second, he shifted from one foot to another in synchronization. Then, as if to alert him he saw the minute hand click just as it became his turn at the head of the queue and the teller waved for him to come forward.

Eagerly he reached the marble counter, standing on his tiptoes peering over the edge into the young lady’s magical green eyes, appreciating her warm, welcoming, sincere smile. From past experience he knew her name was Ginger and always she made him feel at ease whenever she took care of his banking business. Shyly reached up his negotiable bills – meticulously organized by denomination, he laid them on the cold slick surface of the counter. This time his deposit consisted of two fives and two ones along with a short stack of coins that consisted of one quarter, a nickel and two pennies.

When the teller received the money, she keyed it into an adding machine and then requested his savings passbook so she could update today’s deposit of precisely twelve dollars and thirty-two cents. “There you go, honey,” Ginger said with a wink as she handed the officially stamped and properly recorded the transaction and returned annotated book into the boy’s outstretched hand. “You have a very nice day, now, Elliot.”

“Yes ma’am. I will. You too.” Blushing he quickly averted his eyes. Elliot thought Ginger was really pretty, especially her auburn hair and big bright eyes. She always seemed happy to see him and whenever she smiled her eyes sparkled. It was a combination of everything about her that Elliot liked, not one thing. She embodied personality and warmth at the heart of the bank’s otherwise cold interior and so she was the only teller he looked forward to seeing anytime he came into town to put money into his account.

Ginger watched as the tow-headed little boy stiffly pivoted in an awkward attempt at executing a military about-face. Then he hurried away, his leather-soled shoes scuffing and slipping on the highly polished black and white floor toward the office of Chief Loan Officer, Jerry Rogers who, all along, was talking with Bruce, the boy’s dad.

“Did you take care of your business, son?” Jerry asked as the boy interrupted a prior conversation to climb up into his father’s lap.

“Yes sir, Mr. Rogers.” Elliot focused on the man’s shiny bald spot. Along each side of were short cropped patches of slightly graying hair.

“Did Ginger take good care of you?”

“Yes sir,” Elliot turned to bury his face into his dad’s bibbed overalls the same sort that was Bruce’s sort of everyday uniform. The boy felt his father’s approving hand rubbing quickly over his fresh burr hair cut into which just an hour before the barber had rubbed a liberal sprinkling of Vitalis before pronouncing the haircutting ordeal officially concluded.

“Your dad tells me you’re starting the second grade.”

Elliot nodded without removing his face from his father’s broad chest.

“Are you excited?” Elliot nodded again in exactly the same way.

“We’d best be goin’,” Bruce stood allowing the boy to dangle from an outstretched arm, the scuffed-up tips of the boy’s shoes just about touching the floor before Dad finally set him down.

“I’ll have everything drawn up and ready for you to sign in the morning,” Jerry reiterated a previous promise.

“I need the check for first thing.”

“If it would be better for you I can draft it right now and you can sign the paperwork later.”

“That’s not necessary. As long as it’s ready by nine o’clock tomorrow morning, it’ll be fine. Besides that’s a lot of money to carry around on a slip of paper.”

“Everything will be ready,” Jerry reaffirmed, and then offered his hand across the desk. It was as always between them, a handshake and a promise was all that any deal required.

All that Elliot knew about the purpose of his dad’s business with the First State Bank of South Charleston, Ohio that day was from what his father mentioned: the need to buy some more cattle. It had been a week or so since the boy accompanied his dad in taking a load of fattened cattle to auction in Urbana. Afterwards Elliot assisted his father in preparing the barns’ feeder lots for a new herd. Bruce allowed Elliot to steer the tractor while towing a manure spreader around one of the larger fields that was to lay fallow for that growing season as part of a government ‘land bank’ program.

As they drove home from the bank Elliot opened his passbook, seeing that he had accumulated precisely forty-three dollars and seventy-seven cents of the fifty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents he needed for the bicycle he wanted. He was so close to realizing his dream. It was as his father said: he could nearly taste it!

“How’s it lookin’?” Bruce asked his son.

“I need sixteen dollars and twenty-two cents.”

“Plus tax,” his dad reminded him.

“Why do I have to pay that? I mean, you told me before but it didn’t make too much sense.”

“Well, it’s something the government says you have to pay.”

“Even when I’m still a boy?”

“Yep. Just about everybody pays taxes on things they buy.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“The State exempts some people, like church ministers buying things for the church.”

“Why?”

“Because the government can’t do anything that affects religion. It says that in The Constitution.”

“Oh.” He bit his lip thinking for a bit. Then he asked, “Why does everybody else have to pay?”

“The government uses the money to keep everything in the government running and they also repair roads and do a lot of other things like that.”

“What if I don’t want to pay?”

“I don’t think they would like it very much. Besides you don’t have the choice when you buy something. That’s just how it’s done.”

“But it’s 3 cents for every dollar!” Elliot protested, parroting what his father told him during their prior discussion. “It’s a whole ‘nother dollar and eighty cents I have to earn. At two cents a pop bottle, that’s another ninety I have to find!”

“You remembered all that?”

Elliot looked across the bench seat of the pick-up truck. “If I had the fifty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents I need for the bicycle, that’s almost the same as sixty dollars, isn’t it?”

“Yep, one penny shy of it.”

“You said I have to pay three cents for every dollar, so that means it’s about a dollar and eighty cents. At two cents a bottle that is ninety, right?”

“So, it is. Did they teach you that in school?”

“No, last year Mrs. Schofield taught me not to use my fingers when I add and subtract. She told me I could only ever count to ten if I used my fingers. But that’s not true.”

“It’s not?”

“I showed her how I can figure out anything using my fingers,” he boasted confidently.

“Anything?” Bruce asked not really understanding how such a thing was possible.

“Anything! I’m just not sure how I’m going to make another eighteen dollars and two cents before the end of the summer,” Elliot confessed.

“We’ll see what happens. There’s still some time, nearly a whole month! Besides why does it have to be before the end of the summer?”

“I need the bike before it gets too cold to ride it much.”

“I guess that makes some sense,” Bruce said, but then, after a pause, he continued. “Why-uh, I was just wondering if you wanted to come with me tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Elliot said without any hesitation. A road trip was always preferable to working all day on the farm. It didn’t matter where they were going, but anyway he asked, “Where?”

“Well, we have to go to the bank first. Then we’re going to Washington Courthouse to buy some cattle. I figure if we cut-up through Jamestown on the way back we can stop at the hardware store there.”

“Okay.” Elliot wasn’t sure why Dad was telling him all the details but thought that maybe he was supposed to remember them.

“I want to see if they still have something I saw there a couple of weeks ago.”

“What that?” Elliot asked, figuring it would help him remember if he knew what it was they were going there to look at.

“They had the best price around on something we need.”

“Oh. So Dad, you always look for the best price, right?”

“You have to, Elliot. Paying too much for anything doesn’t make any sense. So, you have to bargain and that requires negotiation.”

“What’s that?”

“Talking to someone to get them to accept your terms. When I buy cattle, for example, I never accept the first quoted price. It’s always a little high. So you talk and in the process you arrive at a price you can accept. If you don’t get your price, you leave.”

“So you have to get someone else to see things your way.”

“That’s right.” Bruce chuckled. “Sometimes it isn’t that easy, but that’s what you need to do.”

“I’ll watch you do it then. It sounds like it’s important.”

“It is. And you learn fast.”

“When I have a good teacher.”

Bruce reached across and patted his son’s knee. “I reckon it’s easy when you want to learn.”

Elliot loved spending time with his father. Even if it usually meant having to work around the farm, it was still better than staying home all day with his mother and sisters. But going on a road trip always promised to be a special adventure.

Silence lingered between them as Elliot enjoyed the fullest possible cooling effects of the wind coming in through the open passenger window as his father’s blue ’53 Chevy pick-up, cruising down US-42 heading home. It was a fairly typical midsummer afternoon, with temperatures climbing beyond ninety degrees for the fifth straight day!

“You know people don’t seem to care as much about collecting and redeeming pop bottles as you do, buddy. They throw them away all the time. Or they accumulate in a garage or a shed.”

“Like Mr. Chapman’s and–”

“And mine, too,” Bruce confessed before Elliot had a chance to complete the thought. “It’s just kind of a bother to redeem them for the two cents deposit per bottle.”

“But a whole lot of pop bottles turns into lots of dollars,” Elliot countered.

“That’s true. But a lot of people even throw away their bottles in the ditch alongside the road.”

“Wow! I’ll bet there’s a hundred bottles between here and South Charleston, then!”

“Maybe more than that! What say, when we get back home I drive back up the road a ways and you can look on one side of the road and I’ll look on the other and we’ll see how many bottles we can find. Then we can cash them in.”

“What are you going to do with your money?” Elliot asked.

“I’ll donate it,” Bruce said. “Getting you a new bike seems like a good enough cause. And if we hurry we can take the bottles to Gold’s store before closing time and maybe even put the money in the bank before we come back home.”

After drinking fresh, cold, deep-well water drawn from the spigot out back of the garage Bruce fetched empty burlap sacks from a stack inside the garage, keeping one while handing the other to the boy. Once the collecting effort began, every few hundred yards Bruce brought the pick-up truck closer. By then, both of them had a sack full of bottles to carefully empty into the bed of the pick-up so as to not break any. Elliot was immediately struck by how low his estimate had been. In some places he found entire six-pack cartons of bottles still in their original cardboard containers. The cartons were mostly disintegrated and of little worth for containing the bottles anymore, but what else struck Elliot was how much trash there was alongside the major highway. Perhaps it was not all that visible from the road, but once he was down into the ditch and searching the wide banks and shoulders of the road he found everything from nasty smelling beer bottles to crumpled-up cigarette packs, empty oil cans, spent oil filters, a lot of discarded paper and wrappers of various kinds. They were halfway to town by the eighth time he and his father met at the truck. Already the bed of the pick-up was nearly full. He knew from recent experience what 500 to 600 bottles looked like and they were rapidly approaching that.

Despite how it repulsed him how wasteful and inconsiderate other people were in disposing their trash, the boy began to envision finding enough bottles to make up the total difference he needed in order to buy his new bicycle.

“Who is supposed to keep the roadside clean?” Elliot finally asked his dad.

“Well, I guess that’s up to us today. You see, we need to pick up after ourselves, like at home you pick up your clothes from the floor when you’re done wearing them and put them in the hamper.”

“If I don’t Jean tells Mom and Mom yells at me.”

“Well, some people don’t have a mom to yell at them anymore. They are just too lazy and they wait for other people to pick up after them.”

“That’s not right, is it?”

“Well, it’s not but if you know what to expect from people, sometimes you can find an advantage and maybe make a little money in the process,” Bruce explained.

“Is that how you knew there’d be a lot of bottles beside the road?”

“I knew no one had done this for a long while. There are probably bottles we are finding from back before you were even born!”

“But the men with the yellow tractors come to mow the roadside a couple of times every year. I’ve seen ‘em. Doesn’t that break the bottles?”

“Not always. You see, they don’t mow as close as you cut the grass in our yard on the riding mower. So the bottles remain there until we find them. I suppose the grass kind of protects them.”

“I don’t know how many more we can put into the truck bed.”

“Well, Johnny just did the road around his place. John told me, and that’s kind of how I got the idea. He said Johnny found ten dollars worth of pop bottles, most of them probably from their shop. So we’ll go on up as far as the culvert just before their place. That’s where Johnny said he stopped.”

“Why didn’t he go any farther?”

“All he needed was ten bucks, I guess.”

“He’s stupid then, isn’t he?”

“I don’t think he’s stupid, just he probably got tired of looking and he already made enough money.”

“But we’re smart.”

Bruce laughed. “Maybe today we are.”

#fathers #fathersday #growingup #1960s #Americana #Ohio