Robert L. Slater's Blog, page 11
February 21, 2016
February’s Smorgasblog
Here’s the latest eleven things for February.
1.On March 12th, Windward Boosters is teaming up with Barnes and Noble in Bellingham for a BookFair to benefit Windward High School programs. At 5 pm there will be five local YA writers:Royce Buckingham, Nick James, Jesikah Sundin, Tara Ellis and myself. We will each read a bit and then take questions and sign books!
2.GRAYS HARBOR
RESIDENTS FREE FRIDAY at the brand new Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention in Ocean Shores this November. You’ve g...
February 14, 2016
Reflecting on Two Years as a Print Published Novelist.
It seems like a pretty cool 49th birthday present to be writing a blog 
post about two years as a published author. I’ve completed my Sophomore Slump if I had one, and am moving on to whatever comes next. The graphic inserted to the left shows the last 8 weeks of sales on Neilsen BookScan, the Book rating system from the folks who bring you the TV ratings. As you can see at the beginning of November I had two weeks with no print books sold nationally. Since then I have sold two or more books e...
February 3, 2016
Columbia Crew R.I.P. 2/3/2003. A song…
Creative Commons. Photo by Jtesla16. Five days ago I posted a poem I’d written for my daughter who was born on the fifth anniversary of the Challenger’s explosion on take-off. These are the lyrics to a song I wrote on the day the Columbia broke apart on re-entry.
My notes on the lyric sheet:Begun on the way home from work as I was sure we would enter into an Iraq war. Finished as I sat stunned with the news of the Columbia Shuttle.
Waiting for the Fall – Eve of War
Driving home on the eve of...
January 31, 2016
Twosies Sale?
In honor of the 2nd anniversary of the releaseof ALL IS SILENCE and the launch of the Deserted Lands series in February2014, I am having a sale on all of my currently available works of fiction. In November I did an ElevensiesSale, so in February, I’m doing a Twosies Sale. In the 22days around and leading up to 2/22/2016readers can get every one of my e-book works for a total of under $10 on Amazon Kindle. Or both DESERTED LANDS novels on e-bookforunder $10 from Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Sma...
January 28, 2016
30 years ago and 25 years ago today…
As a preview for April, National Poetry Month, when I will share more poems.
I don’t write a lot of poetry, but I do write it when inspired. I wrote this six years after the Challenger loss. This was near another more pleasant anniversary, the first birthday of my daughter, Sheridan M. M. Slater. When the Columbia Seven lost their lives I wrote a song. I suppose these were intended to be song lyrics, too, but no music ever came. Columbia was eighteen years later, also in January, but I don’t...
January 23, 2016
New Mannie and Saj scene in Screenplay format
So, the formatting didn’t come through from the word processor, but here’s a little scene I wrote from a writing prompt I gave my Creative Writing students for dialogue practice. Then they put it into screenplay format. Not sure if it will make it into Book III, but it captures some of the essence of Mannie and Saj!
NO MAN’S LAND
EXT: A SMALL HOUSE IN PROVO, UTAH. NEAR FUTURE/POST PANDEMIC.
FADE IN:
INT: MANNIE’S DINING ROOM
Saj is putting his green beans in the toy truck.
MANNIE
Saj, what ar...
January 14, 2016
Short Help Me List & Desert Club invite.
1. Pleasevote forALL IS SILENCE in Wattpad’s STORY OF THE YEAR contest! It’s one of the top 150 Wattpad stories, but they’re letting readers with Twitter accounts vote. If you don’t have a twitter account, you can still spread the word. You may have to search Slater to find it. It’s currently hovering around #60.
2. Lizzie Goodin-Guerrero loves music. Pretty much everything from before her third birthday in 2004. Monday, January 11th was her 14th birthday! So, if there are songs you think she...
January 10, 2016
January Smorgasblog
Okay. Here’s a random list of catch up things for January. 11 in November, 12 in December… Should be either 1 or 13 in January, no? Well, somewhere in between. Here we go.
0. [inserted last] Today is Lizzie’s 14th birthday! Born 1/11/2002.
1. My friend and writing mentor Holly Lisle’ s Memory of Fire (World Gates Series)is on a special price for AmazonKindle = $0.99.
My review:Great opening to a cool universe. Pretty classic parallel universe with lots of nice twists. Strong females! Yeah. Be...
December 29, 2015
2015: Waiting to get off the roller coaster…
2015 had its highs and lows. Unfortunately the low spots were way lower than the highs were high.
For the lows, I lost two students in June and had two more suffer significant injuries. Then this month I lost my new grandson, Nolan Luther. You can read my posts about these here. Scroll through the few personal blog posts that I wrote this year. The two most significant start with the word Sad.
It is through this haze of sadness that I write today. Because that’s what I do. Working through my...
December 21, 2015
12 Great Book Ideas for Holiday Gift-giving.
Here are a dozenbooks for the holidays from Rob’s Recently Read,Ready to be Read,and Requested to Read piles.And asJames Wells reminded me, “that most or perhaps all of the books you list are available at local booksellers including Village Books, Cozy Corner, and (we can call them local because they support local authors) our Bellingham Barnes & Noble store.”
Rob’s Recently Read
Also available as an audiobook. Just finished The Great Symmetry byJames R. Wells, I gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars an...
