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Alligator In My Basement
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David E. Manuel alligators and other stuff
English Shepherds are close cousins of BCs. Puck, our rescue, is probably actually a BC, we've decided. He had a tough prior life, too, including being abandoned outside in a blizzard for a week. But he is finally settling into life here as a pampered pooch!
Bless. How wonderful it is when they find home. They're beautiful dogs, whatever they are! I find it quite amusing that we both have a black and white and a brown and white, although ours a technically tricolour.
Debbie wrote: "Bless. How wonderful it is when they find home. They're beautiful dogs, whatever they are! I find it quite amusing that we both have a black and white and a brown and white, although ours a technic..."Makes great pairings, those color combos!
So I woke up this morning to discover that someone in the UK bought a copy of the kindle version of
. This jumped the book's sales rank from around 1 bazillion to 47,222. So, if whoever you are happens to be on this forum and reads this, I want to say two things to you:1) I hope you enjoy reading it.
2) THANK YOU! THANK YOU SO MUCH! NO, REALLY, THANK YOU!
:)
I too get phenomenally excited when this happens. Pity those poor sods in the top ten who have to shift dozens of copies or more to move up just one place :)
Richard wrote: "I too get phenomenally excited when this happens. Pity those poor sods in the top ten who have to shift dozens of copies or more to move up just one place :)"You're right. We must count our blessings. I suspect I should be grateful as well that I don't have the burden of being rich or good-looking! ;-)
Today's my 60th birthday, for what it's worth. I decided to celebrate by making a short story available as an ebook on Amazon. Here's the description:“Evan woke up craving a cigarette.” Thus begins Sudden Addiction, the story of a man turned into a societal pariah overnight. His new status leaves him alienated in a hostile world, cut off from work and neighbors, uninterested in food, frantic only to satisfy his new compulsion.
Special thanks to Debbie McGowan for editing it and offering some encouragement.
Hey, I even think I figured out how to add the group tag to the link below so any sales help the group.
There will be a hard-copy version available soon. Also, I haven't gotten it into Goodreads yet, but I'll get to that.
Sudden Addiction on amazon.uk
Are you a librarian? If not, let me know and I'll add it on here.
Debbie wrote: "Are you a librarian? If not, let me know and I'll add it on here."I'm not, but I can usually add them. Actually, I'm just waiting for the hard-copy proof, then I'll make the POD version available and add that. Thanks for the offer, though!
OK, no worries. I've reviewed on Amazon UK and .com, so should appear shortly.
Debbie wrote: "OK, no worries. I've reviewed on Amazon UK and .com, so should appear shortly."Wow, thanks! Earliest I've ever had a review!
Debbie wrote: "OK, no worries. I've reviewed on Amazon UK and .com, so should appear shortly."And I just read it. Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. Don't start smoking again!
LOL - I did think when I was reading it that it was fortunate I am no longer tempted!
If you're in the US and decide for some reason you want to read Sudden Addiction, the link below includes the tag to support the group.Sudden Addiction Amazon US
Okay, I've added Sudden Addiction to Goodreads.
Just two short (personal) news items.My manuscript, An Alligator in the Basement, made it to the quarters of this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest. I'll post a link to the excerpt once it's up, if anyone is interested in taking a look.
I put a new cover on Killer Protocols. You can see it at Amazon, or just look below.
Amazon has posted the excerpts from the quarter-finalist entries. So you can read the first 16 pages of my novel An Alligator in the Basement, for free. I would be thrilled if anyone here is interested enough to give it a read.An Alligator in the Basement - ABNA Excerpt
Just thought I'd stop by my thread to mention that November is Native American Heritage Month in the US, which is as good a reason as any to read my friend Philip Vargas' book, The Flesh of the Cedarwood.
Sadly, my friend Phil Vargas passed away earlier this year. He was a wonderful man who lived a very full life. Here is a link to his obituary in The Taos News.Philip Gabino Vargas
We managed to get Phil's novel published on Amazon before he passed. It's a lovely story, in my opinion, and has a lot of Phil in it, of course. If you get a chance, read it and think of him.
Rest in peace, Phil. I miss you.
Sorry to hear that, David. I recall you working on the book last year.
Debbie wrote: "Sorry to hear that, David. I recall you working on the book last year."Thanks. I'm just glad he got to see it in print while he was still with us.
That must have been wonderful for him to see. It's on my 'to read' list - I will get to it.
Just a reminder about my most recent release, A Feast of Famine, now available from Amazon in paper and for kindle.Recipe for a disaster:
A distant land beset by violence and starvation
A U.S. president facing reelection, in need of an image makeover
Career-focused bureaucrats
Good intentions
Incompetence
Combine and stir
Famine ravages war-torn, anarchic Bulimia. International humanitarian organizations want to help, but the country’s rival gangs and militias have brought aid to a halt, targeting relief operations with violence and extortion while tens of thousands starve. Resolute action to secure humanitarian operations is needed, and the United States decides to take the lead. Yet good intentions are no match for cynical political calculations, interagency rivalries, bureaucratic ambitions and escalating incompetence. Humanitarian volunteers, diplomats, military personnel and a beleaguered Department of State analyst face one disaster after another in this farcical and tragic story of problems that belie solution.
Links with the group support tags follow:
A Feast of Famine at amazon.uk
A Feast of Famine at amazon.com
So I read in the news today that Raul Castro is so impressed with the current Pope that he's considering returning to Catholicism...which reminded me of the time an earlier Pope travelled to Havana and met with Fidel Castro...
which reminded me that I actually wrote a poem about that visit toward the end of the 1990s...
and I remembered that no one has ever read that poem because it's just been sitting on my desk...
so I posted it to my blog because that's what one does in this Age of the Internet...
so here it is...
Approaching the Millenium
Enjoy it...both of you.
Woke up to an unexpected 5 star review of Killer Protocols this morning. It's always a good feeling to know someone enjoyed something I wrote!Review of Killer Protocols on Amazon
Amazon giveth and Amazon taketh away. (Blest be the name of Amazon?)Anyway, Amazon has removed a couple of reviews from my books in the last few days. Haven't really figured out why, but, hey, it's their site. But I got another review for Clean Coal Killers from someone who seems to be enjoying the series. That makes me feel better!
Review of Clean Coal Killers on Amazon
I continue to hawk my book A Feast of Famine, drawn from some of my experiences in East Africa. And I recently came across a poem I wrote years ago after attending a concert by a Malian jazz combo in a north African city I won't name. It inspired me, for better or worse, to write this:North Africa Blues
Mustafa plays a wicked dobro to a middle-eastern beat,
Louisiana slide with a Nile delta glide,
singing "baby don't go" in arabic;
Giscard making accordion noises on the harmonica:
"c'est le zydeco."
Then again in Bamako someone's playing the blues,
"I am new in Chi-ka-goo,"
black and white telecaster brought by missionaries
preaching Jesus and Muddy Waters,
original sin and Lightnin' Hopkins,
saving Soul.
Expatriate musicologists teach the Dorian scale
cum 12-bar riff, Elvis poster on the wall and
Bo Diddly album spinning to a generator's whine.
"My baby so fine.
Shiver down her spine when I call,
Inshalla."
Louis Armstrong, be proud,
Ali can blow it loud and sincere
in this other hemisphere
where cajun means Haitian and Cuban and African and
Acadians are conveniently forgotten...
yet Maya sits mystified, backbeat denied;
she can't dance if she don't get the rhythm.
I read somewhere that if you flip open a book to page 99 and like what you read, there's a good chance you'll enjoy the book. So here's an excerpt from page 99 of A Feast of Famine.“We’ve had a ship lying off Puqslido for three days now. Twice it’s attempted to put into port, and twice it’s been fired on.”
“Prob’ly just some hot-blooded bucks shooting in the air, old sport.”
“No, Roddie. I mean artillery. Somebody in the city is warning them off with artillery rounds. This has been happening for over a month, now. So, you see, it’s really not some bureaucratic snafu we’re dealing with. The factions won’t let us bring food into the country right now.”
“Bloody hell! Hard to believe. I suspect they don’t know its food, Trevillor. Prob’ly think you’re bringing in guns to their enemies or something. Best thing would be to fly in there and have a chat with this Barshed fellow, straighten him out on what you’re trying to do.”
Blaine’s head was beginning to ache. Was it possible the man had been living for months this close to the situation, had actually been instructed to deliver an official demarche about it, and really had no clue what was going on?
“Our man in Puqslido has been negotiating for weeks. Believe me, they know it’s food. But Akhmad Rashadi has decided to stop deliveries until we agree to build a port in his territory and bring the food there.”
“Well, I’d say that’s a demand you have to ignore. But who cares about this Akhshoddy chap, anyway. I was led to believe this Colonel Barsnead’s the man to deal with. I suggest you pop over to Puqlsido and have a talk with him, and just cut this other bastard out completely.”
“Roddie, it’s Rashadi’s artillery that’s shooting at our ships. Get it?”
“Shooting at you, you say? Anybody been hurt?”
“No, fortunately not. They haven’t hit one of the ships yet. They’re just firing warning shots.”
“Warning shots?” Smithers-Grafton snorted. “Bastards prob’ly couldn’t hit anything if they tried. I’d call their bluff, if I were you. Just sail right on in and unload. That’d show the bastards.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Damned sure am serious, Trevorill. This is exactly what’s got the President steamed about this. Lack of will. We just can’t stand back and watch a whole damned country starve because you people are too timid to face down a bunch of Bulimian savages. Let’s be clear about this one thing. If you people don’t have the stomach for this, then by God the President’s going to see to it that some people with backbone are sent out here to take charge.”
Blaine had always thought of himself as someone with backbone. But that had been before Bulimia, he mused.
Just a quick update. Spread 9 tons (US) of gravel over our parking area yesterday. Moving 9 tons of rock with a shovel and wheelbarrow is hard f$*%&ing work. Getting another 7 tons delivered this week. That should be fun.Maybe I'll go back to being a writer.
Finished the great gravel project. You can see the results at my blog.http://killerprotocols.blogspot.com/
Jim wrote: "I think I'd have hired a JCB :-)"Common sense may not be one of my strengths. But what's a JCB?
I think you lot call it a backhoe or something like that.
Gingerlily - Mistress Lantern wrote: "I think you lot call it a backhoe or something like that."I looked it up. It's a British manufacturer of heavy equipment like backhoes and such. Much more efficient than my shovel and wheelbarrow. But where's the fun in that? :-)
Some people seem to get a thrill from operating heavy machinery. Must be the vibrations from the engine...
I just worked out that I could shovel all day for three daysor pay somebody competent £20 to come and do it for me.
Jim wrote: "I just worked out that I could shovel all day for three daysor pay somebody competent £20 to come and do it for me."
Labor must be cheaper in your neck of the woods!
No, fit in with a chap with a JCB so he drops into do your bit of work between jobs, and he'd do your job in an hour.I doubt it would cost £50 if you hauled him out special.
But I don't know how common 'plant hire' firms are across there.
We probably could have found someone, but based on previous times I've hired for snow removal or other labor, probably more like $150-200. We live just across the Potomac from Washington DC, and labor's actually in short supply here. But I'd have done the job myself, anyway. Despite my apparent complaining, I enjoyed the physical labor as a contrast to sitting at a desk all day. But, as a farmer, you doubtless don't have to invent real work to be active! :-)
Exercise has always been something I got rather than something I took :-)I can see how you might have problems with labour costs, but there again, I suspect snow removal boosts the price because everybody wants it at once. So you're probably paying a premium about then.
Jim wrote: "Exercise has always been something I got rather than something I took :-)I can see how you might have problems with labour costs, but there again, I suspect snow removal boosts the price because ..."
Well, that's an excellent point about demand driving prices up. Probably could have gotten a better deal than snow removal. But if we talk too much about economics, this will become the "take it outside" thread! :-)
Author threads tend to accumulate all sorts of random stuff. At any moment Patti will wonder in, say something like 'nice curtains' and before you know where you are you're frantically checking your contents insurance and wondering where you left the fire extinguishers :-)
Gingerlily - Mistress Lantern wrote: "Have a couple of elephants.http://www.meloveletters.com/wp-conte..."
Damn, those are some big elephants!
David wrote: "Amazon giveth and Amazon taketh away. (Blest be the name of Amazon?)Anyway, Amazon has removed a couple of reviews from my books in the last few days. Haven't really figured out why, but, hey, it..."
That would be there 'no reviews by friends of the author' policy.
David wrote: "Gingerlily - Mistress Lantern wrote: "Have a couple of elephants.http://www.meloveletters.com/wp-conte..."
Damn, those are s..."
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UK Amazon Kindle Forum
Books mentioned in this topic
Molly Malice in Alterland: We Wake Up Screaming (other topics)A Feast of Famine (other topics)
Alligator in the Basement (other topics)
A Feast of Famine (other topics)
A Feast of Famine (other topics)
More...
Border Collies are intense. I'm only still up because Maisy decided to sleep next to my chair and gets a tad feisty when woken up. Not her fault - high intelligence + bad start in life. She's getting there, but they don't stop. The other one is 14 next month and still scoots about like a loon. English Shepherds are very like them to look at.