State of the Brand

The year 2013 is almost over and this is probably the last chance I get to post something here before it's gone. It has been a very eventful year for me as a writer and I just want to write a few words at the end of it here.

My novel "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie" has not vaulted me into the literary spot light neither has it made me filthy rich. Looks like I might actually have to work at it. I am happy with the accomplishment though. The feedback from the readers that chose to express their thoughts have almost all be positive. The general assessment is that the book kept their attention and it was easy to read. It's gratifying to have several people tell me that they didn't want the story to end as soon as it did. They want a sequel because they like the characters so much. On the flip side one person did tell me they found the action and language of some the characters a little more intense than she would have liked. That's fair. Overall I'm happy.

I read somewhere that an author doesn't really get his or her name out there until they have three books in print. My goal is to get on my horse and get the rough draft of my sequel done. If I don't get too caught up in the day to day of my own personal drama, I might be able to manage that by the end of 2014. That's what I'm shooting at this coming year.

My webzine Pico's Cycling - Tales of the Road http://picoscycling.blogspot.ca. Is off and running. At this point the readership nearly tripled in the second month. What do we do for an encore? I'm hoping to continue the momentum. I did sacrifice a bit of effort here and on Bubblews to make that happen but it looks like it will be worth and eventually pay off.

Bubblews... What can I say? The most money I've made on a website in a single year to date. Keep it up and I will blow that away in 2014. Interested in signing up? Here is my referral link: http://www.bubblews.com/?referral=51f5bbc90f3fe9.59547344 . Seriously, where else can you get paid as an author to do you practice or warm up writing?

2014 is going to be another big year for me.

A Good Writing Day

Just a quick post today.

I started out the day with high ambitions and I've come close to completing them all. I'd planned to try and write three articles for my webzine and two of them are done. I'd planned to write at least two posts on Bubblews and they are done. Finally I planned to write a brief post here and by the time I get to the end of this that'll be done too.

I wouldn't feel so great about it except that this isn't all I had to get done today. I worked on our snowshoe trail helping the family escape for a shopping trip. Got our outdoor well in working order again as well as caught up with my Bubblews friends. Wanted to get more done but that will always be the case with me. There is always more than I could possibly get done. I'm pretty happy with what I've managed.

If the Internet holds up I might even complete the stuff I didn't get done tomorrow evening.

Third Annual Family Writing Awards

This year we made no attempt to invite anyone. We were more worried about keeping ourselves warm during this cold snap than preparing for guests. Our muted festivities did include a movies and potato chips. We did however have more to shout about that the previous two years. Here is a quick list of the family accomplishments.

Pico Triano

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie - Published
Pico's Cycling - Tales of the Road - Webzine Launched
Payout at Mylot
Multiple payouts at Bubblews

Brandon

Galdathor: Legacy of the Lost King - Camp NaNoWriMo

Mieke (Antonia Cereye White)

Shadow Alliance - Camp NaNoWriMo
The Veresone Edge - Camp NaNoWriMo
Crystals: The Badlands - NaNoWriMo

Andrew

The Lost Medallion - Camp NaNoWriMo
The Crimson Spear - Camp NaNoWriMo
Till After Death - NaNoWriMo

Sheldon

I Never Would Have Guessed, Victoria - NaNoWriMo

Francine

Payout at Mylot
Multiple payouts at Bubblews

All I can say is wow! If we are going to top that next year, we have our work cut out for us.

Tweaks But Not Much Writing

Bubblews is down and I feel like I haven't accomplished much in regard to my writing. The day hasn't been a loss. I finally added a link in the righthand column of all three of my blogs to buy a copy of my book. It routes to Amazon.com. Most of my pages views come out of the USA. My apologies to everyone else. From there it is easy enough to get to the Canadian or the UK site anyway. Here's hoping that addition will lead to more sales.

For the cycling site I dug up two of my old cycling photo albums. Lots of pictures with stories to develop. This will allow me to write a couple of articles that I have been planning. May even get to that this evening. My enthusiasm for this project is still pretty high. I don't foresee any problem getting the next issue out on time. My biggest challenge is to build interest in the site in between published issues.

Webzine Launch!

Pico's Cycling - Tales of the Road officially launched yesterday with the december issue. Five articles/stories. The reception has been better than expected at this point in spite of the lack of time I've had to put into this. Given my enthusiasm for the project a boost. I'm hoping to have a couple of selections that are written by someone other than myself. I've got a month of encouraging and maybe arm twisting in that department. Looks like putting together the next issue is going to be fun.

Since the launch I have added a page for links to friendly cycling sites. The page address is http://picoscycling.blogspot.ca/p/cycling-friends-and-websites.html There are a couple other riders I met on Bike Forums that will likely post their sites there as soon as they see it's available.

Only real hiccup that I ran into yesterday when I was trying to make some noise on Facebook about the site. In the past I always got to post the link along with one of the pictures I added to the post. Suddenly all it will let me use is my Google account avatar. Very frustrating. I'm hoping that the problem will resolve itself. How's that for putting my head in the sand like an ostrich.

Link for the webzine is http://picoscycling.blogspot.ca/

Webzine Slowly Coming Together

Worked quite a bit today on Pico's Cycling - Tales of the Road http://picoscycling.blogspot.ca/. Don't know if I'm on track to launch at the beginning of December or not. I have four of the five first articles already posted onto the site. I will write one more and then an introduction/table of contents post. With that it will be ready.

Did a Bubblews post on it today called "Launching a Cycling Webzine" http://www.bubblews.com/news/1629816-launching-a-cycling-webzine  Didn't get much hoped for response but on the brightside one bubbler did express interest in being a contributor. I will need those if this is going to be a success.

I was intending to take this idea to Book Junkies but I'm tired and feeling a bit shy. Maybe once I've posted this I'll go and do that. Tough enough to get my posterior in gear for this.

Revised Weekly Writing Goals

I think I have a vision for increasing my writing income and over the past few weeks I've distilled this down to a concrete plan.

I of course will continue writing a post per day on Bubblews and on my days off try to do two or three. With my participation there I am making a very stable fifty dollars per month. My wife makes roughly twenty five with her efforts. This does help the family budget.

My profile link is: http://www.bubblews.com/account/34385-koopharper

My wife's is: http://www.bubblews.com/account/32591-daisy

We get paid a penny for any view, like or comment on our articles and stories. For those who visit there. Thank you. It is always appreciated.

I have begun assembling a new stream of income online. That is through advertising on my blogs. I have created a few niche blogs for that purpose. I am looking for appropriate advertising that I can add to the site without ruining. Unfortunately Adsense and I have had a falling out in the past and I don't feel like going back to that well at this point. Besides looking for advertisers I'm looking for ways to increase traffic to my sites. Starting point for that is to make a post per week here at least. I do have quite a few sites to work with so the potential here is interesting.

I of course have my author's blog right here. I like what I've started and will continue to improve it as I have time.

My wife surprised me when she told me that she could add advertising to her Fine Arts America site. We will see what affiliate advertising we can include over there. She is also working on adding a cafeplus store to her site. I think it's a good idea. A lot of her artwork looks good added to products from there. She pays thirty-five dollars per year for that site and while she gets a lot of attention for her work she has yet to sell any. That is disappointing but we may be able to turn this all around with the advertising and added products. For it would be nice to make that small investment pay.

Her website link is: http://francine-heykoop.artistwebsites.com/

I have created two websites that I think have some value. If the subjects interest you, please check them out. If you like what you see please follow and share.

The first site is called Pico's Online Work At Home Journey. I do make a small amount of money online and would like to take it further. On this site I talk about what I've learned along the way. I discuss successes and failures. For anyone trying to do the same, I think it's worth the time to visit. The site only opened at the beginning of this month and traffic and followers is already exceeding expectations.

The link for this site is: http://picosworkathome.blogspot.ca/

The second site is called Pico's Cycling - Tales of the Road. This is being developed into a touring/road cycling online magazine. It is not officially open yet but my official launch is planned for the beginning of December. Some of it will look familiar to friends because I'm drawing articles and experience from my old cycling blog at kincycling. There is an important difference though. I am hoping to draw articles from other writers. The basic format is a five article magazine each month. Articles will range from 500 - 5000 words and must include pictures. I will allow links for the author's own websites and advertising. I will be the author of all the articles in the first issue (which is being built online and is viewable). I know better than to think I can spit out enough material to keep that going long term. Attention writers please submit your stuff. You will retain all rights to your work. I can't however offer any remuneration at this time.

The link is: http://picoscycling.blogspot.ca/

In the spring I hope to roll out a site for my wood turning again. I will build a new site here so that I can manage it from the same blogger account. That will simplify things for me. I would move on that earlier but I don't currently have shop space at all. Hoping to fix that in the spring with earning from my online efforts.

An article per week for each site should make a huge difference to the amount of traffic I get. The combined traffic should open some affiliate advertising doors for me.

My noveling efforts at this point will centre on getting Rat in the Shadows done. NaNoWriMo for me this year was a hopeless case. My schedule was difficult to begin with. Then everything at work changed. This week I even ended up assigned extra hours. Eleven hour days for four days per week means not much gets done in the way of writing on those days. I just don't have enough left in the tank when I get home. I'm excited about the challenges.

Euphoria and A Big Month Ahead!

The big news this week was the arrival of a box of fifteen copies of my novel Let Sleeping Dog Lie. To finally hold a physical copy of my first published novel was a huge high for me. I love it. The book looks terrific.

I'm intending to sell fourteen copies and try to use the third one to garner some publicity with one of the local radio stations. Nine are already sold and there are four other people who have already stated their intention to buy. At this point it is a first come first serve. The people who were promised first choice have already got their copies. I expect the rest will be gone early next week. I wish I had the resources to carry a larger inventory. I'm sure at work I could sell off more than twenty-five copies. Have to stay within my finances though.

Today is the start of NaNoWriMo. Our family has five people taking a shot at it. Again I'm probably the weak link with a brutal schedule. I will try to make it happen though.

The only other writing project I'm working on at this point is preparing to put together a few niche websites. I want to see if I can make a small income doing that. I have good solid ideas for two sites. One of those site I have sufficient content already written to get started. My focus right now is experimenting with several different advertisers. I haven't been terribly impressed at this point. I will update progress on this project here periodically.

A plate full for November, I hope to make it a very successful month.

A Little of Your Time For a Worthy Cause

This won’t cost you or me a single penny. You don’t have to sign up for anything. In fact, you can remain completely anonymous.

My 14 year old niece Emily is working to go on a mission to the Dominican Republic. To be able to go she needs to raise $1400. So far she has earned $100 with her babysitting. You can read about it here: http://www.bubblews.com/news/1299559-why-i-am-here Please note that she has not asked me for donations, she is working to make the money needed herself. I applaud her goal and her resourcefulness.

If you clicked the link in the preceding paragraph you are already contributing to her success. One way she is working to make the money is to write on Bubblews. Every time anyone in the world online views one of her articles she will get a penny. Every time one of those people decides they liked what she wrote and hits the like button there she gets paid another penny. Remember writing is work and her goal is to earn those pennies.

For anyone interested. I write on Bubblews, in my limited spare time, as writing practice and make fifty dollars or more there every month. I’m writing to line my own pocket and promote my own writing. With hard work she could earn more than I do and part of me wouldn’t mind that at all.

Intrigued? Bookmark her profile link http://www.bubblews.com/account/91712-missiongirl and check her contributions there. If I understand correctly she will be writing a short article on something regularly. I write daily and I believe she is trying to follow my example.

You do not have to sign up for the website. You do not have to identify yourself in any way. No one is going to bother you or send you anything. You are not being tracked unless maybe you’ve cheesed off the NSA and that is an unrelated issue.

My wife and I will be cheering her on there and encouraging her work, so will quite a number of my friends. We’ll be delighted when anyone chooses to join us. Feel free to share her writing links on social media with your friends. That will give her work additional well-deserved exposure.

Good luck, Emily! I’m sure your hard work will pay off and you will realize this goal. The whole experience will be good for you and will help others.

A Little Housecleaning

Did some housecleaning here on the Bubblews Log. I did make a couple of mistakes that I noticed. Managed to correct them. Hard not to make mistakes working on this. Harder to find them and correct them. Any reader who spots a problem and lets me know would be highly appreciated.

Added a new section under Bubblews Favorites called Writing. I don't like the way everything shows up with the fonts I have. I will have to monkey around with the setting some to make the section titles stand out more.

I will likely highlight my cycling articles next. There are not too many of them at this point. Easier work when it isn't too big of a job. I'm not sure at this point what else to highlight. Book reviews already have their own sections.

Bubblews Favorites Page Added

This new page is still in its infancy but I've tried to make it worthy of a visit. I started out separating the humour stories out so they can be highlighted. Just like me to try and start with the most difficult one. I'm happy with the result now. I will add other categories later as I have time. The idea is to make it so that interested readers don't have to wade through my whole log to find something interesting to read. Will post updates as changes or additions are made.

So if you want to have a chuckle go ahead and check out this new page right away. Fourteen humour stories are waiting for you.

http://picosplace-pico.blogspot.ca/p/bubblews-favorites.html

Added Bubblews Log

It still needs a lot of work but I have added a Bubblews article log to my blog here. Most of my practice writing goes there because I get paid. If someone goes to that page and looks at an article I get paid a penny. If they click like I get another penny. If they add a comment, I get a penny for every one of those as well. It adds up. Currently I make more money faster there than any other paid website I've ever worked with. If you want to try it yourself, here is my referral link (something else they pay me for): http://www.bubblews.com/?referral=51f5bbc90f3fe9.59547344.

I will put more work into it in the future. My intention is to categorize and highlight some of my work there. A number of my humour pieces just didn't get much attention and highlighting them here will probably solve that issue. I know they are just getting lost in the shuffle.

Another point that I discovered from a friend there is that it is not good to publish articles on my blog and on Bubblews at the same time. Hurts the ranking of both sites apparently and therefore I will immediately cut that out. Unique content only on each site from now on. I will likely make references to those articles here and often though.

Please Do NOT Repeat That!

Today is my last day of retraining to work in the customer care department. Part of our training has been spent "shadowing" more experienced representatives. Because of the time of day our class is run, we don't get to listen to the cream of the crop. Most of them are newbies fresh off the street.

The other day a customer complained that the representative had apologized (with the same phrase) fifteen times during the call. He exaggerated. It was only eight. I couldn't help but count. I'm sick of hearing the words certainly and definitely. Not only are they evil adverbs, the bain of decent writers everywhere but after hearing them about fifty times each per day you just want to scream. 

That of course has reminded me of an important writing tip. Constantly repeated words and phrases don't sound any better in writing than they do in speech. They could well sound worse. There are of course exceptions but in general find other ways to say the same thing if need be.

We all do it. We all have favorite words and phrases. Getting rid of them is an important part of editing your work. 


Not picking on anyone here by the way. This was wholy inspired by listening to badly managed customer care calls.

*This article was first written on Bubblews. If you are interested in participating on that site my referral link is: http://www.bubblews.com/?referral=51f5bbc90f3fe9.59547344

Confession of a Former Poetry Hater

In high school the most boring part of the most boring class was poetry. Most of us guys absolutely hated poetry. Don't blame our instructors. It's hard to push through the perception that poetry is for wimps and wusses. To their credit I learned something and as I matured and developed my own writing, I started to appreciate the art of poetry.

Do you want to be a serious writer? Even if you don't intend to write a single poem in your entire life, you should take the time to study. The reason is simple the elements of poetry don't just happen in poems and if you understand and recognize them you can use them to make your own writing better.

I'm not going to go into exhaustive detail because when it comes to poetry I'm no expert. I write books, short stories and articles. I still understand the importance of the way the words sound and the rhythm of my sentences. They help me create moods and strengthen the emotional reactions of my readers. Believe it or not I deliberately create an overall rhythm between my chapters and scenes. I know also that throwing in a strong poetic image can have a dramatic impact in the right place. I even deliberately add rhymes here and there because they sound right. In the end, if I've written a book, I want my readers to finish the book satisfied. When they get to the end, the images and symbolism that I've cultivated since the first page need to all come together. I learned a great deal of that in poetry class.

So to my English teachers in high school, Mr. Zelickovics, Mr. Lafontaine, Mr Bauer and Ms. Read, I know I probably wasn't much fun to teach but I actually learned something in your class. I didn't appreciate it then but I do now. Thank you!

Related articles:  http://www.bubblews.com/news/1008222-symbolism-has-no-real-value-what

*This article was first written on Bubblews. If you are interested in participating on that site my referral link is: http://www.bubblews.com/?referral=51f5bbc90f3fe9.59547344

Symbolism Has No Real Value - What?!

This came up as an argument by some in favor of doing away with a lot of doctrines during a major religious upheaval in a church I once attended. I get that there are a lot of different points of view and I'm tolerant to those ideas but the notion that anything with purely symbolic meaning has no value to me is an idiotic argument. 

This isn't my point of view as a religious person. It's what I think as a civilized human being and a writer. My point here isn't religious at all. It's about the real value of symbols.

Without symbols I couldn't write this and you couldn't read it. Language is all symbols. We have assigned meaning to certain patterns of sound and written patterns to be able to communicate with each other. If I changed the symbols I'm using to another language, you might not be able to understand my meaning. How important are symbols? (It's important enough that Bubblews made a rule about language on the site).

If you have a job, your boss gives you money representing the work you do for him or her. You can use that money to buy things you need like food. Money is a medium of exchange. It has symbolic meaning. If everyone decided tomorrow that the Canadian dollar was worthless, it would be worthless. It would look the same, but have no meaning. How important are symbols?

The truth is we are surrounded by symbols everyday, everywhere all the time. As a married man it is really easy to accidentally do something to symbolically offend my wife, or a friend or anyone. Symbols and symbolism are huge.

If you consider yourself a serious writer, you discount symbolism at your peril. Your personal writing is full of symbols both consciously put on the page and unconsciously. You may pick up a book and not be aware of it but it is there. One of the things I do as a writer is first be aware of the symbols I'm creating and working with and then deliberately develop and deepen them as the story goes. It makes my writing better. 

For me throwing something away because it has only symbolic meaning is incomprehensible. You don't have to believe like I do, but give me a better reason than that or don't give me a reason at all. 

*This article was first written on Bubblews. If you are interested in participating on that site my referral link is: http://www.bubblews.com/?referral=51f5bbc90f3fe9.59547344

Editing - Blind To My Own Mistakes

You just completed the first draft of your first novel and you thought you were done. Editing is hard work. It took me more man hours of work editing my first book "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie" than it took to write it. Worse like a lot of writers, I'm completely blind to a lot of my mistakes. I can have a sentence that makes absolutely no sense and can read it thirty times and not see anything wrong with it. Sometimes I need a little help (maybe a lot of help).

Never fear there is help out there and you can find it. It doesn't have to cost you anything if you are broke. That just might mean looking harder and being a little more patient. There are people who make money from editing. There are a couple things you can do without anyone else's help and that is where you should start.

First thing to do is take that wonderful rough draft of yours, put it away and forget about it for at least a couple weeks. While you've forgotten about it temporarily, write something else or educate yourself further about the nuts and bolts of writing. Look for resources online or at the library. After that you will see your work with fresh eyes and you'll be ready to start working it over.

Before I go into a massive edit, I like to get feedback from some fellow writer friends. Online or local writing communities and groups can be great for this. I am at times quite active on Writing.com and Book Junkies on Facebook. It is a give and take deal, so you better be prepared to give back. Friends in those types of places can make a big difference. I have one friend from Writing.com named Glenda who loves the characters I write and has reviewed a great deal of my work just because she likes it. She's good too. She now works as a freelance editor/writer at Literature Editing by Glenda.  She is the only person I know who has perfect grammar and punctuation throughout her rough draft writing. I wish I could do that. She tells me she wishes she could create characters as real and compelling as mine. Everyone has different strengths.

I'm lucky to have my own in home writing group. I have four children with writing aspirations and I do have them critique my work.

Once I've gathered everything together I go to work. I look at every criticism and comment and consider it. Especially the ones I disagree with or that have somehow hurt my delicate feelings. Those are often the ones that make me better. I am probably my own worst critic granted I'm sure some troll will eventually come along and help me out on that one. 

It's tough work. Sometimes painful work but if you want to be a serious writer it has to be done. I think publishers know if you've made the effort to pay your dues.

*This like some of my other posts was first published on Bubblews. I write there for practice and fun. Once in a while there is something like this that I think has enough merit to be added here.

Passed a Couple of Milestones

I submitted my first redemption on Bubblews today. We'll see how long it takes for the payment to come through. I don't have any doubt they pay. Plenty of friends there have been earning payout regularly. Still was nice to get to that point. That means I have already earned more there than I ever did in my entire Mylot career.

I could have posted and boasted about this achievement on Bubblews and I know that a lot of people would have hit comment and like on it. I just don't really feel comfortable about getting paid for what I regard as a garbage post. I'm surprised they allow it.

Another recent milestone was reaching 5000 views on Writing.com. That really doesn't seem like such a big deal when I see how fast views are piling up on Bubblews but it is a different format with a different purpose. I don't get paid there but I get a lot of peer feedback on my writing. Something I can't get enough of.

I did let the kids borrow my review template from that site for doing their own reviews. Being more naturally computer savvy than their old dad, Mieke and Andrew both have more visually appealing templates after they personalized it. I might get them to help me spruce mine up. I'm starting to feel a little bit jealous.

My blog here is inching closer to one thousand visitors. What I'm proud of is that my page views here is two and a half times that. That means that visitors are looking around the site when they visit. I find that encouraging. Makes me feel like I'm doing something right on this blog.

Still working on Rat in the Shadows. Dealing with quite a bit of turmoil in my personal life but I still hope to have something worth submitting to my publisher this fall.

Why I Write On Bubblews

http://www.bubblews.com is a social networking website where the posters get paid for their posts. I have three reasons for participating there and yes one of them is the fact that they pay me for my work.

Within the basic rules of the site you can write whatever you want. As long as you stay within the rules, you will get paid. You can claim your payout as soon as your bank within the site reaches twenty-five dollars. Some members can do that in a week. I don’t have a great deal of time to devote to the site so I’m happy if I can reach payout once in a great while. I don’t view my time spent here as a job, so the money is really a bonus. There is one big caution when it comes payout. When you submit for payout, if even one of your posts breaks the rules your balance will go back to zero and you will not be paid. Follow the rules and you will earn money. I don’t feel sorry for anyone who didn’t get paid because they didn’t follow the rules. The rules are listed in your bank when you get your account. They are reasonable and straightforward. Make sure you read and understand them before you start.

The rate of pay is a complex calculation but from experience, I’m getting about a penny for every view, like, share, post and comment on my posts. You don’t get paid for commenting on other member’s work but if you expect them to pay any attention to your work you need to pay attention to theirs.

That brings me to the social aspect of the site. I migrated to Bubblews from another paid posting site called Mylot. I was over there for years and developed a core of good solid Internet friends. Mylot decided to stop paying and just be a social site. We all left because not only did the money dry up but so did the social part we were enjoying. Arriving together at Bubblews had its advantages. We did our best to help each other find our feet in a new environment.

On Bubblews it is important to “connect” with other members. Connecting means you get notifications every time your friends post, comment on your posts, comment on your comments, one of your posts or comments are liked and whenever another member mentions you in a post. Notifications are the one real sore spot for me with this site. Because I’m not always on, the sheer volume of notifications overwhelms me. Administration will eventually deal with this I’m sure because I’m not the only one who has issues with it. I short-circuit the problem right now by creating a bookmark folder with my faithful Internet friend’s profile links. This way when I do have time to spend on the site I can first go and catch up with everyone. After that I go wading through my notifications. I’ll connect with anyone who connects with me.

My third reason for being on the site is to practice my writing. It gives me an excuse to write small pieces on a variety of topics. Whatever pops into my head that doesn’t fit into my regular writing goes there. Keeps me producing work in spite of an extremely restricted schedule. A lot of the articles I write for my personal writing blog often get published on Bubblews first. After all, I get paid.

Anyone reading this who is not already a member of Bubblews, I would be happy to refer you. I get paid for that too. Here’s the link:  http://www.bubblews.com/?referral=51f5bbc90f3fe9.59547344  Incidentally I write there under the user name koopharper.

Jack Reacher vs Mark Rathman

After reading my first novel, one of my siblings said that Mark Rathman reminded her a bit of Jack Reacher. I have not read any of Lee Child’s work at this point so curiosity made me go look online. Based on a Wikipedia article, I’ve noticed that there are some similarities.

First and foremost both characters stand six feet five inches tall. Mark is lighter at 225 pounds. Reacher was listed as being somewhere between 220 and 250 pounds. He is listed as having a fifty-inch chest. I’m six foot five and have a forty+ inch chest and weigh in at a lean 210. Unless Reacher has no legs he has to be closer to 250. Both men have very little body fat, well-muscled natural physique and abnormally quick reflexes. Both men have a bullet scar on their chest although Mark didn’t start “Let Sleeping Dogs Lie” with one. He earned it along the way. Mark has dark hair and dark eyes while Reacher has ice blue eyes and dirty blond hair.

Their backgrounds are significantly different but similar. Reacher was raised in a military family and was trained by the military. Mark on the other hand came from a civilian police family and acquired his skills through special training and from his father.

Personalities are completely different. Reacher is very aggressive while Mark is only as aggressive as he has to be in a given situation. I get some of this from the article in Wikipedia but also from a few movie clips I watched. As a side note the movie may not be much of a reflection of the books. Keep in mind that Reacher is played by Tom Cruise who is not a very physically imposing individual. As an example I refer to the five on one fight scene outside a bar. Young lady asks to share a table with Reacher. He talks in riddles to her and insults her to provoke the fight. Mark would have never gotten into that one. Complete waste of his time and abilities. Both men share a like for blues.

Last similarity is that both men are “ghosts”. Reacher is a drifter and just keeps moving around while Mark has alter egos since birth that he maintains. They both have a knack for disappearing into crowds.

So who would win in a head to head confrontation? I’m biased but I think Mark would win and I have a solid reason for thinking so. Reacher I believe has a clear strength advantage and his aggressiveness may give him another small edge. I think their marital arts skills and reflexes would cancel each other out. Where Mark has a clear advantage is with knives. Reacher doesn’t like facing an opponent with knives. Mark is an expert with his k-bar and double ended daga as well as a few throwing knives. On that basis I tip the scale strongly in favour of the hero I created.

My apologies to Lee Child, I expect to read one of your books someday. I suspect I would like them just because. I give my character the edge but you have a whole series out there and a movie based on one of your books. I’m just recently published. We know who has the edge in this standoff. Heck, you’re probably an expert in the use of the coma.

Things That Amuse Me And Things That Baffle Me

I don't know why but I love statistics. I like to peruse the background statistical information from my Blogger account. I can't help it. I go there almost everyday. Same with my writing dot com account. Yesterday I noticed that I got referral page views from something called thetaoofbadass. Does that sound cool or what? I like to think that my character from my first novel, Mark Rathman, rates badass.That would have been such a cool connection. I ruined everything by going to visit the site. Turned out to be some instructional video about picking up women. I have no idea how that connects to anything I wrote,

There is one other statistic connected to this url that baffles me. All the page views came from Russia. This wouldn't be strange as a one off incident but I get a lot of views from Russia consistently. Why? I only have one friend on Facebook who has any connection to Russia. I can't even blame this on her. We only reconnected as friends recently and this phenomenon has been going on since the beginning. I don't mind, in fact, I'm delighted. At least someone is paying attention to my writing. I just don't understand the connection. Why is Russia a solid number three behind Canada and the United States? Cheers to all my Russian readers. I'm glad you're finding something here you like.

Writing dot com gave me another winner recently. I posted as story I wrote a very long time ago called "Way to Go Barstow!" A very poorly written tongue in cheek children's story. I posted it hoping to get some feedback on it before contemplating a rewrite. It's about an obese young boy whose weight problem turns him into a super NHL goaltender and ends Toronto's ongoing Stanley Cup drought. Someone found that story on bing by searching proper+fit+goalie+pads. I'm sorry I laugh about that every time it crosses my mind.

Writing Took A Backseat For More Than A Month

Way too much going on the last month plus to get many entries made here. Started the month trying to have a painful kidney stone dealt with medically. It worked but it was a long excruciating process. Took a lot out of me. That wasn't the only issue for the month. We also moved the whole family to another home. That was another whole adventure. The move was finished two weeks ago but the Internet wasn't fully functional here until last evening. There is still lots of work ahead of me and more pain from sciatica but things are heading back to normal. I look forward to making this blog a place worth visiting.

Anyone Can Write a Book Review

Why bother writing a review at all? Why not just leave it to professionals, who get paid to write reviews? Writing reviews about books you have read that you like will help promote the writer. Believe me they appreciate it. Not only that your review may encourage someone to read a book that they will enjoy or on the other hand help them avoid a book that would be a waste of time and money for them. Professional reviewers have opinions and so do you. Your opinion is just as valid as theirs. As an author, I try to write my books for people who enjoy the stories I write NOT professional reviewers. If my readers buy and enjoy my stories I’m happy. I care what they think. Don’t get me wrong. I want the pros to be impressed but they aren’t my primary audience.

There is only one prerequisite required for writing a book review. You have to read the entire book. Sounds like a no brainer, but the fact is that there are a significant number of reviews written where the reviewer not only didn’t read the whole book, some of them didn’t read any of it at all. As a reviewer that is not fair to the author, your audience or yourself.

So how do you go about writing that review? Here are the basic steps I go through when writing mine.

1)      Read the entire book.

2)      Think about what you liked and what you didn’t like for a couple of days. You’ll write a better review if you give it that time. On the other hand if you drag it out longer you’ll be procrastinating instead of just letting your thoughts organize themselves.

3)      Start writing. Some reviewers will write a thorough synopsis of the book. I don’t. I only write enough to make my observations clear. Why take the magic of discovering the story from your audience? 

4)      Cover the things you liked about the book first. Be honest.

5)      If you have criticisms to offer make sure you are honest and fair. I try to temper mine knowing that my opinion is just an opinion and I might be wrong.

6)      Finish with your recommendations.

It is as simple as that. I’ve never publicly trashed someone’s writing online because of step number one. If the book was that bad, I would not have finished reading it. I have better things to do with my time. If I read the whole book, there was enough good there, in my opinion, for it to receive a positive review. Besides that I don’t see myself as some kind of literary executioner looking for authors to shoot down.

If you’ve read a book lately, go for it. Write a review. Tell everybody what you think. You might lead people to enjoy a good book. You might also make an author’s day.

I'm Officially Published.

Time for only a brief note here. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie is now available for purchase through Amazon. Right now only the Kindle version is available. It will be available as a paperback as well. This is all new for me so I'm not sure how long that will take to be available as well. I will ask my publisher but not tonight. I still have a regular job and I start bright and early tomorrow morning.

A sample is available at this link here: http://www.freado.com/book/15501/Let-Sleeping-Dogs-Lie

To purchase the book the link on Amazon is: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00D001MOK
Have a link for the United Kingdom as well: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00D001MOK/ref=tsm_1_fb_lk

Link for paperback edition: http://www.amazon.com/Let-Sleeping-Dogs-Pico-Triano/dp/0615823939

InknBeans says it should be available through most online bookstores like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Apple before the week is out. Press releases have been sent out in New Brunswick and to the Toronto Star.

Hope all my readers enjoy the book!

The Convoluted History Of My Penname

It started with a science fiction book idea with the working title “Squadron 289”. The book never got past the first chapter to this point in time. Pico was created as a sassy hot-tempered female starfighter pilot. I gave her the family name Triano because it rolled off the tongue. Her name was short for Piccolo, a name given her by her father. She hates it and won’t let anyone call her that.  She was a long black-haired sharp-tongued beauty. The book got shelved but her character took on a life of her own.

While I was still kicking the story around in my head, my children discovered online role-playing games: Specifically Runescape. I started playing with them in an effort to kill two birds with one stone. Pico seemed well suited to the role of discovering what kind of people my kids would be dealing with especially my daughter. This also would give me a chance to interact as one of the book characters I created theoretically improving my writing while screwing around online. Incidentally I did create three other characters from that story on Runescape for the same purpose. Whether it really taught me anything is a matter of debate.

Still not done with her. I found work online writing forum content and needed both male and female pseudonyms to maximize my earning potential on the site. Pico quickly filled the role again. To stay in character I wrote up a fictional contemporary profile for her. I kept her basic appearance and personality and gave her a hometown. As per her profile she worked in a call centre (poor thing) and lived in Pierrefonds, Quebec. She remained drop dead gorgeous but had a very unfortunate looking birthmark high on her right calf, which looked like something unsavoury dropped out of her shorts. Her full name became Piccolo Viola Triano, a play on pvt being short for private.

For some reason people react more positively to this particular name than any other pseudonym I’ve written under over the years (and there have been many). I do not understand why. I’m not one to fight something that just plain works and so when joining www.writing.com Pico Triano officially became my penname.

Pico is actually a masculine name but it doesn’t really matter. I am in fact a man but I don’t have any qualms about writing from either perspective. My favourite avatar shows Pico in her original incarnation with a chameleon tattooed on her shoulder. I think as a writer I need to be a bit of a chameleon to get inside the heads of the many characters that I need to create to make stories come alive. 

My first novel gets released on Saturday. I’ll begin trumpeting the news all over Facebook and anywhere else I can think of late that evening. I hope my readers like my work. It’s been an exciting wild ride to this point.

New Contact Pico Page Added

In advance of the release of my first novel at the end of this week, I have added my resident writer email from InknBeans Press to my blog here. I'm not sure what to expect here as a newly published author, but I would enjoy hearing what my readers think. The page is listed in the pages list in the righthand column. The email address is Pico@inknbeans.com.

My Personal Dream Home

A week from now, I will achieve a dream that I've held since childhood. Getting my first novel published is a monumental achievement for me. The realization of that dream may give me the means to fulfil some other dreams of mine. If the book does very well it could give the financial means to move forward to owning our own home again.

What I want in a home is a place in the country two to ten acres. A place where we can hobby farm the way we had begun in Ontario. More importantly, it needs to be a place where I can have a small woodshop where I can do my woodturnings and other creative projects. We couldn't do that in Ontario. Frankly the real estate agent who sold us the property in Ontario misrepresented it to us. I'm not very trusting in that regard anymore. I believe I have the ability and the work ethic to make a decent living between my woodworking and writing on my own piece of dirt. This dream is not completely selfish. Such an arrangement would allow my wife to pursue her artwork with less day to day stress. Would also provide us with the means to help our children to move forward. We've hit a lot of snags along the way but the dreams are not dead. I'm still breathing after all.

Release Date For LSDL Announcement

I sent back my last round of editing and now have a release date. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie will be released by InknBeans Press May 25, 2013. At that point it will be available for purchase online through websites like Smashwords, Amazon.com and others. Better get after the sequel now.

Camp NaNoWriMo Success!

Congratulations are in order for my three participating children. Mieke completed her manuscript "Shadow Alliance". Andrew finished his called "The Lost Medallion". Finally Brandon completed his first book manuscript ever with "Galdathor: Legacy of the Lost King". I got seriously derailed. My goal wasn't to complete a full manuscript but to finish one I already started. Too much life got in the way of my efforts. Between housing concerns, kidney stone pain and work on LSDL, I just didn't get it done. Progress was made though so I'm not complaining. Next Camp NaNoWriMo is in July. We will all likely try to participate again.

NaNoWriMo is a terrific organization that promotes the art of writing. It has led to a lot of new published writers. Personally I am not in a position to make a direct financial donation. There are things that anyone can do to help whether you are a participant or not. If the urge strikes you take a look at the following link: http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/donatingwhenbroke. Since myLot no longer pays me to use their search engine, I will be using the GoodSearch one that donates to NaNoWriMo. As a writer I do a lot of researching online. It's great that worthy cause can benefit alongside me. I would add them as a search option here on my blog but I haven't figured out whether that can be done or not.

For those interested in reading the material my children have produced, right now you're out of luck. They don't maintain online portfolios like I do (I can't afford that either). They also haven't created their own writing blogs like I have. Not to worry. Sooner or later at least Mieke will do all those things. My portfolio is maintained on www.writing.com.  I earn my upgraded membership there by doing a considerable amount of review work for other writers. I've never actually shelled out any money there. It is a lot of work though and I just don't have the time to earn enough points for all of them.

The End of MyLot As We Know It

I joined myLot about a year ago for the second time. Primary purpose was not to make money but to support my wife who hoped to make a few dollars online and improve her written English. She made payout once and then more or less let it slide. Me, on the other hand, established some friendships and made some money while enjoying my time there. For the last few months I'd been considering writing an article on how to make money on that site and push for referrals. I figured with a little effort I could easily make the ten-dollar payout each month and more. Why not? I was having fun. Can’t write that article anymore. MyLot has been revamped and they dropped the part where they pay for participation. My last payout will be the middle of this month and then nothing. Will myLot survive? I'm pessimistic.

There were a lot of good reasons to participate on myLot and I can't say that money was the main reason I was there. It was an important reason though. From the responses my friends had to this change, I'd say it was an important reason for everyone. Like myself most of them will sort of stick around because of their friends but won't put a lot of effort into participation. Well if members aren't participating much the site is going down the toilet. I'll go back. Probably even make a rare post here and there. I want friends there to know when my first book is released. After that though I expect my participation there to slowly dwindle to nothing. My real friends will come and visit my blog here or find other ways to contact me. I don't really need much more than my link sitting there in my myLot profile. If they can’t find that, then they aren't too worried about staying in touch. Money is not the main reason for being on the site but without the money all the other reasons I had will be greatly diminished. Can they survive removing a primary driver for participation and remain the same? There comes a point where my limited time is better spent somewhere else.

For my many friends on the site, I still look forward to hearing from you. A few of you are already friends on Facebook or www.writing.com. I've exchanged emails with others and by all means drop me a line. If another site is created to take up where myLot left off, let me know. I'd be happy to devote some of my time to participate in something similar. It’s sad that a site I really enjoyed felt the need to make this type of a drastic change. See you while I lurk around the Internet.

Cover Art For LSDL

Inknbeans Press posted the cover art selected for my book on Facebook and labelled it coming soon. Very big image but I'm putting it in here in full. Added links to some of the articles related to each other on the blog here. Trying to make it easier for readers to navigate to everything.

Making a new major character for Rat in the Shadows.

Sandy Middleton was a fun character to create and her creation illustrates techniques you may not actually need but might find useful. She predates the storyline of Rat in the Shadows and I wasn't even considering her for a part in a sequel to Let Sleeping Dogs Lie. I liked her character but had trouble coming up with a storyline where she was the sole star of the show. An idea for a first chapter for a sequel came to me during a brainstorming session with my children. I thought it was a good start and wrote down the first chapter to avoid forgetting the feel of it. A friend immediately spotted it on writing.com and egged me on until there were eight chapters. While Camp NaNoWriMo is not a smashing success for me this time around due to personal time constraints, I do have a rough outline in my head to the end of the story and another four and a half chapters written so far. That's a lot more than I started the month with.

This young heroine started out as an assignment for a children's book writing course through The Children's Literature Institute. I needed to observe a young person in action doing some activity and write a complete profile of my new character. I later had to put her in a short story. Our family had just moved a couple of times in rapid fire succession. We didn't know anyone where this could be accomplished easily. Especially considering we didn't have transportation besides our feet. Took me some real creative thought as to where to go for this. Robert J Ray in his book The Weekend Novelist recommends a similar exercise for creating new characters by the way that he calls "stranger in a room". I decided the best place to go would be the local arena. Maybe write about some young hockey player. The little outing turned out to be golden. For appearances sake I dragged the whole family along. Random middle aged men lurking around youth activities might attract unwanted attention. We stumbled on a figure skating class of children about the right age for my assignment.

I don't think we'd settled our rear ends on the wooden seats for more than five minutes before I spotted my character. Some boys but mostly girls skated around taking turns at different stations on the ice practicing various figure skating skills. Sandy was hanging out with a friend enthusiastically going through the different routines. The two girls were a complete contrast. Her friend was dressed in a special figure skating outfit and looked like she was having a difficult time staying warm. "Sandy" was wearing black ski pants, a purple sweatshirt and a purple scrunching holding her blonde hair in a medium length ponytail. She didn't look like a rich kid but she looked comfortable. She executed most of the skills without trouble. By the way she put her hands on her head after spins though it was obvious she was struggling with dizziness.

My children were into the process right along with me. We chatted back and forth while I made my notes. We had plenty of time to get all the material I needed to complete my assignment. It turned out to be a fun outing.

Once the assignments were done Sandy ended up filed away for future use. I think she ends up being a great fit for Rat in the Shadows

Related Articles and Links

Sneak Peek: Rat in the Shadows Chapter I
LSDL Character Development Part I
LSDL Character Development Part II
LSDL Character Development Part III
LSDL Character Development Part IV

Heavy Duty Week

Got my first installment of edits from InknBeans Press early in the week. For that reason I temporarily abandoned Camp NaNoWriMo. Can only do one thing at a time. Doesn't help that I've been feeling a little ill all week. Haven't given up. Just trying to keep my priorities in the right order. First priority is to see "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie" in print. Working on the sequel is definitely important. Meanwhile I still have to live in the real world.

The other three members of the family are on pace to complete their Camp NaNoWriMo novels. Kudos to all of them. If I can get rolling again, there is still time to get it done before the final bell. Another installment of edits are supposed to get here this weekend though so I not expecting to be standing in the winners circle at the end of the month. I am three more chapters closer to a sequel though. Word count puts me only a bit short of half a novel.

Making A Banner Ad For Advertising My Blog

I had a great deal of fun creating a banner to put on my profile on MyLot. I can use it elsewhere. It was actually fun and simple to do. For anyone interested in doing the same the website I used is advertised with the banner because I'm broke and only worked with the free tools. I like how it turned out.


Make your own banner at MyBannerMaker.com!

Granted I am incapable of leaving well enough alone, so I wasted a great deal of time trying to create one for one of the artists on my Friends and Family page tearing my hair out in the process. Using your own images is not that simple. I'm sure it's not that difficult for someone who knows what they are doing. I of course don't have a clue.

Please don't click on it. That could potentially mess with my websites stats. It'll bring you right where you already are.

Gearing Up For Camp NaNoWriMo

Last November we had four successful participants in NaNoWriMo in the family. April marks the beginning of Camp NaNoWriMo http://www.campnanowrimo.org and four of us have signed up and a fifth possible. My goal is not to write a completely new book, but rather turn "Rat in the Shadows" into a complete manuscript. I have eight chapters written. That's a really good start but it is not a novel. I think the story line is a winner in the same realm as my first book. People who like "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie" will likely like the new story. For me completing the camp will be a success as long as it doesn't interfere with getting the first book out there.

I am a little jealous of my daughter who can put a full manuscript in a month in her sleep. She finished NaNoWriMo last November in ten days. There was a write in late in the month at the local library and she sat there twiddling her thumbs because she was already done. One of my twin boys is going for his first manuscript (he's not in the picture but looks almost exactly like the blond young man next to me). His genre this time out will be steampunk. That should prove interesting. Great to have so many family members pulling for each other.

Added Link For eBook Software

I am grateful to my friend "An Indian" from my Book Junkies friends for leading me to this free software. I thought it would be useful to any of my readers. I have found it to be quite easy to use and have had no trouble with it. The website link should appear on the right hand side of this page underneath the list of pages for this blog. The page I have linked to should allow you to select the appropriate format and then download from there. Happy reading.

LSDL Character Development Part IV

There are a whole raft of secondary characters and they all got developed to one degree or another. I started off writing out complete profiles for all my characters before putting them in action in my book. At the start it did help especially with the main characters. I used a basic form which I saw in Robert J Ray's book The Weekend Novelist. Doing the background work helped. In all honesty for the minor characters of the book this process was over thinking things a little. A character who is going to be on the stage for short period of time doesn't really need hours of preparation before going on. NaNoWriMo style writing got me through a lot of the over thinking. Some of those lesser characters just got tossed in and I think they turned out just fine.

Related Articles and Links

Sneak Peek: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie Chapter I
Making a new major character for Rat in the Shadows
LSDL Character Development Part I
LSDL Character Development Part II
LSDL Character Development Part III

Odds and Ends

Got my first group email from InknBeans Press. It was exciting to see me and my book welcomed in the first paragraph. I've been describing my book as an action/adventure book with a strong romantic subplot. They described it as a noir mystery there. I start off with hero on the path for vengeance and justice and a heroine who is lured to a job which isn't quite what it was advertised to be. My bad guys are working together as organized criminals. I can see this. Guess the story has a little something in it for everyone.

I downloaded a copy of Kitty Sutton's latest book through Smashwords called Wheezer and the Shy Coyote. When I'm done reviewing it, there will be a new review written up here and submitted to some of the online bookstores. I do like her historical fiction built around Native American history. I'm also grateful for the work she put in to get me noticed by her publisher. I thought it was cool to get a mention in her acknowledgements at the beginning of the book.

InknBeans did get a picture of me for their website so it is probably only a matter of time before I post a picture of myself here as well. It's great to be a Bean.

LSDL Character Development Part III

The Villians

Mike Zapparoli, Serge Cote and Francois Rodrigues are bad bad bad. While I like to create more complex antagonists, I didn't make much effort to give these guys any likable characteristics. I was more interested in making them "real". Probably put as much time into developing these characters in profile as I did the hero and heroine. Dialog and actions had to realistically portray what a person in their line of work would be like.

Characters like them bring along a certain amount of violence and foul language. I tried my best to keep those things to a minimum. Most of the violence is "off camera". I don't think there is anything there that is unnecessary to the story. Realistically people of their ilk will cuss. They have much cleaner mouths than some of the people I encounter on a regular basis. These things are not the focus of this story and I won't be making that the focus of any future work. My goal is to tell a believable story not to shock or upset.

I don't want to give away too much information about my villains. Hopefully they will add the spice the story needs to make it exciting and interesting.


Related Articles and Links

Sneak Peek: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie Chapter I
Making a new major character for Rat in the Shadows
LSDL Character Development Part I
LSDL Character Development Part II
LSDL Character Development Part IV

LSDL Character Development Part II

Mark Rathman

I grew up reading spy novels, organized crime, adventures and more. In those types of stories false identities come up and this fascinated me just a bit. One of the problems with false identities is that they have history that goes back only so far and then becomes very vague or just doesn't exist. What if a person had multiple alter egos from birth or from very near the beginning of life? This would have to be some kind of second generation spy whose parents or some organization created these identities for him. How could such a person believably come into existence? This concept of a character kicked around in my head for years before any kind of story line developed to go along with it.

One night my wife and I were in bed kicking around story ideas and during that conversation I came up with the basic elements that turned into Let Sleeping Dogs Lie. It took a decade of learning about writing and then finding the discipline to put a first draft together. The book "The Weekend Novelist" by Robert J Ray was a big part of that process. Studying writing with The Children's Literature Institute also was a big help. Finally learning about NaNoWriMo and the idea behind it was the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place for me. All I needed was a spark. It just came to me. That spark was knowing where in all that pile of back story was the point where the book had to start. I knew the story had to start on the train where Mark and Christine meet. From there I wrote. The motives of these two characters propelled the story.

Mark is a lot like myself in a lot of ways. My intention was not to make a supercharged version of myself, but to have that much in common made it easier to get inside his head. We're the same height, we both played basketball, both do a lot of cycling and play harmonica. It made it easier to use my own experiences to breathe life into his character. We are significantly different as well. Outside of general size and build we don't look anything alike.

Mark's back story generated a complete first draft manuscript called "The Shadow Sleeps". That was my NaNoWriMo story for 2012. There is a novel length story in between the two manuscripts as well with a definable beginning middle and end. I am hoping to write that for Camp NaNoWriMo in April. Whether either of those get developed further hasn't been decided yet. I'm not sure creating a character that readers will like and then kill her off is such a good idea. I will likely bounce that thought off friends and fans here on this blog. I do have one solid vote for the yes side besides myself, but no decision either way is made at this point.


Related Articles and Links

Sneak Peek: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie Chapter I
Making a new major character for Rat in the Shadows
LSDL Character Development Part I
LSDL Character Development Part III
LSDL Character Development Part IV

LSDL Character Development Part I

LSDL is short for Let Sleeping Dogs Lie which is the title of the first novel I've written. It will be published soon. If all goes well it will be released early this spring. I did want to add some content to the site here that would give bits of information about writing this book. All my major characters started out as ideas and sort of evolved throughout the writing process. I thought it would be cool to go through some of the background of these characters for any interested readers.

Christine Jette

My heroine goes first even though she is not the main character of the book. She started out as a newspaper picture of a young lady from the eastern townships that disappeared while I was living in that part of the country. I found the picture compelling in a lot of ways. Petite, attractive, young, with an air of innocence about her. I don't think she or her body were ever found. As a Canadian I like to think of my country as being a relatively safe place to live. People like her do disappear though often tragically. Sometimes a body is found sometimes not. Sometimes the perpetrators of the crime come to justice, sometimes not. The picture haunted my thoughts. I kept that picture for quite awhile. Not sure what happened to it. Casting her as my heroine and finding a name for her was relatively easy. I did what a lot of writers do. I asked the question: What if? And I asked it over and over.

Her personality is based on a mixture of traits of real people I knew while living in the Eastern Townships. She's sweet and intelligent and a bit of a sucker at the beginning of the book. That's what gets her into frightening trouble. That trouble gets her tangled up in my hero's nightmare.

In my first draft, she started out naive to the point of coming across as stupid. It didn't suit her. Her motives and personality were strong though and she didn't behave while I was writing her. She kept trying to dominate the book. I had to sit her down and explain to her that Mark Rathman was the main character and she needed to behave herself. I also had to tell her that she could claim Mark for herself, but she was going to have to wait until the end of the story. Had to rip up and rewrite four or five chapters because of that. Novel ended up in a writer's block dead end because of it. Once she settled down I was able to finish that first draft. She easily ranks as the most difficult to control character in the whole cast.

There's lots more to say about her, but I don't want to give away much of the story.


Related Articles and Links

Sneak Peek: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie Chapter I
Making a new major character for Rat in the Shadows
LSDL Character Development Part II
LSDL Character Development Part III
LSDL Character Development Part IV

Blog Clean up.

Cleaned some garbage off the blog here. Now that I've figured all that out I can started adding more content. To come is details of how my book "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie" developed. I hope that it will give some inspiration to other aspiring novelists. Stay tuned.

Once I've added content that will make visiting worthwhile, I'll solicit friends and family to come and visit.

Another project is to work on the friends and family page. I will advertise for friends and family at no charge especially within the arts at my discretion of course. I'm blessed with a lot of talented friends and family that will make that page well worth visiting.

Signed Publishing Contract

Big news for me this week. Will give my writing a whole lot of impetus. Signed a publishing contract for my first novel "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie". I am looking forward to the process of final editing and all the other work this means for me. Now that I'm this far I'm hoping that the book sells well.

New Year, New Blogger, New Goals

Managed set a goal of making a post per week commitment to my writing blog here only to find that things have been shuffled around a bit in my absence. No big problem. They had a little video clip that got my on the right track. At least I know where the basics are and can create posts.

I am waiting for a contract to come in the mail from a publisher for "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie". If all goes well the book will be released in the early spring. Will annoy all my friends and acquaintances with that when it finally happens.

Writing goals for this year are to produce at least two more complete rough draft manuscripts for novels before the end of the year. That's pretty ambitious. I intend to do NaNo and Camp NaNo this year to do that.

The plan for the blog here at this point is to post something once per week. Probably do that Saturday evening providing my schedule with work and all don't get modified significantly. That is a big if. My job situation is not that stable.