Monthly Archives: December 2015

2015: The Final Look Back

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How do you sum up a whole year and not make it sound like a Bragging List? Well, if you’re me, you do it very carefully and change the names to protect the innocent. 😉

The seeds of 2015 were actually sown in late 2014 when I approached Amazon with three orphaned novelettes needing a home. I stumbled, fumbled, made some mistakes and then eventually found my footing with the whole self-publishing thing. This is by no means a comprehensive history.

January 2015 started with me pulling Corona, The Three Safeties, and Vessel from publication, retooling them and giving them nicer covers and then re-releasing them in their final form as they are today.

February: The rewrite for Parallax resumed, one that took me through to September while juggling the Day Job and various other personal issues while I sorted out how I was going to manage the business side of my writing endeavors.

March: Turned 48, not a big deal there. More work on Parallax while fending off well-intentioned friends and some family who were trying to get me to give up the “little writing thing” and use my abilities to get a “real job”. Lots of head shaking that month.

April: Started focusing more on the blog at this point. Hey, writing is writing and it allowed me to take breaks from the Parallax Rewrite.

May: Not much happened this month, except I remember working at the Day Job more than what my posted schedule would have indicated at the time. Isn’t that the way of things?

June: More rewriting, more experimenting with marketing and improving book sales. Not my cup of tea but what can you do?

July: This was the month where the blog started to really pick up because I began posting 4-5 articles a day. What an improvement.

August: More articles about Corona, The Three Safeties, and Vessel this month plus more general articles about you know…stuff…

September: Parallax is finally finished and released. I was very proud to get that done and released. Turned my attention to Lights and Shadows in hopes of getting it done by the end of December.

October-December: More work on Lights and Shadows, but when Real Life interrupts, you have to pay it some attention. Figured out what my motto for 2016 while preparing goals for the new year and getting the practicals in order. Decided that this New Years’ there would be no resolution.

Well, that’s it. 2015 in a quick summary. Obviously, the details are better laid out in earlier blog articles, but that does the job for my purposes. Have a safe New Year Celebration and I will see you guys on the other side bright and early on January 1. 🙂

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2016 Writing Goals

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As the end of 2015 approaches, I find myself scrambling to set goals, make new schedules, and basically clear the decks before 2016 makes its appearance.

One of the important things that I have been putting the finishing touches on is what to write and publish next year. I wanted to finish Lights and Shadows before 12/31, but there just wasn’t enough time to devote to it (distractions such as The Day Job being what they are) so I find myself having to revise next year’s time table.

2016 Writing Goals:

1) Write and publish at least one (1) book for the year in addition to finishing Parallax Trilogy.

2) Work on improving the quality of the book covers.

3) Find more effective ways to market the books.

4) Be more active in the Writing Community.
Of course, the beauty of goals are that they can be adjusted at will and this list will probably go through a few revisions once the new year gets here, but that’s about it. Of course, I’ll still be updating the blog on a daily basis because it’s become such a habit now…hehe.

Plugging Back In

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I wasn’t planning on coming back before the beginning of the New Year, but I’ve been receiving messages asking why I seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth so I’m ending The Unplug a few days early. Truth to tell, I was missing you guys so here we are.

I’ve been doing the Unplugs for about two years now and each time, I learn something new from the experience. This time around, it became apparent to me that when online interactions take up so much of my daily routine and is then removed, that it leaves a void that is difficult to fill even with more Writing.

I’ve also been missing the grind, the fast daily pace when it never seems that I have enough time to accomplish what I feel needs to get done and more idle time on my hands doesn’t seem to help much. I apparently thrive under pressure…hehe.

The Annual Holiday Unplug

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Every year, about this time, I go through a ritual where I go offline to get ready for Christmas. Usually I do it about a week before but this year I’ve decided to go a little early because I need to recover more time for my writing that’s been stolen away by my day job.

What does this mean?

Well, it means that I won’t be updating the blog or dealing with social media like Facebook and Twitter until after New Year’s Day, which isn’t a bad thing because I should have lots of new topics built up by then. I’ll still be reachable through email. I’m not a hermit, just busy trying to get Lights and Shadows finished before Father Time rips up my calendar. 🙂

Until then, Friends, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year beforehand and I will see you in 2016! 🙂

Strange New World: George Pal’s THE TIME MACHINE (MGM 1960)

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The best of all the H.G. Wells Adaptations and my personal favorite.

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George Pal (1908-1980) made movies full of wonder and imagination. The Hungarian born Pal got his start in film by creating “Puppetoons”, stop-motion animated shorts that delighted audiences in the 1930s and 40s (my personal favorites are JOHN HENRY and TUBBY THE TUBA). Some of these featured the character Jasper, a stereotyped black child always getting in some sort of trouble. Pal saw Jasper as closer in spirit to Huckleberry Finn than Stepin Fetchit, but by 1949 he  abandoned the “Puppetoons” altogether to concentrate on producing features, beginning with THE GREAT RUPERT, a Christmas fantasy starring Jimmy Durante. Pal produced a string of sci-fi hits in the early 50s (DESTINATION MOON, WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, WAR OF THE WORLDS, CONQUEST OF SPACE), and began directing his films with 1958’s “tom thumb”. Having had his biggest success with the H.G. Wells adaptation WAR OF THE WORLDS, Pal produced and directed another Wells classic, the sci-fi/fantasy masterpiece THE TIME…

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