Progress and Wisdom

I finished up edits on DEMON INC, which still ended up in the 78,000 word range. Over the weekend I started the third part in the YA Trilogy with 2,000 words, so it’s officially on to complete the series. 

The main reason for blogging today involves a joke:

 

A sixty-four year old man loved fishing. He sat casting his line in the water from his favorite pier, enjoying the day, when he heard a small voice cry out.

“Pick me up!”

The old guy looked around and didn’t see a single person near him. He thought he was dreaming, but then he heard the voice again.

“Pick me up!”

He glanced down at the water where a frog was floating on the surface. “Pick me up!”

“Are you talking to me,” the old guy asked, quite shaken.

“Yes. Pick me up, kiss me, and I will turn into the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen. I’ll make all your friends jealous because I will become your mistress!”

The old guy looked at the frog for a moment. He then carefully picked the frog up and put it in his pocket.

“Are you nuts?! What are you doing?! Didn’t you hear me? Kiss me and I will turn into a gorgeous woman and become your mistress.”

The old guy opened his pocket, meeting the little frog's questioning stare. “Nah… at my age, I’d rather have a talking frog.”

With age comes wisdom.  :)

DEMON INC

I finished the second part in my YA trilogy on Sunday afternoon. It was so much fun writing the thing, I hesitated to end it. There’s a lot to carry on into the third book, so I may launch into it before the editing is done on my second one, DEMON INC. The excitement following the chance to write ‘The End’ on a manuscript always is tempered by a reluctance to let go, knowing the next crucial step in the process is editing. Editing a manuscript a writer loved writing is a heck of a lot easier than editing one written for someone elses expectations though.

DEMON INC ended up going past my parameter of 75,000 words, which is the upper end length for a YA novel. The final scenes needed more than I had anticipated, and I couldn’t get them done without hitting nearly the 79,000 word mark. I’m certain it’ll get cut down somewhat by the time I’m through working it over. Yesterday was a good one. I played basketball for a couple hours in the morning and went home unscathed, washed and vacuumed my wife St. Joyce’s GMC, and then went swimming while listening to the ballgame. Then it was time to finish DEMON INC. After finishing the final battle scene and follow up ending, I read it to St Joyce. The ending cracked her up so I was happy. My paranormal pup Demon gets to do so much more in this because of a device I’d been waiting to add, the humor is tenfold – by my prejudiced opinion of course.

Anyway, that’s how I stretched out the final writing for DEMON INC on a very nice Sunday. I know this wasn’t like the Twitter burps and Facebook updates with descriptions of meals and drinks someone is having for dinner (it’s one of the funniest things about either of those venues). I swear if someone stubs their toe on a rock, they’ll whip out the camera-phone and upload a picture of the rock to FB, then Twitter ‘Ow… I stubbed my toe!’.  :)

LANCELOT Review!

I finally managed to get another wonderful, detailed REVIEW of my erotic/paranormal novel LANCELOT under my pen-name, Lee Whitney. My reviewer perceived everything I had hoped a reader would take away from the novel, including the humor and melancholy. The story behind my writing LANCELOT as an erotic/paranormal is kind of an interesting one. I wrote the novel originally as a straight up paranormal urban fantasy, bringing the Arthurian legend into modern times with a completely different turn of events. I installed Arthur as a smart ass eight year old to zing the other characters. One of the lines I gave him which has always been a favorite of mine that I repeated on the blog once or twice is Arthur’s reply to a rebuke he receives: “"I have a genius IQ, and now I'm teamed up with an Alzheimer's patient, a troll, and a beat-up hooker: all of whom screwed me a thousand years ago. Cut me some slack!"

When I finished the novel, I could not garner any interest from anyone. I sent out over fifty queries, highlighting the humor along with the legend – nothing… nada. At the same time, my friend Stacia Kane was doing a blog series entitled ‘Be A Sex Writing Strumpet’ which she eventually turned into a very well done offering on Amazon HERE. I decided to give LANCELOT an erotic turn using the tips I picked up from Stacia’s blog posts. It worked. Double Dragon’s erotic line Carnal Desires Publishing offered me a contract on my first query. My editor on it, a very helpful lady who introduced me to editing rounds, asked me to write in two more erotic scenes. At the time, I’d read many of my writing friends’ erotic romances and none of them incorporated that many scenes, but I added them, finished the editing rounds, and LANCELOT was published.

Then I sent it to all the erotic/romance reviewers my editor recommended and a few others I found in links from the other reviewers’ sites – nothing… nada. A reader on Amazon finally gave me a five star review, and my friend Charles Gramlich did a great review for me on it, but LANCELOT just never got off the ground. As I’ve explained to my marketing partner, RJ Parker, I haven’t a clue as to why anything sells or doesn’t sell. Anyway, if you would like to take a look at the detailed blog REVIEW at this lady’s very well done site, now you know how LANCELOT became a published erotic/paranormal.  :)

My Friend, Dave

Dave's again in the center with me on his right. We're coming into Alameda Naval Air Station after our first cruise.

Dave's the tall one in the center, with me one guy over on the right. We're at sea off the coast of Vietnam.

I'm in front, Dave's sitting next to me. We're in Hong Kong.

My shipmate for three years, Dave Elliott passed away of cancer. I knew him from the time I was nineteen years old. I will not forget him. Before the end of last year, I finally wrote down a story of an adventure we shared snorkeling in the Philippines. He enjoyed the hell out of it, because he remembered our near death encounter very well. I’m thankful I actually wrote it up for him to enjoy, after so many years of putting it off. It’s short, humorous, and true. He and I went on to share an apartment, scuba dive, and ride motorcycles all over. We kept in touch over the decades, and got together when we could. Facebook acted as our place to share pictures and videos over the last couple years. Dave enjoyed my Otter’s Point scuba diving videos, because he and I dove there so many times together. I can’t think of a better requiem than that old Clint Eastwood movie ‘Outlaw Josie Wales’ – ‘He was born in the time of blood and dyin’ and never questioned a bit of it. He never went back on his folks or his kind. I rode with him. I got no complaints’. Here's the story.

Once long ago in a galaxy far, far away I was stationed on board the aircraft carrier USS Ranger with my friend Dave Elliott, and a transient motley crew of five thousand others for three years. During our second cruise with the Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club, Dave spent some time back in the states going to C-School. They flew him out to join us in the Philippines where we were parked for some R&R before returning to the line. We went to Grande Island, the recreation spot owned by the Navy. It had a bar/restaurant, and all the beer, soda, and BBQ on the beach you wanted. You could check out sports gear, play short-hole golf, learn to sail, etc. They treated us right, having a place like that, and most of us took advantage of the opportunity. Dave and I were pretty competitive so we decided to mark his return to the Ranger Boat pleasure cruise by swimming around Grande Island with just masks and snorkels. We kept at about the hundred yard range from shore going around, where deeper waters meant more fish and less coral.

Dave was about fifty yards ahead of me as we were nearly three quarters of the way around. I glanced up occasionally to check my position and see if I could glimpse his snorkel sticking out of the water. I spotted him. He stood up out of the water on a rock outcropping, waving in a warning manner at me, pointing at the water. I couldn’t hear what he was shouting and continued toward him. Thinking back there wasn’t much else I could have done anyway. When I reached earshot, it turned out he was warning me about sharks in the water. Some of our shipmates were on shore fishing, and throwing the bloodied up fish back in the water, unknowing their catch and release endeavor acted as chum for unwanted visitors: sharks – lots of them.

Dave and I watched the groups of sharks spinning around crazily happy with their food discovery, knowing if we stayed in the deeper waters, we’d be bait soon. The water became shallow real quick. With around eighty yards still between us and the shore we had good news and bad news. Good news was the sharks didn’t like whipping around shredding themselves on the coral. Bad news was - neither did we. Without fins we couldn’t walk in without lacerating our feet on the razor sharp coral. We began threading our way back to shore in a direct manner immediately, picking a path allowing us to use finger tips and toes to propel us over the shallow coral bed. It was time consuming and we provided our own blood elixir to be washed out for shark appraisal.

When we finally reached shore, we started laughing, looking at each other. We looked like a couple of jigsaw puzzles with thin red coral cuts crisscrossing us from top to bottom. We adjourned to the showers and then found something with alcoholic content for medicinal purposes. I figured Dave and me aren’t getting any younger so now would be a good time to get the story down of how we managed to become shark bait for a day and lived to tell about it.  :)

Rest in peace, Brother.

2003 Kia Optima

In HARD CASE news, two more five star reviews went up, so at least I’m getting some feedback. Please take a look at it and give the very nice reviewers a YES for helpful. 67,000 words done in DEMON INC, so I’m shooting for the 70,000 word mark by Monday. Then it will be day to day until the end, 75,000 is the upper mark for YA novels. DEMON was a little over 77,000. I figure on this one to hit the 77,000 mark and then trim it during editing. It’s always exciting drawing to the close of a new novel. Now, on to the automotive Twilight Zone entry.

My across the street neighbor Fred had three banditos sledgehammer his front door in and shoot off six shots before Fred’s barking dogs drove them off. No one was hurt, thank God. It looks like another cycle of released parolees gone wild for the neighborhood. That explains the tagging incident increase.

I was in the back writing on DEMON INC when a tow truck backed a 2003 Kia Optima into my driveway uninvited. It’s not the tow truck driver’s fault I’m not informed. He unloads the Kia, telling me the customer will be in shortly. It’s a good thing I don’t have a shop full of cars because someone would be heading for the street, and it wouldn’t be my appointments. I’ve never seen this particular Kia before so I knew it must be a new customer.

A guy comes jogging in, looking like he had been posing for Backyard Bob Magazine: greasy tennis shoes, coveralls, hands, and face. He’s about my height, weight I’d guess at about two hundred. If I do whatever needs done on the Kia, I’ll have to build in an extra twenty minutes for cleaning whatever Bob deposited. Like I’ve pointed out, it’s a rough economy. BB smiles at me, sticks out his hand, realizes it’s got a layer of dirt, and pulls it back.

“Sorry, I don’t want to give you that. I’ve been working on this car for a neighbor. It cranks but won’t start. I have a code reader but it won’t communicate. Can you give me a hand with it? The lady doesn’t have much money.”

“That will probably be a problem. I can do a diagnostic check on it and tell you why it won’t start.” I give him my fee, which is easily fifty dollars under any of the reputable places in town. He goes into shock, mouth open, and hands waving.

“Just to look at it?!”

I love this set up, because still after well over thirty-seven years in the trade I get a kick out of my snappy answer to the ‘Just to look at it’ question. I glance at the Kia. “Looking at it’s free. Finding out why it doesn’t run isn’t. I’ll tell you something else that we need to get clear. I am not the bank, nor the welfare department. If I ran my business as if I was, my doors would have been closed decades ago. Another thing is I can’t take an authorization from you on any major repair. I get that from the owner. You can pay the diagnostic fee up front in cash and that would be all right. If any of what I’ve explained doesn’t work for you, I’ll help you push it out on the street.”

Bob’s stunned. “Couldn’t you steer me in the right direction?”

“How? You do understand this isn’t a magic shop, right? I have to do tests in order to write estimates for repair.”

“I’ll have to come back with the money for the check. I hope you can fix it for that price.”

I do too. “I doubt it, but I will if I can.”

I write down the actual customer data on an invoice from the car registration before going back to writing. BB comes in with the money and I give him a copy of the diagnostic estimate after getting the customer’s phone number. I push the Optima over and get started. BB’s right. No communication with my scanner. Check fuses and find a burned out 15 amp one. I put my test lamp across the terminals with the blown fuse removed. There’s no short with just the key on, so I hook up my scanner again with a new fuse and I get communication. There’s a PO335 – crank angle sensor code. I then take the fuse out and crank it. It’s making a bad sound.

After removing a few things I find out the timing belt on the balance shaft broke and wiped out the crank angle sensor and wiring. BB is not going to be happy. I phoned the real customer to give her the bad news. She asked that I do the job at cost. I said no. She asked for credit. I said I don’t do that, but I do take credit cards. She says she’ll call me back. BB arrives ten minutes later to see what the hell costs so much. I took him through it.

“Can you loan me a shop manual. I need to do this to help the lady out.”

“First off no, I don’t loan anything out. Secondly, I have everything on the computer. Another thing I have to warn you about. If you tear into this and screw up, find somewhere else to take it afterwards. I don’t do the patch ups anymore after someone else. Make sure if you decide to do it, buy a real manual and have the proper tools.”

“Well shit!” BB stumbles around in a circle for a moment. He looks back at me with his arms folded over his chest. “Are you a Christian, Sir?”

I’ve been asked this before. I don’t like having my religious beliefs thrown in my face when someone wants a free ride on my back. I smile. “No, I’m a lion.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“If you have to ask then you don’t need to know. If you’re not paying for this job in cash up front, please go back to your neighbor and find out what she’d like to do.”

BB started to bristle up.

“Look Bob, don’t say anything that’s going to get both you and the Kia thrown out of here. Go back to the lady and have her call me.”

A half hour after that Ms. Kia called and gave me the go ahead. I finished it yesterday and called her to come in. A middle aged lady arrived, dressed to the nines. I won’t even bother with a description.

“Look,” she pleads in the office, “can I give you half now, and come back next week with the rest?”

“Sure, but the car stays here until you come back with the rest.” I’ve been working in East Oakland for thirty-six years. The vegetable truck I fell off of left a long time ago.

Ms. Kia glanced at my Vulcan Death Stare, sighed, and took out a credit card. “Fine, here.”

I looked over the card. “Driver’s license please.”

“What do you need that for?”

“I don’t really, because I saw your real name on the registration. This is not your card. If you don’t have a credit card with your name on it that matches a valid California Driver’s license, I’ll have to ask you to get cash.”

We had a stare down again. She pulled out an envelope from her purse and shoved it at me. “Here.”

It was the exact amount for the job in cash. I marked her invoice paid, and gave her the keys and receipt. “Thank you.”

“I’m never bringing any business in here again… ever!” Ms. Kia swiveled out the office door, over to the Kia, got in and slammed the door with the proper amount of outrage. Lucky for her I’m not Backyard Bob. The Kia started right up and out she went.

Like my old boss, Norris Nilson used to say, “now we got it fixed, now we get paid.”

Amen.  :)