Promotedness, Copasetic, and Glaukenstucken

From what I’ve read in publishing, author, and reader forums, a lot of folks utilize the “Liked” counter when making their decisions to purchase books at Amazon. It seems to me that the people so influenced would be the ones who arrive at my book’s Amazon page after searching for books of a certain genre. In my case, they might be searching at goodreads or Library Thing or Amazon or the like for genres or subgenres such as mystery, thriller, suspense, or romantic suspense, or niches such as serial killer or high quality murder books destined for decades of greatness.

If you have read By the Light: A Novel of Serial Homicide and liked it or have not yet read it but would like to help promote it, I am providing the following guide to register your “promotedness.” (I like to make up at least one new word for nearly everything I write. Who knows? One day I might earn reference in the Merriam-Webster for a word such as copasetic, meaning “very satisfactory” and often erroneously attributed to Bill Robinson (AKA Mr. Bojangles) or glaukenstucken, meaning “feelings of guilt for having had previous feelings of schadenfreude and fictitiously attributed to the Melanie Lynskey’s character, Rose, on the TV sitcom, Two and a Half Men.)

To exercise your “promotedness,” go to this address:

http://www.amazon.com/Light-Novel-Serial-Homicide-ebook/dp/B004IK9BI0/

Then click on the “Liked” button at the right of the 4.5 stars and the link to 11 customer reviews. You can see the orangish button with the thumbs-up icon on it in the example below
Your kind assistance with the promotion of my novel will be most earnestly appreciated. Please have a lovely day on me.

A History of Lies

Many of you have heard or read my rant about that lying rag, The Weekly Reader. They sold that trash to us when I was in school. Some of my teachers would use the arrival day each week to fill something close to half of the school day. It took years to determine, but the facts make it obvious that facts were not necessarily The Weekly Reader's stock in trade.

Let me rehash and update my rant:

They told me that I would spend my adult years driving a hovercraft, that a four-day workweek would be the norm during my years of employment, and that Prince Charles would be the King of England. As you can see, their batting average ain't too hot on these three items.

The façade of truth continues to deteriorate. A few years ago, it was determined by astronomers that though Pluto still has full status at Disney, not so much in the universe. So we dropped from nine planets to eight. Just recently, it has been reported by astrologists that the periods of birth associated with the twelve houses of zodiac have been incorrect all of these years. My daughter, Erin, who is an esteemed educator, reminded me I needed to be agitated about that one.

Now there are rumblings in mathematical circles that pi might not be a number on which we can hang our hats. (Link to article about math dudes who want to dump pi for tau.)  Instead, they say, we should worship the square of pi, a number bearing the new moniker, tau. Well, excuse me, but if pi ain't right, why should multiplying it times itself make it better. Isn't that sort of like saying that two wrongs make a right. I have always had a problem with pi anyway, because they say it is square, as in "pi r squared." All who are Southern by the grace of God know that pie are not square, pie are round. Cornbread are square.

In summary, given the continual surfacing of falsehoods, I'm beginning to think that The Weekly Reader might be a front organization for politicians. We all know how devoutly they embrace the truth. What do you think?

We’re talkin’ masterpieces here.

On Saturday, Suzie and I went to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Though we are highly cultured people, we don’t hang out in art galleries just every day. On this particular day, we were witness to absolute masterpieces.

Our first stop at the Nelson was the display of Dr. James A. Naismith’s Original Thirteen Rules of Basket Ball. There they were in simplistic splendor. The two pages were mounted and described on an adjacent museum tab that spoke of typed ink and hand lettering on paper in the same way such tabs describe paintings as oil on canvas or oil on wood. Do these rules belong in an august art venue such as this? Of course they do. They are every bit as much the product of a creative human mind as the Mona Lisa. They are the reason that March is mad. From them emanate The Final Four and The NBA Finals. Thanks to them I gave up as much as three to four hours a day the year around in my younger years. I loved every minute of it.

The presence of the rules in the museum was the result of David Booth, a University of Kansas grad, acquiring them at auction for display at KU. It is likely that they will ultimately find a special home in the Booth Family Hall of Athletics. David, his wife, Suzanne, and their children are the benefactors of that facility. The sale price of $4.3 million less about a half million for the auction fees will benefit the Naismith foundation, which promotes sportsmanship and provides services to underprivileged children around the world and of which, Dr. Naismith’s grandson, Ian Naismith is a founding director.

After the rules, we saw the first reunion in over 30 years of the three panels of one of Claude Monet's most richly colored late Water Lilies triptychs, created between 1915 and 1926. The three panels are owned by and ordinarily separately reside in The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, the Saint Louis Art Museum, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Collectively, they are 236 3/4 inches by 167 5/8 inches in size. It is one of only two triptychs by the artist in the United States. To stand a couple of feet away from these paintings and see the masterful strokes in detail is awe-inspiring and then some.

Speaking of masterpieces, I’d like to share a couple from my home state of Louisiana. One is Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning, and the other is Steen’s Cane Syrup. The former can jazz almost any dish. I use it instead of salt and pepper. Morton’s Lite Salt contains half the sodium of regular salt. Chachere’s is roughly equivalent to that, but you only need to use half as much of it as regular salt. Consequently, I think you end up cutting your sodium usage to about a quarter of your normal usage of regular salt. Besides, it tastes better. As you will see in a moment, it is more versatile than you might expect. The cane syrup is dark and thick like molasses, but since no refined sugar is extracted from it, it is sweeter. Steen’s is the only maker left in the world. It can be an acquired taste.

A really good breakfast sandwich can be made on a biscuit (or sliced bread, a croissant, an English muffin, or whatever form of bread you choose). Add a sausage patty or split a sausage link. Add a fried egg. Sprinkle on a little cheese while you’re heating everything up. Before you close up your sandwich with the top of your biscuit, lightly drizzle on some Steen’s and sprinkle moderately with Chachere’s. Mmm … there you have another masterpiece.

How about messing with a classic: the peanut butter and jelly sandwich? You can do this with whatever favorite jelly, jam, or preserve you want. We have recently discovered spreads from E.D. Smith in Ontario, Canada. We have tried two of their flavors. One is a mixture of raspberry, cherry, and acai. The other is peach, apricot, and orange. They are the most robust fruit spreads I’ve ever tasted. I’ve done this spread and mixed. Spread is when you put the fruit spread on one piece of bread and the peanut butter on the other. Mixed is when you stir the spread and the butter together in a bowl until they are one substance. My artist daughter, Erin, swears this is the only way to do a PBJ. In either case, moderately sprinkle one side or the other with Chachere’s to achieve the pièce de résistance. Yep, another masterpiece is discovered.

Here’s another twist on the classic nutty and fruity sandwich: The Seasonal PB&J at Kansas City’s Blue Bird Bistro. It features house made Missouri northern pecan butter and organic house made preserves served on toasted house made bread. These guys can’t be beat when it comes to fresh and local. This is also a masterpiece, and they do it the hard way … without any Louisiana products.

It is time to close this post. I’m hungry and need a snack.

Red Stick Writer Book Club?

As I mentioned in my last post, I thought it would be interesting to make some comments here about books I’ve read or reviewed or am thinking about reading. I’d love to have some readers of this blog leave comments about books that are important to them. Of course, you understand that when I say readers it means you, right?

I’ve cut and pasted some information from my profile at "Smith Magazine," the home of the addictive six-word memoir. Two of the questions relate to the book discussions I hope we can have over time. The third one will give me the opportunity to expound on something I recently learned about my home state of Louisiana… the place I lived for my first 42 years. So, here are the questions and answers.

My favorite story of all time is:

Choosing one is impossible for me. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) has been with me the longest, but these books, each for a reason of its own, are equally loved: South of Broad (Pat Conroy), The Help (Kathryn Stockett), A Time to Kill (John Grisham), The Quiet Game and The Devil's Punchbowl (Greg Iles), and The Stand (Stephen King). Notice that the first six are very Southern. Come to think of it, the whole damn world went south in the seventh one.

Right now, I'm reading:

Right as Rain by Bev Marshall (Ms. Marshall is the author-in-residence at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond.)

If you were to throw up your hands in exasperation and yell "it's the story of my life," what would you be talking about?

I am a Kansan by residence, a Missourian by employment, a Louisianan by birth, a Southerner by the grace of God, and a Tybee Islander at heart. The exasperation... not enough hours livin' on Tybee time.

Okay, a lot of these writing or publishing sites where I have established a presence will include a cheesy question like that as a part of their profile questionnaire. Most of the time I sort of ignore them, but I decided in this case to mold a version of my own cheesy, though factual, description of myself into an answer to their question. Even though it does not relate to books or publishing, I included it to discuss my use Louisianan to describe myself as a person from Louisiana. Now that I have a book at Amazon and hold myself out as an author, I find that I am more conscientious about checking on the spelling of words when I am composing for public consumption. When I put this description of myself together, I was surprised when the spell check in Word said that Louisianian was a misspelling. So I went to Merriam-Webster to check it out. They were a little more forgiving in that they recognize Louisianian as a word but only as a secondary alternative to Louisianan. I clipped it out of their site for you to see:

Definition of LOUISIANA

Lou•i•si•an•an \-ˈa-nən\ adjective or noun

Lou•i•si•an•i•an \-ˈa-nē-ən, -ˈa-nyən\ adjective or noun

It just goes to show that you learn new stuff every damn day… even things about which you think you are already knowledgeable.

So now we get to see if you, my readers, are willing to spill some beans about what books you like, new books you think might be worthy reads, or whatever. I’m hoping to learn about some good reads in our exchange. And, if everyone is too shy to speak up, well I’ll just keep my monologue going. Come on, give it a try.

Why am I here?

When I first started blogging as Red Stick Writer, my purpose was to commit to writing and share my thoughts, experiences, and questions about my journey as a first-time novelist. It was my hope to have other authors or readers or agents read my posts and make contributions of enlightenment, encouragement, or commiseration. In order that they might find my site, I became a commenter at other writing and publishing blog sites.

Through SiteMeter, I know I get a goodly amount of traffic, but the back and forth enabled by contributed commentary never developed on my page. For that interaction, I have had to rely on my reading and commenting at the pages of others.

I hit the mother lode in that regard the day I discovered Nathan Bransford’s blog page. At the time, he was a literary agent in the San Francisco office of the New York agency, Curtis Brown Ltd. Interestingly enough, shortly after I found him, Nathan became the first-ever commenter on my page. He told me to e-mail a query to him regarding my then agent-hungry novel, By the Light: A Novel of Serial Homicide. Unfortunately, I had to respond that I had already queried him and that he had declined representation.

Despite not securing Nathan’s representation, reading his blog and the comments others leave there has become a part of my routine. Though he is no longer an agent, I and many others thank God his blog page lives on. He says he is now "a publishing civilian working in the tech industry.” Nothing could be more distant from the truth. On May 12, his debut novel, a middle-grade story called Jacob Wonderbar and the Cosmic Space Kapow hits bookshelves virtual and otherwise, and his blog page is still one of the premier go-to places to keep your thumb on the pulse of books... reading them, writing them, and selling them.

By the time I discovered that my blog page would not become a forum for writer discussion, I had also learned that I enjoyed occasionally writing my thoughts about life or family or humor or politics or writing or whatever else pops into my head or the intersection of any of these. So I have kept it going. Now instead of chronicling my pursuit of an agent, I spill the beans about my experience as an indie author with an e-book in the Kindle Store at Amazon.

Just as I once commented at sites to get noticed by others who might have an interest in representing me, I continue to comment to get found by people who might have an interest in buying and reading and possibly reviewing my book. My interaction with readers and other authors in those settings is both enriching and enjoyable.

Writing sites and communities I have been known to haunt:

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/

http://www.selfpublishingreview.com/

http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/

http://www.goodreads.com/

http://www.reddit.com/r/selfpublish/

http://tinyurl.com/amazon-reviews-by-dick

I enjoy these and a number of other nooks and crannies on the Web. Maybe I’ll bump into you at one of them.

You are always welcomed and E N C O U R A G E D to make your thoughts known here by leaving comments. One of the things I plan to do here in the near future is mention or discuss or review books I have read, books I am reading, books that I’m considering reading, and maybe even coffee table books that can become coffee tables. Regarding the ones under consideration, I’m hoping some of you will stick a toe in, test the water, join the discussion, and help me make informed decisions about the direction of my reading. I continue to keep alive the hope that this can become a place for discussion.

Indie Authors, Indie Publishers, Indie Jones Buckling Swashes in a Wild World

One of the publishing blogs I read with regularity belongs to Nathan Bransford.  He was until fairly recently a literary agent for Curtis Brown in San Franscisco but now considers himself a publishing civilian who works in the tech industry.  Despite this, he is still widely read among publishing insiders and wannabes alike.  The reason for his continued popularity is his knowledge of publishing, his ability to frame issues with center-of-bullseye accuracy, and his ability to communicate them in a very enlightening, understandable, and entertaining way.

On Wednesdays, he often throws an issue to his readers and invites them to tell him what they think about it.  He did that this week on the topic:  "Who Should Have the ‘Indie’ Label:  Self-Publishers or Small Presses?"  The link below will take you to his blog post and the numerous comments his readers provided.  After the link, you will find the comment I deposited on his page.

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2011/04/who-deserves-indie-label.html

I'm self-published. It's an e-book in the Kindle Store. I paid nothing to get there. Consequently, it seems there is a flaw in the "paid for=vanity=self-published," equation.

Since Amazon has provided a place where I can sell my story for free and make as much or more in royalties per sale than the vast majority of traditional authors make per book through publishers of either the indie or the big six ilk, color me hesitant to call them my corporate overlord. No, the corporate overlords are folks with whom I have no contact as a consequence of at least two degrees of gatekeepers, none of whom are named Kevin Bacon. I tried. They let me see through the keyhole, but in the end it made more sense for me to drive right through that double garage door at Amazon.

The traditional worlds of authoring and publishing are trying to enforce rules and terminology that make their universe feel like home. I don’t think they should hold their breath until they get their way. Popular culture will have its own way, industry pillars be damned.

Once upon a time large numbers of people got lumped together because they had happiness in common. Those happy people had to learn to share the word “gay” with people who are attracted to other people of the same gender but may or may not be happy. Sometimes that works. Sometimes the female people who are attracted to other females like to instead use the “L word.” This all sounds like the same old stuff that has made political correctness so tedious at every turn.

To use a famous quote from a guy to whom people rarely look for a good quote, “Can’t we all just get along?” I don’t know for sure, but I think Rodney is neither happy nor attracted to others of his gender.

The new publishing world, the one that includes people like me and people like the meteoric Amanda Hocking and people like J.A. Konrath, seems to be something akin to the Wild West. Given that, I think I’ll call myself an indie author. The name seems to go with the territory, and as an extra benefit, it rankles all the right people.

To sum up, Nathan has had it right all along. There’s room for everybody at the table. Agents and publishers will continue to determine who gets in the gate of the pasture known as traditional writing and publishing. The public will decide who succeeds in the rough and tumble open range of indie or self-published or vanity or whatever-you-call-it writing and publishing. The name calling and the fighting over names serves no purpose.  Call yourself whatever you want.  Folks will figure it out.  Just give the people what they want… whether it be entertainment or enlightenment or inspiration or space monkeys or space kapows of the cosmic kind. Why is Nathan’s batting average so good?

The reference to space monkeys is an inside joke for Bransford blog regulars, and the space kapow term refers to Nathan's debut middle-grade novel that is coming out on May 12.

Madness, Hoosiers, Bacon Numbers, and Mythical Birds

There’s nothing else like it. And it’s almost here. That most wonderful time of the year is very nearly upon us. I’m talking about March Madness. I’m excited. How about you?

If we were talking about geography, this week would be roughly comparable to foothills consisting of the various conference tournaments. Actually the new 68-team format will have play-ins for all four regions, so the NCAA First Round on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week will actually be a second range of foothills. Those games will determine 16-seed position in each of the four regional brackets.  Come the Second Round on Thursday and Friday and the Third Round on Saturday and Sunday, we’ll actually start climbing some real mountains.

There are always plenty good games scattered throughout the tournament, but unless you personally have a bona fide dog in the hunt, the first weekend is what puts the sizzle in the skillet. It’s when the giant killers emerge. Cinderella teams get fitted for glass Converse shoes and start boarding their pumpkin carriages. Being a Baton Rouge boy, I can remember when LSU lived that fairy tale in 1986 to become the first of only two 11 seeds to ever reach the Final Four.

As a Louisiana transplant living in Kansas and bearing street creds by way of my Jayhawk wife, I technically do have a very viable canine to follow this year. They’re pedigreed, too. It was so much fun watching them win best in show in 2008. I’m way hoping that KU’s mythical birds get nowhere near any giant killers or princesses until April 4 is marked off the calendar.

Since its release in 1986, it has been my tradition to watch the movie, Hoosiers, at least once during the month of March. It is very unlikely that I am alone. With the exception of The Wizard of Oz or The Ten Commandments, I’m thinking this masterpiece starring Gene Hackman, Dennis Hopper, and Barbara Hershey and graced by a very believable bunch of high school kids from Indiana might be the most repeatedly viewed movie of all time. That’s just a guess on my part. It is a beautifully made motion picture and will not fail to get your Madness cranked. If you are a fan of the sport that Naismith birthed and of the movie that makes love to it, you’d probably enjoy taking a look at IMDB’s trivia page for the movie by riding the following link.

IMDB: Hoosiers Trivia Page

I’ve had some brushes with basketball notables over the course of my life, many of them the result of my attendance of basketball camps when I was a high school player. One of them was Jay McCreary, who was LSU’s basketball coach from 1957 to 1965. I can remember Coach McCreary instructing us on how to get low and mobile in our defensive stance. He’d drop down low enough to swing his arm and touch the court with his hand at which time he’d say, “Grab a root and growl!” Anyway, he’s the guy who gives me my (Kevin) Bacon Number for Hoosiers. In the movie, it was 1952 and the giant killer was Hickory beating the big school from South Bend. In real life, the game on which the movie was based was little Milan beating Muncie Central in 1954. Jay McCreary coached Muncie Central to the Indiana State High School Championship in 1952, but Hollywood was more interested in 1954 when his Bearcats were felled by the Indians of Milan. The following link will take you to an interesting recent article that appeared in the Muncie newspaper about that 1954 game.

The Star Press: Milan vs. Muncie Central

Here’s one more link that will take you to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame’s member page for Jay McCreary. He might have been the model for the losing coach in the movie, but he had his winning moments. You’ll note on the Hall’s page that in addition to coaching State Champion, Muncie Central, in 1952, he was an All-State player for State Champion, Franfort, Indiana, in 1936, and an All-American player for National Champion, Indiana University, in 1940.

Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame: Jay McCreary

Good luck with you tournament bracket. If you’re picking the Jayhawks, maybe I’ll see you in the winner’s circle.

My Cup Ranneth Over

Yesterday was my birthday. I received greetings and wishes in the forms of cards, phone calls, e-cards, e-mails, and Facebook messages and posts and comments and tags. There were even confrontations in which people walked right up to me and expressed wishes about my oldness straight to my face. Some people reached out to me in as many as four ways. The number of expressions from family and friends was way beyond significantly greater than on any other anniversary of my birth.

The folks that came at me in more than one way made me so aware of my blessings to have them in my life. I was also very touched by those who put some thought or emotion or a chunk of words in the message they conveyed. That chunky thing works for this wordy boy. When it comes spoken and written communication, I’m a walking and talking equivalent of a big box store.

Beyond these mentioned overachievers, there’s a goodly group of people who, having been kind enough to befriend me on Facebook, get little reminders that old Dick is having a birthday. Some probably saw that virtual string tied around their finger and thought a nice thought about me… or otherwise. Others took the time to send a little communiqué to let me know that I had been on their mind for at least a moment.

It touched me to see how many sent positive vibes my way. Yeah, I said vibes. My tribe and I went through the Sixties. Hell, I am even unabashed in my use of groovy, which yesterday was. My knowledge of the good fortune all of these people represent n my life is deeply etched on a virtual slab of granite in my mind. Many who read this will nod and say, “I always knew that boy had rocks in his head.”

I have concluded through this experience that it is imperative that I send a friend request to Mark Zuckerberg. The movie was intriguing. The critics overstated the negative picture it painted of him. He is still unformed, but it seems as if he is growing into his wealth and influence. Only time will tell. All that said, I am in debt to the young man. I live in Kansas and work in Missouri. A big slice of my heart resides in Louisiana, and pieces of it reside in the four corners to which some of my life acquaintances have been scattered. His invention enables this Southern boy to draw sustenance from the many wonderful souls I’ve known. I’m glad to have them back. I’m glad he gave them to me.

Looking back at that paragraph, I have to mention that I taught Luke, my Oklahoma grandson, how to say “it is imperative.” You can feel the drama when he says it. He and my Louisiana grandson, Brady, are like sponges. I have to be careful what I say so as to not have them soak up something they oughtn’t.

The biggest blessing of all for my birthday was having Suzie’s surgery and chemo of 2010 in the rearview mirror. The fire marshal wouldn’t let me have a cake due to the number of candles that would have been involved, but had I had one, I would have wished for many years together with her just before issuing from my lungs an extinguishing blast of air necessarily of Katrina proportions. (That sentence might make a good entry to the Bulwer-Litton Fiction Contest. I already have one entry pending.) Absent the cake and candles, I deferred to the Man Upstairs with a prayer. I’ve got confidence in Him.

Odds and Ends

There are times when I’ll see several things in the news or on the Web that make me have an urge to express opinions. On a number of other occasions I have used this forum to do exactly that. Another of those moments has arrived.

If you’ve read Red Stick Writer in the past, you’ll already know that I have not only an opinion but also an attitude about politicians telling us that we have to make some hard choices regarding Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Though both parties comment in this regard, the donkey party seems to think increasing taxes and tinkering with these programs are the highest priority targets. The elephant party would rather go after other spending first. The donkeys say that just going after other spending isn’t adequate.

The money that went into these programs came out of our pockets for the purpose of being there for workers when they retire. The politicians are shysters. They stole that money for all of their wasteful pet projects and other spending in order to avoid having to openly raise taxes to fund their shenanigans. I say that they should not make one change in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid until they have eliminated all the unnecessary crap they paid for with our money. I say they should not raise taxes until that is done, as well. And don’t even get me started on the estate tax heist they are bringing back. To force a farm family to sell off half of the farmland they’ve inherited in order to pay estate taxes is unconscionable.

I got a bit agitated yesterday when Harry Reid, poking back at President Obama about banning earmarks, said, “I think this is an issue that any president would like to have, that takes power away from the legislative branch of government. I think it’s the wrong thing to do. I don’t think it’s helpful. It’s a lot of pretty talk, but it only gives the president more power. He’s got enough power already.” Well I’ve got news for that old coot. A lot more people decided Obama should have power than decided it about Harry Reid. I wasn’t one of them, but I’m just saying. If the Senate was even remotely close to being a body of good stewards of our hard-earned money, he might have a point, but guess what. Personally, I think the only way any of this will ever have a chance of getting righted is to pass a line-item veto. Well, so much for that. I write fiction, but not fantasy.

Maybe you saw the article about the billionaire who donated a football complex at UConn. They hired a football coach he didn’t like, so he wants his family name taken off the stadium and wants his money back. Has he ever heard of public bribery? He doesn’t get to own the athletic department because he donated to it. I don’t care how much he gave. I wish they would eliminate putting corporate or family names on stadiums and bowl games and whatever else they’re doing it with.

Oh, and what about the big kerfuffle over Ricky Gervais’ jokes at the Golden Globes? Excuse me for remembering what names and adjectives these showbiz types used to describe George W. Bush. They never could get over the fact that he beat Gore in Florida in every recount that got completed. I’m sorry that the law of the land says we have an Electoral College and that’s how we pick ‘em. I remember how proud they were that John Kerry reported for duty, since he was so much smarter that Dubya. Then it came out that Dubya’s grades were better than the ones Kerry earned. They had no defense for that. Not one word of what Gervais said about them was false, yet they felt he was too mean spirited for their sensibilities.  If they are going to dish it out, they are going to have to man up and learn to take it when it gets dished at them.

Finally, I have to say that I get really angry when people start trying to tidy up history. I’ve got a problem with trying to erase the Stars and Bars from existence. Why is that flag any worse than the US flag? Okay, part of the cause of the Civil War was slavery. We know slavery was bad. Counting slaves as three-fifths of a person and letting their owners vote on the basis of that count was bad, too. Somewhere along the line, we have to recognize that history is what history is. They want to rewrite and say Truman was a bad guy for dropping the bomb. What about the fact that the Japanese did not surrender after one bomb? What about the fact that they started the hostilities between our nations? What if they had won the war in the Pacific? How would we like living under a guy who thinks he is God? That’s kinda what Japan had, right? What got me cranked on this? Well, new versions of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer are being republished. In the former there are 219 occurrences of the N-word, and there are four in the latter. These will be replaced by the word “slave” in the new editions. What ever happened to “sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me?” The African-American people have triumphed over that word. Everyone should accept that and move on.  Leave classic literature the way it is.  Mark Twain is famous for his books, warts and all.  The dogooders who want to mess with them should create their own classics instead of tinkering with his.

I hope that my comments here today will not cause liberals to decide not to read my novel. Their politics don’t stop me from loving the likes of Barbra Streisand, Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Rob Reiner, and Whoopie Goldberg as artists even though I think they are way off the mark politically. Boy, do I feel better getting all that off my chest or what? You betcha. We really do live in the best nation on the planet. The best thing about us is that we continually strive to be better.

By the Light: A Novel of Serial Homicide is Now in the Kindle Store

The baby has been born.  Though it says the release date is January 10, 2011, at Amazon, it actually was first accessible for sale on 1/11/11.  I like the sound of that.  Being a Louisiana boy, I'm believing that there might be some good juju going on with that date.

I hope you'll skip lunch one day, save up $2.99, go to Amazon's Kindle Store, and buy my book.  A lot of love and sweat went into that story, and I'm hoping it will bring you some reading joy.  If you become one of my readers, please go back to the Kindle Store and leave a review when you're done.

At the top of this blog page, there's a link to transport you directly to my book's page at Amazon's Kindle Store.

Thanks for dropping by.  Here's wishing you happy reading.

A Note of Thanks

I'm getting excited about getting my baby born.  My novel is hungry for readers' eyes.  I am hungry for readers' comments through Amazon reviews.  Here's hoping you'll be on board.  What follows is the author note I placed at the back of the book.  It expresses my thanks, denials, and explanations.

Author Note

There are different flavors of thanks I must express on the occasion of sharing my first novel-length story with the public:

Some of my earliest memories are of my mom’s voice reading stories to me as a child. Apparently, I had some creative abilities back then. She tells me that I had two imaginary friends in my early youth, Lickie and Dabadoo. The latter must have been a really good friend, as he often took the fall for me. According to Mom, I often blamed Dabadoo when I got caught doing something wrong. Given that, she could have but didn’t mount a campaign to stifle my creativity.

A cousin, Richard, planted the seed when he was in or around the sixth grade and I was a couple of years behind. He was an extremely smart kid who went on to earn a doctoral degree, always with the highest marks. Back then, he showed me his work in progress, a sequel to Baum’s Oz series. From that moment, I wanted to write a book of fiction.

When I was writing this book, I sent an e-mail to Richard to thank him for the enjoyment I was experiencing from composing it and to see if he would do me the honor of being one of my readers. Before I heard back from him, Richard died in a house fire. His mom told me that he had mentioned being touched by hearing from me about my book. In my heart and mind he has been my traveling companion on this journey ever since.

In junior high, I proved I could work in the fiction realm by earning an A for a book report on a book that did not exist. My appreciation for that teacher’s evaluation of the work will be to allow her to remain nameless.

Another thank you is due to Dorothy Tooke, the tiny little lady who was my teacher for Senior English and Journalism in my senior year at Broadmoor High School in Baton Rouge. Beowulf and such did not ring my chime at the time, but I learned more about writing in her Journalism class than at any other time in my life. I think she might take me to task for becoming the wordy writer I am, as she was a stickler for journalistic economy. But hey, I no longer need to conserve space for ads. I think of Dottie often as I compose and polish and reword and hone my work to make it as interesting as she would demand.

Simply wanting to write a novel is one thing, but the joy of reading works from several Southern authors whose words carried the spirit of the South and a sense of place are what finally inspired me turn wanting into doing. The Firm by John Grisham was a tense story that occurred on turf I knew, from the Peabody in Memphis to the Florabama on the panhandle coast of Florida about six feet from Alabama. I fell in love with Natchez when I came close to getting a job there years ago. Greg Iles’ suspenseful The Quiet Game made you feel everything about Natchez that enamored me. If you really want to fall in love with the South, read Pat Conroy. The Lords of Discipline was his book that showed me how love for Dixie can be written so as to rise right off the page. Every one of his books, fiction and non-fiction, has done that for me, and his South of Broad sits alone at the top of my list of favorite books.

The thanks I expressed to my wife, Suzie, in the dedication should be expanded to include her service as one of my readers. The others who have earned a thank you in that capacity are Christine Harris, Charlene Guillory, Mary Dodson, Sarah Krantz, Stacey Gilio, Kathy Reynolds, and Stacy Ryal. They read my story, provided watchful eyes for typos and poor usage, and offered suggestions to make my work better. I am also appreciative for editorial advice from Hilary Ross, the highly respected former Penguin editor. You can rest assured that if something ain’t perfect here, it’s my fault and not theirs.

More than half of this book was written in the cozy loft overlooking the main floor of the City Market Coffeehouse. The proprietor, Courtney Bates, provided a homey environment that encourages creativity and the arts.

My hat is tipped to Nathan Bransford and Chris Orcutt from whose blogs I have derived enlightenment and sustenance. I cannot put this to bed without giving a nod to Charles Simic, U.S. Poet Laureate (2007-2008) for a quote to live by: “Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships.” To me it is a creed that has the additional benefit of incorporating the use of lighthouses, a fetish of mine.

With the exception of a bunch of queries on the Web, I pretty much avoided hardcore research in the writing of this story. I recently was warmed by reading John Grisham’s note in The Confession in which he professed not liking and avoiding research. There are instances where I took some license with how things work or used establishments that no longer exist, but hey, it’s fiction. There are places where I have taken minor pokes at a few public figures, thinly veiled versions of people of celebrity, and institutions but only in terms of things that have already been publicly hashed and rehashed. I hope no one takes offense. These folks chose public lives, and I’m certain that what I have said from my small forum will not diminish any of them. Other than those, all characters are fictional.

Last of all, I appreciate that you took a chance on my book. Depending on whether you read author notes first or last, I hope you will enjoy or have enjoyed By the Light: A Novel of Serial Homicide and that you will keep an eye out for my future work.

Spank me, Dottie. I’ve assembled too many words once again.

Dick Peterson
December, 2010

This is Dedicated to the One I Love

It won't be long now.  By the Light:  A Novel of Serial Homicide is only days away from finding its home on the virtual shelves Amazon's Kindle Store.  Take a look below this copy of the cover to see the dedication.

Dedication

I moved from my Louisiana homeland to the Kansas City area on Uncle Sam’s nickel back in 1992. The song says, “They got some crazy little women there and I’m gonna get me one.” Well, I did find one, and I married her. There’s no doubt that she’s crazy because she married me back.

She reads voraciously. Being around her made me read more. Reading more made me finally act on my lifelong dream of writing a novel. Thanks to the Kindle she gave to me for my birthday last February, I have tripled my consumption of books. Becoming a Kindler opened my eyes to the immense possibilities of the e-book market.

For the toughness and courage she has exhibited while going through surgery and chemotherapy for colon cancer over the past year, I salute this wonderful person I get to call my wife. In a couple of years, I’ll be able to spend a lot more time writing instead of hiding out in a bank on weekdays. I’m looking forward to enjoying a long retirement full of the delights she brings to all my days.

In thanks for her love and for inspiring and enabling my greater enjoyment of reading and of writing, I dedicate this book to my Suzie.

Dick Peterson,
December, 2010

You Can Book It... Soon!

My serial killer novel, By the Light:  A Novel of Serial Homicide, is nearing availability in the Kindle Store at Amazon.com.  I'm hoping it will be out there in a week or less.

It is a suspense novel about a serial killer and a former profiler and a crime reporter and author who are in pursuit.  The pursuers have a long ago history and some in the moment romantic sparks.  I hope you'll give it a read.  You can buy it to read on your Kindle, or you can buy it and get free Kindle software to enable you to read it on your iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, PC, or Mac.  I hope you'll go back to Amazon and leave a review when you're done.