Brevity... or Verbosity?

One of the problems I often have when writing is deciding HOW to write.

Who is my audience?  What am I trying to say?  How much do I need to say?

It was easy when I was telling stories to my kids and their classrooms on Friday Reading Day.  Lots.  Period.  The more the merrier.  You don't say, "The ogre jumped from behind the tree."  You say, "Barely able to hide behind the tree, the huge ogre watched the unsuspecting hiker... waiting.... for the perfect... moment.... to JUMP!!"

Yet when writing a technical manual, in the sentence starting the paragraph, the instruction is concise.  "Left click on the frambusher to open it."  The rest of the paragraph is an explanation of where to find the icon, why you need to open it, how long it takes to open and do its 'frambushing'.

Easy to make decisions in those instances.  Or perhaps I just should have said, "Easy!"

The boggle comes when I sit down to write a story.  How much information is too much?  How much is not enough?  (Of course, there are many other questions, but this is about brevity and verbosity.)

My solution is always to write more.  Tell as much as I can.

Pump as much information into it as I can stand.  Tell the story... make it flow... scene settings, background, character building, all of it.  I want the reader to be able to visualize the story.  I want the reader to be able to slip into the valence of the characters

Then, from a reader's point of view, I read... reread... and reread.

As I reread, I think about the person that might be reading the story.  If the person is not a techy, should I use less tech information?  If they are a techy, am I putting enough in there they can understand and not flame me for some inaccuracy?  Am I 'teaching' a little new tech to someone?

Do I want to tell how the ogre was hiding?  How he waited, smelling the air, dreaming of how the hiker would taste turning slowly over a barbeque spit?  Or should I bypass all of that and simply say, "Crunching down on that last bit of well-seasoned leg bone, the ogre smiled to himself at how easy it was to hide behind the tree and catch the hiker."

I am a storyteller.  I seem to have always been such.

If I'm writing about an Artificial Intelligence, do I need to explain what that is?  In today's society, probably not.  But wait, is it a part of the story to explain HOW the AI came to be?

How old are my readers?  How educated are they?  How much 'story' can I feed them and how much can be fantasy and how much can be fact?  How much history and how much historical fiction?

I want to entertain, not write a tech manual.  I've written enough of those through the years.  Now it's time to have fun.

But, what does an editor want?  And worse, what if the story never gets to an editor, which seems to be the case more and more for all authors.  Professional Readers have a set list of things they have been told to look for.  Even when an agent or editor reads the stories themselves, how many of them are getting used to just nixing the story when they hit the first grammatical error?  I am beginning to think the list includes more negative things than positive things.  So they reject the story three sentences in and never really see what kind of story they just rejected.

Agatha Christie, five years of continual rejections, more than $2 Billion in sales.

It took the insistence of an eight year old editor's daughter that she wanted to finish reading the book before J. K. Rowling was accepted after being told she needed to get a day job.  +450 million sales.

Louis L'Amour, 200 rejections, +330 million sales.

Dr. Seuss, “Too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.” +300 million sales.

Zane Grey, “You have no business being a writer and should give up.” +250 million sales.

I'm not saying I'm in the league of these folks.  Far from it, I'm quite certain.  But, a couple things I do know for certain... I love to write, I love to tell stories, and editors seldom know what they are missing until it's too late.

To get back to the main topic, my solution to the question?  Both.  It's a story.  Sometimes brevity works best and sometimes it's verbosity.  Therefore, I shall continue to make some things longer and more detailed, just as I will continue to find a few things here and there that really do need to be shortened.  I'll leave it up to the editor that selects my story(s) to do the final editing.  Isn't that what they are really there for, after all?

At sixty-some rejections for three different manuscripts, I think I have a long ways to go before I give up.  I've gotten some very nice comments and compliments from my readers.

I'll keep writing.  Besides... the forth manuscript is almost done.

Can it still be a pleasant conversation if it's in email?

I think so.

I had a very nice response from an agent in regards to several of my stories.  Nice, as in it told of a few things I needed to do differently.  So I went back and re-read several passages in a slightly newer light.  And I am about 70% in agreement with her.  She has also forwarded a few thoughts on how to approach other writers and see what they think as well.  So far, she has been the most patient with me and interested in what I am doing.  (no contract yet, but I'm working on her!)

So, I have gone through Boston Knights and now have a Revision One available on Kindle.

I want to thank that agent and several of my readers for their suggestions and questions.  Suggestions are good.  Questions are cool!  Some about history.  Some about how I write.  Several about when the sequel is coming!  And a couple about when will they see the movie.

I'm working on it!!

Working on it all.

Waiting For The Past (formerly WAITING) and The Hollerinth Affair are both just about finished with their first full revisions, too.  I will have them replaced in Kindle as soon as they are ready.

The stories are the same, but some of the sentences and grammar have been improved for readability.  In reading aloud some of the passages, I became painfully aware of how 'thought' sentences are not the same as 'read' sentences.

Watercolors (AKA The Watercolor Murders) is over 60,000 words now and I've finished doing the same kind of 'revision' on it as the other three.  I have about 6 or 8 more chapters to go to finish it and expect it to end somewhere short of 100,000 words.  So, I expect to see it on Kindle before long, too.

I am still pestering agents and publishers, so if you know any good ones, let me know.  I am open to suggestions.

Thank you to all that have contributed with your encouragement, your suggestions, your laughter and your tears.  Even those of you that got p***ed off at me for killing off a character or two.  (Sorry!  It had to be done!)

More soon.

What is YOUR 'perfect'?

I was going to title this 'The Right Pen Can Make The Difference',  But after finishing it, I changed my mind.

I made an interesting discovery this last week.  My pen ran out of ink.

Okay, so that wasn’t really the discovery, it was what followed.

Just so we have this clear, my pen ran out of ink, I picked up another pen from the little coffee cup on my desk, and tried to continue to write.  Key word in that sentence is ‘tried’.

Writers’ Block from a pen?  Wow!  Crazy!  But true.  I just could not write.

It took me over a week and a trip to town to pick up a new refill for my pen.  Now, again, just so you know, my pen is a little different from most.  My hands are large, so finding a pen that feels good in my hands can be a challenge.  I also wear shirts that are often a bit more on the dressy side, so I like to have a pen that looks nice.  Know what I mean?  More than that, I like a pen that fits in my pocket properly without poking up or sitting sideways.  Strange pet peeve, I know… but there you have it.  Big enough for my hand, small enough for my pocket.

So, to solve all these myriad problems I settled on a nice stainless steel Parker Jotter for its nice looks, how it fits in my hand, and how it fits in my pocket.  However, there is still the ‘writing’ issue.

I write everywhere.  Not just at a nice desk or table.  I write inside, outside, summer, winter, on my journal as it rests on my knee, in the rain, and on the plane.  (just had to rhyme that one!)  I find that the ‘normal’ refill cartridge you can pick up at any store can be blobby and smeary and they all have difficulty in the cold and rain.  Some run.  Some bleed.  Some skip.  To solve this, ever since I found out they existed (slightly post-moonwalk) I have been using the Fisher Space Pens.  I keep one of their bullet pens in my pocket at all times as a spare.  But my ‘dress’ pen, my 'writing' pen, the one I use the most as described previously, has a Fisher refill in it.  It’s the perfect pen… for me.

Try as I might, I could only get a few pages put to ink with that ‘non-standard’ pen that I had as a spare.  My ‘pocket’ pen is great, but not ideal for continuous writing.  So I just had to get a refill so I could once again write comfortably.

Now for the discovery part.  (You knew I’d get there eventually!)  It’s not so much that I had the perfect pen or not, or the perfect journal to carry around (made it myself out of some scrap leather I got at an op shop, but that’s another story).  The discovery was that everyone that writes needs something… perfect.  

The perfect location… perfect pen… perfect journal… perfect music… perfect encouragement.

Whatever your ‘perfect’ is, revel in it, and keep on doing what you do.  And if you write?  KEEP ON WRITING!!!

(And don’t run out of ink!!)

I Finally Had To Do It....

Yup.... I finally put something out there in Kindle.

I didn't want to do that... well, sort of anyway.  I was really hoping a publisher would pick me up and take care of all the minutia of publishing.  But none of them have done the deed.

So... I did it.  I put one of my books out there on Kindle.

And HOLYSHIT!!  I made the mistake of leaving my contact info on the copyright page and have been inundated!!  HOLYCRAP!!  Everyone loves it!!

Okay, okay... so now I need to get rid of my contact info and put it out there without such.

Done....

So now if anyone wants to comment on it, they have to do it in the comments section.

That works.

Should be out there in its 'new' form shortly!

THANK YOU!!!!!!!

Where Does Inspiration Come From?

Good question.

A number of people have asked me just that.  My answer seems to vary a little each time.  I think, mostly, because I don't really know where the inspiration 'in that moment' is coming from.  So I thought I would 'pen' a few of the places from which I know I've gotten inspiration, and then, in the end, try to make some profound statement that may get quoted a hundred years from now.

I know I have mentioned the inspiration for Boston Knights... keys from a flea market, some friends from long ago.  I have to admit something here, though it may be one of those things that I sort of would not otherwise admit.  That is, my inspiration sometimes comes from the DANGEDEST and most unexpected places.

The Boston Knights story... one of the contributing thoughts that rattled around in my mind was a sort of situational thing that struck me as amusing.  When it came time to actually writing, that thought kept popping up in my mind.  There had to be a way to mix it in.  I think it worked. 

Let me give you a little background.

I am... perhaps... a little naive... or is it slow?  Unworldly might be the best way to describe me?  Something like that anyway.  Back when my ex-wife and I were going through the death throes of our marriage, she had introduced me to a guy that kept wanting to get to know me (technically just before the 'death throes').  I found out much too late that it was because he wanted to know when I was out of town on business.  Let it go at that.  Anyway, in an effort to befriend me, he one day invited me out to drinks while we were in town at the same time.  It was his desire to go to a bar that I understood to be a topless joint.  I was not impressed.  Oh, I was impressed, but not in the way you might necessarily think.

Anyway, it turned out to be a nude joint.  I was embarrassed as hell!!  Not something I was interested in at all.  And what should have been a serious heads-up was the fact that he had his own beer mug behind the bar... with his nickname painted on it and all!!  

That was all a very long time ago.

Back to current day and inspiration.  

Leaving the flea market one day meant walking by a little joint that advertised 'live girls and lunches', which certainly beats the alternatives if you think about it.  It sparked the memories of the bar with my ex's friend.  It all sort of flowed into the story.  Read the story and you will understand even more.

As I think I mentioned previously, that story virtually wrote itself in three weeks’ time.

The pirate story I am working on was inspired one day when I was doing a clown gig with my pirate costume on.  Doing twisted animal balloons for kids is great fun, costume or not.  I was asked, "Just how DO pirates get the babes?"  

I had had a previous discussion with another friend about which is better, pirates or ninjas.  We decided pirates were definitely better because when ninjas finish kicking arse, they simply vanish.  However, pirates, they finish kicking arse, go drink rum, and have a 'babe' wander off with them into the sunset... or something like that.

That inspired a completely different kind of pirate story.  It is fully outlined and finished under the pen.  I am now fleshing it out on the computer, verifying facts, doing research and such, and should have it in final manuscript form within a month or two.

Another time someone that enjoyed reading my stories and my 'samples' commented that there was little to no violence in my stories.  No physical conflict.  Therefore, thinking about that, I started another story with a fight.  Kind of a slow-motion sort of thing.  I still need to get together with a couple Taekwondo folks that are familiar with knife defense techniques and verify that my 'motions' are accurate.  That story is still developing.  It appears to be getting written in 'discovery' mode with minimal outline other than building characters I would like to have in it.

My volcano story, Waiting, (still unsettled about the title)... that one I could not tell you where the inspiration came for it.  I can say it has been back-burnered a few times.  It was a story that I had bits and pieces of tech I wanted to include.  But I think it was truly my first attempt at a 'discovery' mode of writing.  Having a direction, but no clean outline.  Having a plot, but only to the extent that the characters needed to interact.  Perhaps I could say the inspiration for Waiting was my desire to have the characters do certain things together, certain types of characters... and then see where the story lead me.

The Hollerinth Affair.  That one is easy.  As explained in an earlier blog, a medal showed up for my dad... after his death.  The whole premise there was the thought about what if that medal had come to me and I had never been in the military.  What would I be thinking then?

This may sound odd, but my tinnitus has inspired two short stories that are both just about done.  Both sci-fi.  Both fairly short.

The Last Tinker... a work in progress... I was thinking about my storytelling.  What if I was the only storyteller left?  The Last Tinker is about the last storyteller.

The Last Tinker sparked another story called The Historian.  Very sci-fi.  Very full of tech, politics, and some of what I think of as very good internalized dialogue.

Three finished and so many more in the computer looking for an 'out'.

So, where does my inspiration come from?  Everywhere.  Everything I look at, every conversation I have, every event around me that touches me, they all spark thoughts.  A lot of 'what ifs'.  A lot of shifting locations, intermixing and creative license with character development based on people I have known... and people I would like to meet, real or not, as well as a few people would NOT like to meet.

Something so simple as a chess piece knocked over on the board... look at it closely... study it for a moment... then forget it.  Somewhere... sometime... your mind will go 'click' and it will become an important part of a story... or not.  It does not matter if it becomes a part of a story... what matters is that you looked... you thought.... you let your mind 'create'.

As a writer (I say that both hopefully and proudly), I see things all over the place and wonder how they could fit into a story.  I talk to people, and wonder what their story(s) may be.  

The forensics officer guy sitting next to the forensics officer lady, working together every day.  Maybe even disliking each other to a certain extent.  What would it take for them to notice each other in a different way?

I love to listen to people.  I love to watch people.  A customer of mine, he's from Scotland.  I love the brogue and mannerisms when he is fired up on some topic.

A box of old hand tools at a flea market can spark all kinds of characters and stories.

A medical bag that is old and dried out, the contents in disarray... what kind of story do they tell?

I guess the profound bit of philosophy I can espouse now with regard to writing would be....

Even a fallen chess piece tells a story.

You may quote me.  ;-)

The Hollerinth Affair - Revisited

Reread... reread... reread....

I found a couple structural errors.  Or perhaps they could be called grammatical errors. The first was a quotation mark.  I forgot to end a couple sentences properly.  Dropped the quotes.

There were another couple of 'errors' that made a few sentences read oddly.  The 'odd' bit was if you read straight through a section, they made perfect sense.

However, if you stopped at a paragraph that appeared to be a good subject change area to stop, went away for the day, came back and tried to start reading again, it was a little... awkward how it 'restarted'.  I found three such places.

So... those things fixed and the story now having gone through at least a half dozen rereads with fewer and fewer changes, I feel better about it.

I will say, however, there is one more thing that I can add to the things that I've learned and would like to pass on to any other writers that happen across this page....

Reread... reread... reread.

Kind of a Heads Up on How I Write... Sometimes

Writers tend to find their own way into writing.  Some have a nice office, computers with fancy spell checkers.  Some have their place on the couch... slowly getting butt cheek imprints in the cushions.

For me, I find a great deal of inspiration occurs when I am out and about.  Sitting in the sun somewhere waiting for someone or something.  Maybe taking a break in the middle of the day.  Sometimes just sitting in front of a coffee shop I can find inspiration for a new story.

Regardless, I try to have my journal at hand all the time.

Having lost one, I decided to make a new one.  It was made from an old jacket that I picked up for about fifteen dollars.  From it, I've made my journal cover, the pieces for a new wallet, and still have enough for another journal cover.

In that journal at this time are three more stories.  I have tentatively titled them 'Not Just Another Pirate Story', 'Silence', and 'The Portal'.

Of course, the titles can and likely will be changed as I go along.

Briefly, the Pirate story is a different take on how pirates 'get the babe'.  It has been a fun story to outline and build characters for.  It's finished in outline, now to transfer it into a manuscript.

The Silence story is a bit of a short sci-fi.  One of these days I'll be able to sit down and post it into a computer.

The Portal story is another sci-fi.  A bit heavier.  Interdimensional and all that.  Same thing... I need the time in front of a computer.

There are several others that are coming to the front of my to-do list.

The Historian, The Last Tinker, Contact (of a different kind - title unsettled), Chronicles of The Unwilling (a bit of magic in that one), and others.

Many years... many ideas... many outlines already sitting there... many stories to finish.

Watercolors is the one getting attention at the moment.

Funny how some days I can pen upwards of 8,000 words.  Sometimes more.  Other times, I'm hard pressed to get as few as a thousand onto paper.  Then, I imagine, this is true of all writers.

Kind of like Writers' Tackle.  Different from Writer's Block.  Writer's Block means you are stumped... period.  Writer's Tackle means you got tackled by a thought or idea and it won't let go of your legs and let you keep going.  You gotta kick and struggle for a while before you can get past it.

Posting to this blog seems to do a good job of breaking a tackle.

Watercolors - Or is it 'Watercolours'?

This story was inspired a few months back when some pictures were discovered at a flea market.  Watercolors, about forty of them.  It occurred to me that there had to be a reason for painting so many pictures.  All really very nice.  Dated.  Location marked on most of them.

And I wondered what 'other' reasons could someone have for painting such pictures.

From that, the story developed quickly, leading the three main characters on a journey across England, France, Austria, and other destinations far afield.

Each location has something in common, though.

Each location has had a mysterious death very near it and very close to the time the picture was dated.  Was this person interested in strange deaths?

And again, I wondered... what other reason could a person have for painting such pictures?

About half way through now at about 25,000 words.

They soon discover who painted the pictures.

I wonder if this is a good thing.... or not.

We shall see.....

The Hollerinth Affair - Finished and Undergoing the First Critical Review

Well, this one has been an interesting 'write'.

At first, I had a little trouble deciding what kind of twist to put at the end.  Then I realized I had too many variations on one of the names.  My editor went through and gave some wonderful recommendations and suddenly the naming was simplified and easier to follow.  Funny now when you get your head down and into writing a story you don't notice certain things.  Kind of like another story I have been writing... too many occurrences of the word 'softly'.  But, then, that IS another story.

I strongly recommend a 'pre-edit' be done by an independent editor before you put a book out for any sort of review.

Anyway, it's now out and going through the first critical review in front of a couple readers.  Depending on flow and clarity, we'll see what if any changes get incorporated.

But, it's done.  Ended at 79,500 words.  Nice whodunit.  My short synopsis follows:

The Hollerinth Affair

What would you do if you found out that the last twelve years of your life were a lie?

What starts as a possibly miss-posted military medal opens a floodgate of lies and deception as James Hollerinth discovers the last twelve years of his life may not have been his, but instead, a careful fabrication meant to hide a deep military operation of which he has no recollection.  Nor does he have any memory of ever being in the military.

His life began anew after a car crash that killed his parents… or so he thought.  Owner of a large, successful engineering firm, James is happily married and raising two children.  Living a dream life where even the drive to work in the morning is a pleasant, often looked forward to experience.

Once the mysterious medal is investigated, he finds that he has been carefully watched since ‘the accident’. 

However, someone is watching the watchers.

As his life unravels, his family is taken which leaves him at first devastated.  

Then he gets angry… and takes his life back.

The Hollerinth Affair - What happens when you discover you aren't who you thought you were?

This story was penned in outline form within the first year after my dad died.  Inspired by a medal showing up for him that was likely supposed to have been given to him when he got out of the service right after I was born, the story quickly took shape in outline.

Character developement took a little while as I was working on the other manuscripts.  But now that they are done, I've been able to hammer it out pretty quickly.

Now at about 75,000 words, I have a few chapters to finish and it will be ready for the first critical edit cycle.

I will post more here and a teaser as I get the story turned over to editing.

Boston Knights - A Story About A Little Gold And A Little Love

This story was inspired from two directions.  The first was the discovery of two unusual keys at the Flinder's Market in Adelaide.  The second was two ladies that I have known for many years that do everything together.  And no, there is nothing of me in this story.  Well, very little that I will admit to anyway.

This story practically wrote itself.  The keys were discovered the first weekend in February, the story was finished and through the first critical editing by the second week in March.

The teaser for Boston Knights follows:

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The discovery that some ancient stories handed down in the families had more truth to them than fiction sparks a hunt for the real truth of the stories.  Told as bedtime stories, three individuals find themselves working together to find out more about their ancestors and where they might have hidden some gold, or if it was after all, nothing but a hoax.

The adventure begins with Steve, whose elder brothers work in construction.  Having found an old desk amidst some demolition work of theirs, they call their brother to salvage it and see if perhaps he might want to restore it and some other bits and pieces.

As Steve is an antiquities restoration expert, he is definitely interested.  Within the desk, behind some well locked drawers, he eventually finds hints that the stories he was told as a kid, may have been more than just stories.  In his pursuit of answers, he finds members of two other families that heard the same stories when they were children.

This begins a delightful adventure that finds the three of them embroiled in more and more details that lead them further and further from their homes.

Eventually, the puzzle pieces begin to come together in Ayr, Scottland when they make the acquaintance of some more members of the extended families, only to find their hopes dashed when they discover any gold that may have existed was quickly squandered.  Moreover, any additional clues seem to have been destroyed.

-----------------------------------

This is what I would call a light romance and adventure.  At a somewhere over 63,000 words, it is a quick and easy read aimed at young adults and romantics looking for something a little different.

I will 'clean up' my teaser as I get this book through its final editing.  It is, by the way, a finished manuscript ready for presentation to an agent/publisher.

I'm still looking.

Waiting - A Story About A Volcano... and MORE

WAITING... a story of a little over 101,200 words.  Though I am still unsettled about the title on that one, I expect something like 'Waiting For The Right Moment' might work as well.  There are a number of 'waiting' titles already out there.  I will accept the advice and guidance of a good agent... by which I have not yet been found.

I'm not sure where the inspiration came from for that story.  It was something I penned back in the early 2000s.  One of those ideas that I put to paper and left to mature... hopefully like a fine wine.

I picked it up again in 2006, worked on the overall outline and characters I wanted to 'employ'.  And set it aside until recently.

Mind you, I did not stop writing in the interim.  I write pretty much all the time.  If I am in a parking lot waiting for a customer to open up for the day, I sit and make lots of squiggly black lines in one of my journals in hopes it makes some sort of sense the next time I look at it.  If I'm waiting for some long job to finish, I'll take a 'coffee and writing' break - no charge to the customer, of course.

This last year I got stuck back into it.  Taking breaks now and then, still reading lots of stuff, still pecking at it and other things... but it did take the forefront of my writing efforts.

Once I figured out the direction and the final plotline, it was a fast finish.  Two subsequent months in editing and re-editing left me with a fairly well finished product that I was then willing to 'expose' to some fearless readers for their critical review.  It survived three separate reviews with minor recommendations each time.  I did go ahead and send it out then to about a dozen different folks... agents, publishers, and the like.

I did get back maybe 50% response rate - disappointing, but not entirely unexpected.  Most of the responses were boilerplates.  The folks couldn't even take the time to read the query letters in full because I included a sentence at the end that told them to include the word 'bedazzled' somewhere in the body of the text so my email program would allow it through the spam filter.  ONLY ONE editor did so.  I had no such filter active so I know none went to spam.  It was a test... only a test.

Out of all that, I did receive two offers for publishing.  One even included a contract.

However, the contract was by all appearances, an offer to start a self-publishing round for me.  The other was clearly pushing me to self-publish.  NOT what I want to do.  I want an agent and/or publisher that can  look at my work critically, say yea or nay, give advice, and help me move on.  I prefer a traditional relationship over some nonsensical thing where I have to worry about all the minutia of self-publishing.

My stories have been well received.  The folks that have read them (not all family and friends!) have asked for more, asked if there were going to be sequels, and in just about every case, became very invested in the characters.  I like that!

Anyway... here is the teaser without the spoiler that I have been sending to the agents and publishers.

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This is the story of Alex, a gentleman going through a troubled time in his life.  At a loss for direction, an unexpected introduction leads to a very unexpected adventure.

Beginning in a somber court setting, our ‘hero’ finds himself at a loss for what to do next with his life.  Perhaps he just needs to go do a load of laundry.  However, an interruption and introduction leaves him equally confused until he concludes this new person is just some sort of recruiter trying to get him to do some ‘consulting’.  He has no idea how right, or how wrong he could be.

His first meeting is a quick tete e tete and a bit of a tease.  With no real information on what ‘they’ want him to do, Alex continues with his efforts to find direction and move back into a more normal life.

Still feeling disconnected and needing some distraction, he falls into a deal where a wonderful vacation presents itself… and he grabs it.  To his chagrin, it turns out to be just another part of the recruiting process that started weeks earlier.

Giving in to curiosity, intrigue, and the charms of his recruiter, Tracy, he cautiously accepts the opportunity for the adventure.

This journey finds him helping decipher some strange technology found inside a volcano, an unexpected love affair develops, and a virtual reality turns out to be not so virtual.

On his way, he finds that Tracy becomes more than a close friend, and the people she works with become very important in his life.  Berk, a large, boisterous Australian.  Theo, the director of the project, vegetarian and so tall he needs to duck through doorways.  There are Karen, a feisty molecular physicist and other scientist trying to make sense of what they have found.  Kyle and Tatyana are the ‘concierges’, pilots, and protectors.

Karen and Tracy have a surprising history and a closeness that keeps Alex on his toes.  They become his closest allies in his search for a new way to look at the information that has already been uncovered. 

As the secrets of the volcano are untangled, a virtual reality begins to play heavily in the lives of our characters.  At once seeming to be a help to their quest for information.  At other times, the virtual reality seems almost to be playing with their very lives.

It is soon discovered massive amounts of energy have been accumulating for more time than our characters can comprehend.  What possible purpose could there be in accumulating enough power to knock our solar system askew?  Moreover, how is it possible that what they found in the volcano can predate any such technology developed by humankind?

An unexpected antagonist is quietly moving against the island volcano and its occupants, wanting only to take the technological secrets of the volcano and its newly discovered ‘inhabitant’.

 

And then there is (censored).  If ever trouble could come from an unexpected place, (censored) was that place.  Instrumental in divulging to the antagonist the secrets and surprising technologies within the volcano, (censored) pushes into motion a sequence of events that can only end one way.

Once the trouble starts, it can only end with the help of what they have found in the volcano. 

The only caveat… they must first figure out how to make it work.

First, A Little History

Greetings All...

First, I would like to offer a little history on myself.  My writing history at any rate.  Some of the 'other stuff' would not be something worth publishing... trust me!

My 'life' as a storyteller began quite early.  I seemed to have the classic middle child syndrome.  Not that I knew of such back 'then', but it seems to fit if you want to categorize me in some way.

It was difficult to get attention, so when I did, I took advantage of it.  Difficult to get me to shut up sometimes.  Well... often.  Okay... MOST of the time.

I could take a simple event like my brother stepping on a nail and turn it into a huge, fifteen-minute long explanation, including what happened before, during, and after the event.  Concise explanations of the blood trail, hopping and jumping, subsequent tetanus shots, and how itchy the scar was as it healed.

That 'ability' stayed with me for many years until I realized in my early teens that people really didn't appreciate a blow by blow.  Most of the time they just wanted a quick and dirty account and for me to go away.

I think that was really when I started to write.  Notes, thoughts, angry letters that were never sent.  Then one day it occurred to me that I actually enjoyed writing.  At that point a lot of my thoughts and ideas for stories ended up being penned to journals.  Some vanished through the years.  Some were saved and survived a divorce and a move a third the way around the world.  Digital, if you have a proper backup, is wonderful at saving all kinds of stuff.

My kids, whom I loved to read to almost from day one, were a serious influence on getting me to actually finish many of my 'works'.  As they got old enough to ask "are we there yet", I began to tell stories 'on the fly'.  It was fun to create 'stuff' for them.  Some of it was obviously borrowed from other stories I'd heard.  But when that ran out, I started to create a LOT of original stories for them.  I have some of those notes saved and waiting for me to return to them.

Many more years passed.  Raising the family, owning and operating my own business without any serious help from my spouse, I had very little time to concentrate on my writing in its fullest form.  The most I got to do was write little story ideas, situational curiosities, thoughts on plot-lines, and on and on.  But, no completed stories... no finished manuscripts.  That is... until recently.

Recent events have given me the time to finish two manuscripts already, the third is underway and will be ready for critical review shortly.  I will post separately about them.  Since this is my first post, you will likely have already read about the stories.

And that is that for the moment.