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Interview with Penny Sansevieri

5/22/2015

Welcome to this week's blog. I am running a little behind. Read the Detox Blues on my home page for my excuses. At any rate, this week we get inside of the mind of Penny Sansevieri. Penny is a successful author and the founder of Author Marketing Experts, a San Diego company that helps authors showcase their work to the reading public.

To go to Penny's website and learn more about her marketing business, click here.

Okay, here's my interview with Penny.

Penny Sansevieri

Why do you write?

Because I love it – and I want to teach others about marketing. I love teaching, my books help me do that.
What writing are you most proud of?

I’m really proud of my company. I started this sort of on a whim 15 years ago after getting laid off twice in one year. The first time when the CEO was let go and a bunch of us close to him were let go as well – the second time (that same year) the company I had just joined shuttered their doors. I remember leaving there that day thinking I was a complete loser. So I went home and thought I’d “do a little marketing consulting” till I could get my sea legs again. Turns out, I was meant to do this. Once it took off I never looked back. Yeah, I’m pretty proud of that.

What books did you love growing up?

I loved Nancy Drew so much. Loved reading those books!

Who is your favorite author?

I can’t pick just one, sorry – that’s like picking my favorite child.

What book should everybody read at least once?

Well candidly this changes from year to year because once I say this I read something else and think: WHOA this is amazing. Right now I’m in love with this book called The Curve by Nicholas Lovell. He’s a marketing whiz and I tend to gravitate to books like that. But The Curve talks about how to make money in the age where everyone wants everything for free. Isn’t that the truth? I think everyone is dealing with this now. Super insightful book.

What do you hope your obituary will say about you?

“She was one helluva writer!”

What is hardest – getting published, writing or marketing?

Actually all of it – but for authors I find that marketing is often the toughest because most of them have never done it. I completely understand that, too because a lot of the information out there is confusing and conflicting.

What marketing works for you?

It really depends on what I’m marketing – or the type of book rather but I will tell you that I think Super Fans are huge, no matter what book you are marketing. Yes fans are great but building Super Fans – folks who are SO engaged with whatever it is you are doing that they can’t wait to tell ten of their friends… that’s golden!

What other jobs have you had in your life?

Before I started Author Marketing Experts I was doing marketing and PR in corporate America.

If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?

I’d actually love to have several homes. So a great apartment in NYC, a villa in France – I’d love to be able to travel and live in different places.

Tell us about your family?

My Mom lives in Belgium, and much of my family is there. My Dad’s family all live in the NYC area.

How do you write – lap top, pen, paper, in bed, at a desk?

Laptop but sometimes pen and paper if inspiration strikes. Often I like to write at Starbucks.

Every writer has their own idea of what a successful career in writing is,
what does success in writing look like to you?

Wow that’s a great question --- well success to me is being able to do what I am doing now. I am really fortunate!

It is vital to get exposure and target the right readers for your writing, tell us
about your marketing campaign?

Well I can say this: it’s always ongoing. Marketing for a book doesn’t end – unless you decide you no longer want to sell any more copies of it. But my marketing consists of speaking, this tour I’m on, blogging, reviewer mailing, also an outreach via our social media and our newsletter.

If you could have a dinner party and invite anyone dead or alive, who would you ask?

I’d love to invite some of the really creative minds in the industry, like Mathew Weiner, JJ Abrams (who wrote the screenplay of Regarding Henry as a project in college) – I find what they do fascinating. I’d also invite Harrison Ford because, you know, Indiana Jones J

When you are not writing, how do you like to relax?

Reading Not terribly creative, I know – but I love to read!

How often do you write? And when do you write?

I write daily – but not always on my books. I write articles, blog posts, etc.

How do you feel about social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter? Are they a good thing?

Yes if you use them correctly --- I mean not all social media is created the same for everyone and while it’s great to jump on all the latest and greatest social media sites. It’s not about everywhere but everywhere that matters. So yes I like them but the caveat is that they are noisy so you have to find a way to navigate through the noise. That is probably the biggest challenge for authors – is figuring out what to say so people hear them.

If you could do any job in the world what would you do?

What I’m doing now – only I’d love to do more teaching!

What’s your next project?

I’m working on Red Hot Internet Publicity, a revamp of that book!

Who do you admire?

Frankly many of the authors we’ve worked with who never, ever give up. We have some folks who work full time jobs and market the heck out of their books every chance they get. You can’t help but admire that level of passion.

What are you most proud of accomplishing so far in your life?

My business, I’m very proud of that!

How has your upbringing influenced your writing?

Yes, I’m sure it has – I was born in California but raised in Belgium and went to school there. I think that part what that’s done for me is given me a real desire to not just reach US writers but also writers overseas because everyone has a story to tell. Often we think the world sort of ends at our boarders.

How long have you been writing?

HA! That’s a great question – actually I’ve been writing since I was 12 – I started writing poetry and God-willing, no one will ever read them.

What inspired you to write your first book?

My first book – my very, very first book was fiction – years ago I wrote this (2 fiction books actually) and it was a story in my head that I wanted to get down on paper. The story was set in Oregon where my family and I used to take vacations (before I moved overseas)

How did you come up with the title “How to Sell Books by the Truckload”?

Funny you should ask, it’s actually part of what I talk about in the book. So I was doing research on Amazon one day to see what searches were popular in regards to what I was writing and I discovered that the keywords in my title (with the exception of the word ‘Truckload’) were very popular so that’s how I named it. I’d love to say that it just popped into my head one day but it didn’t, it was actually based on keyword research on Amazon.

What was the hardest part about writing this book?

For me it’s the research, because my books are all based on ideas that change often. The Amazon book which we’re discussing here is hard because Amazon changes what they do all the time, so the book needs to be written fast, produced quickly and updated frequently. It’s not a matter of ‘set it and forget it’ – and I want the most current information out there. I’m a stickler for that.

Did you learn anything from writing this book and what was it?

I learned a lot actually, mostly around Amazon and all the changes that site has seen in the last 6 months. I love writing this book in particular because I learn so much as I’m writing it. For example, the themes on Amazon (currently only for Fiction books) can be a huge boost to getting more visibility for a fiction book. I think unearthing things like that on the site is really, really fun.

What are your goals as a writer?

To keep sharing knowledge and to keep my books super current, though things change quickly I’m not a fan of pushing out content that’s outdated.

What contributes to making a writer successful?

Never giving up. I mean I think that with 4,500 books published each day it’s easy to just say “Well, I don’t think I can do anymore.” and the thing is that you have to. You have to keep pushing even on days when you feel you can’t. Yes, you need to write a good book but a good book without a determined marketing person behind it is (sadly) a book only a few people will read.

Do you have any advice for writers?

Never give up, even when you feel like you want to (and you will feel this way, often). Remember too that publishing is a business so treat it like a business. You would never open up a brick and mortar store and then just sit there and hope for the best, right? You’d market it, you’d have sales and specials and do promotions to let folks know you’re in the neighborhood. The same is true for your book.

Do you have any upcoming appearances that you would like to share with us?

I’ll be speaking at Book Expo America’s author event on Saturday May 30 and the Crime Writers Conference coming up in early June!

When you wish to end your career, stop writing, and look back on your life, what
thoughts would you like to have?

That I contributed to the industry in a helpful way – and, in the process, maybe helped some folks find their writing potential!

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An Interview With Jesse McDermitt

5/12/2015

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This week I take a big detour from my usual blog. I am honored and privileged to present an interview with Jesse McDermitt, the hero of the Fallen series of Caribbean Adventures. In this week's blog, Author Wayne Stinnett interviews Jesse. Enjoy.

Wayne Stinnett Interviews his Character Jesse McDermitt

Hey Jesse, how are ya? I guess the first question is the same as what any two Marines ask. Where are you from originally and what was your childhood like?

Hey, Wayne. Thanks for coming out to the island. As you probably know, I was born in Fort Myers, Florida in March, 1961. Dad was a Marine, as was his dad before him. Dad insisted on maintaining a home in his and Mom’s hometown of Fort Myers. He served in Vietnam, but he was killed in action when I was eight. My mom, in her grief, took her own life and I went to live with my Mam and Pap, dad’s parents. Before my folks died, me and Mom went to be with Dad a few times, whenever he was going to be stationed in the same place for a year, so I got to see some of the world, before he was killed. Mam and Pap raised me to work hard and do for myself.

What about later, as a young man, before joining the Marine Corps? Girlfriends?

I guess it was the typical southwest Florida life for a teen. Pap taught me to fish and dive and build things with my hands. I helped him build three boats before I was seventeen. My buddies and I spent a lot of time out on the Gulf, fishing and diving, and also in the Glades, or down island, camping. I dated a few girls but nothing serious. I was kind of a gawky kid and a bit shy.

You were once known as one of the best snipers in the Corps. What was that like?

My job was simple, locate and remove threats. Most of my time in the Corps was peacetime, but when the time came to implement what I’d learned, it was just the job. You have to detach yourself from the fact that you’re taking a human life.

The shot in Mogadishu?

I count that as a failure and don’t talk about it much. I deviated from the mission, unnecessarily giving away my location, imperiled other Marines, and in the end nothing was accomplished except one bad guy was dead and another filled his shoes. The kid that I’d saved was killed within the hour.

Do you miss it? The action? The Corps?

Every day, man. Not the action, there’s no glory in war. But, the people I worked with and the knowledge that I didn’t have to check over my shoulder to know that the guy behind me had me covered and would give his life for me and me for him, if necessary. Yeah, I miss that connection sometimes. That kind of camaraderie doesn’t exist in the civilian world. Everyone’s only looking out for themselves.

Was it hard to transition to civilian life?

Not at first. I’d visited the Keys hundreds of times, Mam and Pap had passed on by the time I retired, and there just wasn’t anyone in Fort Myers waiting for me. So I just kept heading south. My buddy Rusty put me up for a few days at his house in Marathon and he helped me buy a charter boat and get set up with the licensing and all. I lived on the boat and took out a charter now and then. After 9/11, I went through a difficult phase. Tried to reenlist, but the prior service recruiter said I should leave this one to the younger guys. Made me feel like one of those old guys at the Veteran’s Home, telling stories about the glory days and the Old Corps. I wasn’t yet forty, but already a used up, has-been.

You have a family, right?

Sort of, yeah. I was married and had two daughters, during my first few years in the Corps. My wife was unhappy with the deployments and took the girls home to Virginia when I was deployed to Panama. I saw them a few times after that, but my ex filled them with lies and eventually I had no part of their upbringing. Until my youngest found me last year. Kim’s a great kid and spent most of the winter on the island with me. She’s up in Gainesville now, in college. It took more convincing for my oldest daughter in Miami to realize what my ex had told them all their lives were lies, but Eve and I are slowly getting to know each other, along with my son-in-law and my grand-son.

So, what’s a typical day like in Jesse McDermitt’s life today?

What day is it? Never mind, it doesn’t matter. We don’t have clocks or calendars on my island. We work when work needs to be done and time is measured by the rise and fall of the tide. Months are counted by hurricane season and tourist season. I get up, when I get up. I usually swim three miles or kayak five, in the mornings and then Carl and I work the garden. He and his wife are the island’s caretakers and we grow our own vegetables, fish, and crawfish in an aquaculture system. There’s always work to do on the island and we eat what we catch and grow. We eat when we’re hungry, sleep when we’re tired and if there’s no work to do, just relax and enjoy life.

What about your involvement with Homeland Security?

That evolved out of a necessity to feel needed again and for vengeance. I think I’m pretty much over both.

Your third wife was killed by terrorists, is that right?

In a loose sense of the word, yeah. The men who killed her were really only connected to terrorism by smuggling their people into the country through the non-existent border that is the coast of Florida. They’re all dead now.

So, you’re no longer involved with the NSA and the Caribbean Counter-terrorism Command?

No, like I said, I’m over that need to feel needed.

Touchy subject?

Fuck you, Wayne. You know as much about it as I do. Maybe more. Let’s just say we had a difference of opinion.

No need to get excited, man. Sorry I brought it up.

So, what’s next? Are you and Linda getting married?

I don’t know. She’s a great lady, but she has her career and she can’t do it from my island. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to live in Miami. We’re just taking one day at a time.

Hey, I gotta go fishing. See ya around, okay.

Thanks, Jesse. Best of luck in the future. See you out on the blue, sometime.

Semper Fi,

Wayne Stinnett, author of the Jesse McDermitt Caribbean Adventure Series

www.waynestinnett.com

http://waynestinnett.blogspot.com

Coming Soon . . .

Author marketing expert Penny Sansevieri

I hope you've enjoyed our visit with Wayne Stinnett. Next week, I will feature an interview with author Penny Sansevieri and review her latest book, How to Sell Books by the Truckload.

Stay tuned, this is getting to be fun.

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An Interview With Wayne Stinnett

5/4/2015

2 Comments

I hit the jackpot when I attended the Bouchercon last fall. I took a class led by Rebecca Dahlke about marketing your books. One of her suggestions was to publish a boxed set of several authors' books in the same genre.

I liked the idea and soon the Seven Seas Mysteries box set was born. I had the extreme good fortune to work with six other terrific writers in bringing this set to the public. Not only that, it was for a good cause and all of the proceeds from the sales went to the Veteran's Writers Project.

Now, here comes another benefit from the box set. We have developed a camaraderie among the group of authors and I suggested that we do a round-robin set of author interviews.

Today, I present the first interview, with Wayne Stinnett. Wayne is a great guy and a good writer. If you haven't read any of his books, I suggest you get one today. I love his characters and settings. Click here to buy your copy of Fallen Out.

So, here is my interview with Wayne.

Author Wayne Stinnett

Wayne, Tell us a bit about your family.

My wife, Greta and I have four kids and four grand-kids, with another on the way. Our oldest is in her thirties and our youngest just became a teenager. We’ve had kids in the house for over thirty years and I have a grand-son who’s a year older than my youngest daughter. I’m the second of four siblings and the oldest of three brothers. Sadly, we lost our youngest brother six years ago to cancer.

What books did you love growing up?

I was a big fan of the Hardy Boys Mysteries by the many ghost-writers collectively using the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon. When my family moved to Florida when I was a young boy, I found a new book in the library by some guy named John D. Macdonald. I was hooked. Travis McGee lived a life that any kid growing up in Florida in the 60s and 70s dreamed of doing. When I got my first car, the first place I wanted to visit was Bahia Mar Marina in Fort Lauderdale. Imagine the disappointment of a sixteen year-old kid when I found there was no Busted Flush, nor slip F-18.

Who is your favorite author?

I’ve read all the McGee novels at least half a dozen times. I also enjoy James W. Hall, Carl Hiaasen, Randy Wayne White, and Elmore Leonard. Among indie authors, Michael Reisig and his books have been both mentor and inspiration. Michael reached out to me after reading one of my books and has been a great help in my writing. Over the course of reading one another’s books we saw many similarities, even in character names. We chalked it up to our both having lived in the same part of the Florida Keys at about the same time.

Location and life experiences can really influence writing, tell us where you grew up and where you now live?

I grew up in Eau Gallie, Florida, about halfway down the east coast of the state. It’s since been swallowed up by the city of Melbourne. The area sits on the west side of the Indian River Lagoon, which stretches over 150 miles, from Fort Pierce to well north of Cape Canaveral. As kids, we explored the lagoon close to home and all the creeks that fed into it, by canoe and later, power and sail boats. I spent a lot of time visiting and living in the Florida Keys as a young man. For the past thirteen years, we’ve been living in upstate South Carolina, near a small town called Travelers Rest. We’re over two hundred miles from the coast and I miss it a lot. This summer we plan to move to Beaufort, to be closer to the kids and grands. The old man is returning to the sea.

What else do you do to make money, other than write? It is rare today for writers to be full
time…

I don’t think it’s as rare as most people think. I know of a whole lot of indie authors that are quietly earning a decent income from their writing. No, we’re not on the tip of every reader’s tongue and are, in fact, almost completely unknown. My only source of income is my writing and we live just as comfortably as we did when I was a truck driver. More comfortably in view of my being home every day and able to take our daughter to school, pick her up and kneel by her bed every night to pray. My wife works part time, but will be coming home for good at the end of May to take over a lot of the non-writing aspect of being an indie. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll write more. I intend to keep to my schedule of three books a year, but recently my work days have stretched into twelve to fourteen hour days. So, we’ll be taking time off to enjoy life.

What other jobs have you had in your life?

You name it, I’ve done it. Through high school I worked in sales. Afterwards, I served in the Marine Corps for four years. When I came home from the Corps, I worked in construction and during down times, as a bar bouncer, commercial clammer and fisherman, cab driver, deckhand on a freighter, and divemaster. I took time away from the construction trade several times and worked as a divemaster in the Florida Keys, as well as overseas as a maintenance tech on Andros Island, Bahamas and again as a divemaster in Cozumel, Mexico. My last few years back home in Melbourne, Florida and then in South Carolina, I worked in construction management, but the stress was more than I wanted. In the early 2000s, two years after moving to South Carolina, I got a commercial driver’s license and worked as an over the road truck driver, usually hauling over-sized loads from South Carolina to the Rocky Mountain States. For the last year, I’ve strictly been a story teller.

How do you write – lap top, pen, paper, in bed, at a desk?

My writing has evolved a lot over the years. In the eighties, I used pen and paper, then transcribed the short stories on a typewriter. A manual typewriter. I had zero success with my short stories back then and set the dream of being a writer aside to tackle life. In 2012, I took it up again, slowly developing an idea for a novel using a laptop and writing at night in the sleeper of the truck. Today, I still write with my laptop, usually sitting in my recliner in the den, with at least two dogs for company. I read dialogue to them and judge its realism by their reaction.

Wayne and Gretta with their youngest daughter

Do you have an organized process or tips for writing well? Do you have a writing schedule? Have you ever had writer’s block? If so, what do you do about it?

I’ll answer all these questions together. Writer’s block is a real thing. Sometimes, you just can’t sit down and start writing. It feels forced and uncomfortable. That’s because your head’s out of the story. To get my head back into the story, I follow the same process every day. Each day, when I finish writing, I type the word count at the end and set it as a style heading, so it appears in the table of contents, in MS Word. The next day, I go back to the word count number I entered two days previous, delete it and start reading, editing and expanding as I go. When I get to where I stopped yesterday, I drop below the latest word count number and start writing again, now with my head lost in the story. When I finish, I add the word count again, so there’s always three word count entries in the TOC. I strive to write a thousand words a day, but sometimes miss a day, when other things need to be done. This also means that by the time the book is finished, I’ve edited the entire book twice.

How did you come up with the title for your first book?

Fallen Palm was my first book, though it’s the second book in the series. Fallen Out was written fourth, as a prequel to the series, to answer a lot of email questions readers had about the characters’ back stories. Fallen Palm was initially called Lynx Key Reign. It wasn’t until the last two paragraphs that the new title leapt off the page. A single palm tree being cut down in the middle of an island represents a huge transition in life for the main character. It was my daughter’s idea to stick with the word fallen in all the titles in the series. When writing Fallen Mangrove, the fifth book, she also suggested the titles follow the same pattern, since mangrove was the second tree used in the titles. Now I not only have to come up with a word that goes with fallen, but has to be in the order of tree, celestial body, and emotion, leaving Fallen Out out of the pattern. Fallen Palm references the palm tree that had to be removed so Jesse’s island could be used as a helicopter landing zone. Fallen Hunter represents the time of year when the constellation Orion is setting just after the sun. Fallen Pride is named for the lost sense of pride a secondary character has after a dishonorable discharge from the Marine Corps. Fallen Mangrove deals with a clue to a buried Spanish treasure hidden in a mangrove tree. Fallen King revolves around the planet Neptune setting just after sunset. My upcoming Fallen Honor deals with the loss of honor in one of the regular secondary characters.

Can you tell us about your main character?

In the short stories that the first two books, Fallen Palm and Fallen Hunter, are based on, Jesse McDermitt was a twenty-four year-old Marine veteran, who moved to the Keys to escape society and earn a living from the sea, much as I was at the time. In the later novels, Jesse is a retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant, who buys a charter boat in the Keys and works only part time, to supplement his retirement pension. Jesse’s a tall, physically fit man in his late thirties in Fallen Out, progressing to mid-forties in my current work in progress, Fallen Honor. A former sniper trainer in the Corps, he has a well-developed sense of survival and justice. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a lot of faith in local authorities to solve societal problems and often takes matters into his own hands. He’s not perfect, and often makes mistakes. But in the end, justice is served. Whether it be by a well-placed rifle shot, or scavenging crabs and vultures doesn’t matter.

How did you develop your plot and characters?

I’m a complete pantser, I never have a plot. Maybe a basic idea in my head and a certain setting. I like to write about places I’ve lived or visited, so I pick a destination, give the GPS coordinates to Jesse and he takes the helm from there. Sometimes, he goes completely off course, though. All my characters are based on people, or a conglomeration of people, I’ve met all over the Caribbean Basin. The settings are places I know intimately.

Who designed the cover?

While trying to create my own cover for my second book, Fallen Hunter, a long-time friend sent me a quick cover design that he did, which was far superior to what I was doing. I asked him if he’d do a new cover for Fallen Palm as well. Since then, Tim Ebaugh has done all my covers, using either his own photography or something I supplied. I’ve known Tim since were teenagers and I once dated his sister. Tim actually photographed the covers of Fallen Hunter, Fallen Mangrove, and Fallen King. His father is an accomplished photographer as well. Fallen Out is my own photo, taken years ago by my late brother. It’s a picture of me, relaxing in a hammock at sunset on Big Pine Key, where the two of us rented a house two or three times a year and fed up to twelve people by lobstering and spearfishing. Fallen Palm was a photo I bought the rights to from iStock. Fallen Pride was photographed in three parts by my friend and Sister Marine, Nikki Godsey. It features her husband, Corey, and his friend Zach, both Wounded Warriors. I donate half the sale of every copy of Fallen Pride to Homes For Warriors, a non-profit that remodels homes in my home town and gives them to deserving vets. Tim does the graphics on the covers of all the books, though.

Have you included a lot of your life experiences, even friends, in the plot?

Being a Marine, Jesse is based loosely on my own moral convictions. I use a lot of my own experiences in the Corps and the Florida Keys, in describing Jesse’s old life and his new life down there. He’s kind of a mix of myself, Travis McGee, the character Thorn, in James W. Hall’s books, the character Doc Ford, in Randy Wayne White’s books, the character Jack Reacher in Lee Child’s book and a lot of my late father’s mannerisms and work ethic. In writing Fallen Pride, I asked my friends on Facebook if any of them would allow me to use their names for small characters. It was a lot of fun, matching friends to the people in my story. Rusty Thurman, Jesse’s best friend, is based on two old friends, one from the Corps and another from the Keys.

What are your current writing projects?

In the five books from Fallen Palm through Fallen King, Jesse has been loosely attached to a government agency, working as a contract “transporter” of operatives and equipment, using his charter boat as cover to move members of the team around south Florida and the Caribbean. This wasn’t something I’d designed to do. It just happened. Right now, I’m working on Fallen Honor, a book that will return Jesse to his hermit-like lifestyle, through a falling out between him and the leader of the government agency. At the same time, one of the team will be the main character of a whole new series, continuing the storyline of fighting terrorism in the Caribbean. Fallen Honor will debut in late July or early August and the first book in the new series should be published by the end of summer or early fall. I’m working on both at the same time, but with Fallen Honor as the priority.

Do you have any upcoming appearances that you would like to share with us?

This August, I’ll be in Key West for the Mystery Writer’s Key West Fest, along with my wife and youngest daughter. The convention is open to the public and I’ll be selling my books at a booth and attending workshops on mystery writing. The convention is August 14th-16th, but we’ll be there from the 10th to the 16th, so I can show Greta and Jordy around. There will likely be copious amounts of rum involved.

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Connie's 5th Anniversary

4/19/2015

4 Comments

Our wedding day

I didn’t sleep well last night. I was dead tired and went to bed early. I dropped right off to sleep, then woke in about a half hour. I was up for a couple of hours, then drifted off again. This time I slept for about an hour until a nightmare woke me.

This pattern continued. I don’t think I slept for more than hour at a stretch. When I did fall asleep, I was haunted by nightmares. I awoke with my heart pounding every time.

This morning I felt like crap. I got up, brushed my teeth, and went back to bed. Sometime later, Dawn brought me coffee and an English muffin. (Thank you, Dawn) I just couldn’t get it going.

Then I got an email from a friend. She was expressing her remembrance of Connie. My wife died five years ago today from ovarian cancer.

I don’t talk about this much, much less write about it, but it’s really on my mind today.

The night of April 16th, 2010 was a horrendous. Connie was up all night. It seemed like every hour or so, she was in such pain. I gave her morphine intravenously. After the second injection, I got nervous and called Group Health’s consulting nurse. She said to keep giving Connie the shots. Controlling the pain was the important thing. I was afraid I was going to give her such an over dose that I would kill her.

We couldn’t seem to get on top of it. Sometime in the early morning hours I managed to fall asleep. At about 4 am, Connie let out a groan and slashed her arm, knocking down her bedside lamp.

Connie and Katie cira 1986

I was up in an instant. She was vomiting black liquid. I grabbed a wash cloth and cleaned her up. She was not awake. I asked if she was hurting, she didn’t answer. I felt her forehead. She felt cold. I felt for her pulse.

She was gone.

I felt the breath leave my body. I sagged down on the bed. It was finally over. After a ten-year battle, Connie was finally at peace.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t feel a sense of loss. I lost Connie years before. This was just the husk that had been her body. The cancer had stolen her spirit years earlier. She had been in so much pain. It was a relief that the pain was finally over.

I went through the motions like an automaton. I called Hospice Services. They told me not to worry, they would handle everything. Then I called Barb, Connie’s oldest friend, and her sister Marti.

“You need to get over here. Right now.” I said.

They didn’t question me; they just dropped everything and came.

I called the girls.

“Mom died last night. If you want to see her before they take her away, you need to get over here.”

Time stopped. Somehow, the house began to fill with people. Barb and Susie showed up, then Marti.

“We’ll clean her up and get her ready for the mortuary,” Barb said.

I sat in the big green recliner in the living room, numb.

Connie and me in Mexico City

Somewhere during the morning, Barb’s son, Chris showed up with pastries and orange juice. The girls arrived.

They wanted to have some quiet time alone with Mom. They went into the bedroom and lay with her. I couldn’t help but think of the day that Connie’s mother died. She did the same thing. She wanted to have some private time with her mother before they took her away.

“I’m done,” I told Chris. I was exhausted. “I’ve spent the last ten years taking care of Connie. The girls are all grown now. I don’t have anything left to live for.”

I meant it. I felt like I had served my purpose here on Earth. I wasn’t looking for a quick end, but if a car came speeding at me while I crossed the street, I doubt if I would have made any effort to get out of its way.

The people from the mortuary showed up. I signed the required paperwork and they took their gurney back into the bedroom. I couldn’t go with them. I couldn’t look at the shell that had once been my beautiful bride. I doubt that Connie weighed 85 pounds. Her wrists were pencil thin and her veins bulged beneath her skin.

They emerged a few minutes later with a body bag on the gurney. The houseful of people took a collective gasp. There was silence. Then they were gone.

I don’t remember much about the next three weeks. I know we put together a memorial ceremony. I know a lot of people attended. I was in a daze.

Could it really end like this? Is this what we were living for?

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. I can’t really say that I have gotten my life back, but I have a new life. I couldn’t live in that house, in that town, with my memories. I tried to go back to work, but I just couldn’t care anymore. Writing code and building web sites for rich corporations just didn’t matter to me.

I bought a beat up old boat and spent two and a half years rebuilding her. Then I sailed her down the coast from Seattle to Mexico and spent two years living in Mexico.

I was fortunate enough to meet Dawn. She clearly understands that she is not taking Connie’s place, but she has been a rock for me. She saved me, and the boat, more than once. She is a good sailor and is up for any cock-eyed adventure I want to try. I don’t know where I’d be without her.

We’re in San Diego now. I had to come back to the U.S. for knee-replacement surgery. I’ve got a new knee and am recuperating. I expect that we will sail south again in the fall of 2016 and head for the Caribbean.

Life goes on. I was exceptionally lucky to have had Connie in my life and was robbed of her way too early. But I go on, day after day, putting one foot in front of the other. I have new career writing; I’m living in a lovely place and have lots of exciting adventures ahead of me yet.

I have been fortunate to have had two such wonderful women in my life.

4 Comments

The Island of the Misfit Toys

4/11/2015

6 Comments

I hope everyone had a good Easter. I am not a religious person, but when I was growing up we celebrated Christmas and Easter as kind of secular holidays. Easter was a family holiday.

Mama would color a bunch of eggs and hide them in the yard and we would grab the Easter baskets she prepared for us and search for the eggs. Then Mama had a special dinner for us that evening. I remember Mama baking a ham more often than not.

Let me start with my favorite Easter story.

I was eleven years old. It’s 1962 and we moved to Oregon from Southern California the year before. We bought a huge old house on the out skirts of Springfield. The property had originally been a farm, but was broken up into lots and sold off as the years passed. By the time we got there, there was three quarters of an acre with the big old farm house and a broken down cow shed.

This was our first full spring in Oregon. We had somehow survived the cold wet winter. Remember: we were from Southern California where the average winter’s day was about sixty-five degrees and it rained three times a year.

Our first winter in Oregon, it began raining in September. We had snow on Thanksgiving and the rain kept pelting down all winter. Mama was depressed. Quita, Jon, Jim and I were going stir crazy.

Then along comes Easter. As luck would have it, it had been dry for a couple of days prior to the holiday. Mama dyed the eggs, with more help from us than she probably wanted, and helped us make our Easter baskets.

Easter morning dawned and I was as excited as if it was Christmas day. I couldn’t wait to get up and find all the eggs.

I jumped from my bed (I’ve always been a morning person) and dashed to the window. Drat! It was pouring down rain. How could we have our Easter egg hunt?

But, being the good mother that she was, Mama had already foreseen the problem. Long before we awoke, she was up and hiding eggs . . . in the house.

After breakfast, she set us loose. Still wearing our jammies, Easter baskets in hand, the four of us kids set out on a voyage of discovery, to hunt down all two dozen of the eggs Mama had hidden.

At first it was easy. Jon and Jim were little tykes that year, so Mama had left some eggs in easy places for them to spot. Of course, I picked these off right away.

Then came the hard to find eggs. Quita was two years older than me and smart as a fox. You couldn’t fool her. She zeroed in on the difficult hiding spots while Jon, Jim and I searched with growing frustration.

13, 14, 15. We continued finding eggs. Mama kept a close tally on our finds. She had hidden twenty-four eggs and wanted to make sure that we found all of them.

19, 20, 21. We slowed down. The finds were coming farther and farther apart. We were running out of places to look.

“Have you searched the bathroom?” Mama asked.

We all took off at a run. Jon and Jim looked in the tub and behind the toilet. I looked in the medicine cabinet and behind the door.

“Here it is!” Quita cried out. In the linen closet, between a layer of towels.

We now had twenty-two eggs. Where were the other two?

“Did you find one in the study?” Mama asked.

We took off. To no avail. We searched and searched and didn’t find anything, then I remembered.

“I found an egg in the desk drawer.”

OK, we already had that one, where else to look?

”How about in Aunt Gussie’s bedroom?”

Aunt Gussie was Papa’s older sister who came to live with us during the summer, then wisely headed to Corpus Christie, Texas to live with her daughter during the cold, wet winter. Her room was normally off limits.

Off we dashed.

Not under the bed. Not in the closet. Not in the dresser.

“I found it!” I shouted. It was under her pillow.

We ran back to the kitchen with egg number twenty-three in hand. But where was number twenty-four?

Mama sent us to the kitchen, then the living room, then to her bed room. We searched and searched. Finally, we got tired.

“You’ve got to find that egg,” Mama said. “I don’t want an egg rotting in my house.”

The search continued. Mama couldn’t remember where that last egg was. She and Papa joined in the search.

Sometime in the afternoon we gave up. It was nowhere to be found.

“Oh well,” Mama said. “I’m sure that it will turn up sooner or later.”

We moved on to other activities.

Spring came early that year. The next day dawned to bright sunshine. We all grabbed light wind breakers instead of our heavy winter coats when we went off to school.

And the weather held. Spring warmed into a glorious summer. This was the year I spent the summer fishing for albacore tuna with Papa off the coast of Mexico. For that story, read my book Blue Water & Me.

But all good things come to an end. September approached. Summer wound down and school beckoned.

With fall and school, came the cold, wet, winter weather. As if the weather gods had read the calendar, the lovely, warm summer disappeared the day after Labor Day. We got up that morning, put on long pants and long sleeved flannel shirts. As I headed out the door for the school bus, I grabbed my heavy winter coat out of the closet.

“Oh, yuck!” I yelled.

As I put my hand into my pocket, it encountered an ugly, smelly goo, the remains of a long-lost Easter egg.

It had sat in my unused coat pocket for five months and rotted. It was the worst smell I have ever encountered in my life.

Mama cleaned out the pocket, but we never got the smell out. The coat was still in good shape, so I had to wear the stinkiest coat in school all year. No wonder no one wanted to sit next to me on the school bus.

So now, let’s flash forward fifty-three years. Easter is approaching and I’m lying in bed, recovering from knee-replacement surgery. I want a ham for Easter dinner.

“How about if we invite some people over for dinner on Easter and bake a ham?” I ask Dawn.

She is amenable. I’ll do the cooking. She knows that with certain things, I can do them the way I like them better for myself than anyone else can do them for me. She graciously steps aside and allows me full run of the kitchen.

Who to invite? We call her brother, but he will spend the holiday with his kids. I call one of our boating friends, Ken, who doesn’t have any family in the area. Ken lives on his boat in the same marina where e keep the Victory. He jumped right on board.

That made sense. Since Easter is a family holiday, we’ll invite people who don’t have families here in the area and don’t have any other place to go. They aren’t hard to find, it seems that most of the population of San Diego is from someplace else.

Thus, we become the Island of Misfit Toys. Remember the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer cartoon? When Rudolph is ostracized from the North Pole, he ends up on the Island of Misfit Toys, a dreary place to which unwanted toys are exiled.

We rounded up all the imports we could find and brought them to our house for Easter dinner.

Most of Dawn’s friends are dog people. She meets them at the dog park. First there was Natasha. She is a manager of the local NPR radio station who lives in our apartment complex. She brought her pit bull, Quinn.

Kelsey brought Rizzo, a little white ball of fluff. Kelsey is another Seattle transplant who is a graphic designer. She decided that since she could work from anywhere; why not work from the city with the best weather in the country?

Becky is another neighbor here in our apartment complex. We helped her and her husband move in a couple of months ago. They are both in the Navy. He is now deployed for a year and she is expecting their first child. They have a pit bull named Loki, who she did not bring. Loki is only a year old and hasn’t quite learned social skills.

We had a wonderful mix of misfit toys.

Having a life-long fear of dogs, what, you ask, in the world is Penn doing inviting people with dogs to his house for dinner?

I am being punished. I must have been really bad in my last life. Since we needed to find an apartment that would accept dogs, we rented our current place. Since the landlords that will allow dogs are limited, everyone else in the complex has a dog.

This is one of the few apartment complexes we found that have no breed restrictions. Because of this, most of the people who live here have pit bulls.

Did I mention that pit bulls are one of my least favorite breeds of dogs? I’ve heard all the media hype about pit bulls. I have a healthy prejudice. However, now that I’ve actually met and gotten to know some pit bulls, I’ve discovered that they are actually sweet animals.

I sit on the couch all day, looking out the sliding glass doors, at all the comings and goings of people and their dogs. It seems to me that the pit bull is the national dog of San Diego. I don’t think you are allowed to live in the city unless you own one.

You all know that I’m afraid of dogs. I guess this is exposure therapy. I have to face my fear every day when I leave the apartment, because I’m sure to encounter a dog.

I’m taking daily walks as part of the physical therapy to heal my new knee. Guess where we go? To the dog park. I walk with Dawn and Odin as they go on their daily constitutional.

Odin plays with the other dogs and Dawn talks with the owners. I curl up on a bench and read. This isn’t as bad as the dog beach, but I never thought I’d be living in a place where I was surrounded by mutts.

Be that as it may, we had a wonderful Easter. Dawn rearranged the apartment to fit in all the people. She dug out all of the linen, fancy silverware and china. I put out a great meal and we had an amazing group of people. I always say the success of any party depends on the people you invite. You have to have a compatible group.

Well, all of these people had something in common. Even though many of them had never met before, they left fast friends. That’s what I call a fun holiday.

My reason for inviting all of the people over was that Dawn, Odin and I could never eat a ten pound ham. We sent left overs home with a couple of people, but still had a substantial amount of ham in the fridge. We’ve been working on it for days. Ham sandwiches, a potato au gratin and ham casserole, and just plain snacking on it. After about the third day, Dawn told me that she was worried about getting Ham poisoning from eating so much.

I’m here to tell you that we survived.

Unabashed Self Promotion

I keep forgetting to promote my books on my blog. After all, that is what the blog's for, right?

OK, so, if you haven't read the latest Ted Higuera novel yet, you better get on the stick. The fourth book in the series, Bikini Baristas, will be out soon and you won't want to get behind.

Click here to buy your copy today.

6 Comments

The Slow Recovery

3/29/2015

2 Comments

Nothing ever goes as planned. Here it is, four weeks after my knee replacement surgery, and I’m still lying in my bed with a lap desk, writing this blog entry. I tried sitting at my desk this morning and just couldn’t do it. I can’t keep my knee down for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

I’m not complaining, mind you (well, not very much anyway). I’m happy with my progress. I have thrown aside the walker and am walking with a cane now. I can get around the house, make coffee and cook my own breakfast or lunch. It’s just taking much longer to recover than I anticipated and the pain is ever present.

I’ve added a couple of videos to show you my progress. The first is about a week after surgery. It is the first time I left the house. You will note my bathrobe. In real life, it is yellow and black. I think this is going to be one of those videos that goes viral because of the controversy over the color, like the blue and white striped dress that showed up as silver and gold on a video a week or so ago. Now I just have to figure out how to include llamas in my next video.

In the second video, I’m about a month out of surgery. You will note that I’m walking with a cane and almost look like a normal person. Or at least as normal as I get.

Anyway, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are a couple of thousand words about my progress.

I’m going through much more narcotics than the nurses want me to have. With this last refill, they gave me the warning that its time to start weaning myself off the drugs. I’m really trying, but it really hurts.

I’m supposed to take one Oxycodone tablet every four hours. In the morning this works, but as the day progresses and I put more stress on my new knee, one is not enough. Usually, by about 6 pm, I need a booster. By 8 o’ clock in the evening, I’m hurting so badly that one pill isn’t enough.

I see the doctor on Monday, so we’ll discuss this then.

I’m going stir crazy here. I haven’t been out of the house, except to go to a doctor’s appointment or to see the physical terrorists in a month.

Last Sunday, Dawn took me to a dog show. You read that right. Dog show. I was so desperate to get out of the house that I went with her to see the judging of the Great Danes.

There were thirty-nine Danes in the show. That’s a lot of dog flesh. That’s somewhere around three tons of dog, folks.

She dropped me off near the entrance, then went to park. I hobbled, with the aid of my walker, to the show ring and set up a camp chair. We sat for an hour or so and watched them judge Great Danes. It was mildly interesting. Dawn, of course, kept up a steady conversation with all of the other Dane lovers at ring side.

After about an hour, I’d had all I could take. My leg was hurting and I wanted to go home. I hobbled back to the parking lot and Dawn brought the truck around. She whisked me home and I spent the rest of the afternoon in bed recovering

On Saturday this week, I had to get out of the house. Dawn loaded Odin and me into the Queen Mary (her 1998 GMC Yukon) and drove us down to the dog beach at Ocean Beach. I took a camp chair and set up on the ridge above the beach while Dawn and Odin climbed down the slope to my idea of hell.

There were several hundred people and dogs playing on the beach. People threw balls and Frisbees for the dogs to chase. Some people spread blankets and lounged on the beach while their beasts ran free.

As I said, I was sitting on a ridge about ten or twelve feet above the beach. A group of boys discovered the ridge. They took a running start, leapt off the ridge and landed in the soft sand below. This attracted a couple of young girls with boogie boards. They started setting their boards on the edge of the cliff, then jumping on and riding them down the steep slope. This went on for at least half an hour, with a proud papa filming the whole affair.

Odin is getting too old to play with the other dogs. He mostly walked around the beach, sat in the warm sand and occasionally fought Dawn for a palm branch.

Dawn offered to take me to lunch, but I had had enough. My knee was hurting and I just wanted to ice it down and put it up, so we went home.

I met with the surgeon on Monday. He was very pleased with my progress. He says that it will be about a year until the swelling is completely gone. He thinks I’ll be back on my feet (without the use of a cane) by May or June. I am ahead of schedule as far as the physical therapy goes. They measure everything and I’m pushing myself hard and it shows.

Of course, it comes at a cost. I hurt most of the time. After an exercise session or a visit to the physical terrorists, I’m beat. I take my pain pills and collapse for an hour or so.

I am making progress in other areas though. I am able to get my brain clear enough to do some work. I’ve posted my 2014 tax return for Victory Charters, sent in my passport renewal and am following up on my lost boat registration. My big goal for this week is to complete my income tax return.

I’m also easing my way back into writing. I managed to read a substantial section of Bikini Baristas to Dawn. I will send out manuscripts to beta readers this week and get going on my first re-write. I still hope to publish the book this spring, although I must admit that I am about a month behind schedule.

I’m also working on a BookBub promotion, so stay tuned. You just might be interested.

So, all in all, things are looking up. I know that eventually I will get past the surgical pain and I’m working hard at rehabilitating the knee. Now I’m dreaming of getting sailing again.

2 Comments

Surgery

3/4/2015

1 Comment

Last night I was on the roof tops of Santiago, Chile. I was being pursued by CIA operatives with very big guns with silencers who had received a sanction with extreme prejudice, to kill me. This was cleared all the way to the White House.

I dodged and weaved over the roof tops, leaping from building to building. I had a head set on and Dawn was giving me instructions on where the bad guys were located and how to avoid them.

Bullets crashed into the stonework next to my head and I felt the bite of the stone splinters on my face.

I got to the edge of the roof and it was too far to leap to the next roof. There was a white Toyota pickup driving down the alley below me with something in its bed covered with a green tarp. I leapt. I landed in the pickup bed and pain exploded in my knee.

Suddenly, I was in bed at home with tears of pain running down my face.

Admittedly, I had watched the Bourne Identity just before going to bed and had watched an episode of House Hunters international in Santiago, Chile that afternoon. But this is how I dream.

The pain was real.

The reports of my death are slightly exaggerated. I know that I have dropped out of sight lately. I have to say that the knee replacement surgery hit me much harder than I expected.

Everyone that I talked to who had the surgery said that they wished they had it ten years sooner or that it was the best thing they’d ever done. Based on that, I expected to be in the hospital for a couple of days, then come home, put my knee up and get back to the keyboard.

NOT!

This is much harder than I had anticipated. The surgery went smoothly. Dawn took me to the hospital Friday morning and they had me in the operating room by noon. The anesthesiologist gave me a shot of Novocain to numb my back, then did a spinal tap. I don’t remember the spinal tap. I remember the Novocain, then the next thing I knew, I was waking up in the recovery room. I don't even remember laying down on the table. All as it should be.

The staff at Palomar Hospital was great. Three times a day, a group of interns came in and introduced themselves, saying that if I needed anything, to just give them a call, then I never saw them again. They were so cute though. It reminded me of when my daughter, Libby, did an internship at our local hospital when she was in high school.

The nurses were great and the pain management was exceptional. The two times the pain got ahead of me, they immediately gave me a shot of Dilaudid and I was flying. Then came the physical terrorists.

The physical terrorists all had grandparents who worked for Dr. Mengele at Auschwitz. They tugged, twisted and tortured me until I had tears in my eyes, then the nice nurses give me stuff for the pain and it was all right again.

I have to say I was disappointed with the food. Hospitals are making such a big deal of their food these days; I was surprised to find such mediocre food on the menu. I remember some truly great meals with Connie in her hospital visits in Seattle and in the Mexican hospitals we used in La Paz. Not so at Palomar. Just exactly what you would expect for hospital food.

Dawn did go out to a BBQ joint down the street and bring me a pulled pork sandwich one day though. She ate my hospital meal. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.

Then came time to go home. I was anxious and excited to get out of the hospital and back home where everything is just like I like it. Well, almost everything.

Did I mention the pain?

This surgery has hurt much more than I expected and the recovery has been much slower.

I can’t seem to keep ahead of the pain. When I am appropriately drugged up, I can do my exercises and hobble around the house with the help of my walker. However, they gave me Oxycodone when I left the hospital, and it just doesn’t do the job. The bottle they gave me was supposed to last two weeks, until my follow up appointment next Friday. It didn’t.

I have been greatly over dosing myself, because I couldn’t stand the pain. And I’m normally no weenie. I usually have a high tolerance for pain, but this has really kicked by butt.

On Friday it was obvious that I would run out of pain pills long before my next appointment, so I called in a refill. They said it would be ready Monday.

I called back on Monday and they didn’t have it. They told me that it usually takes 24 to 48 hours to refill a prescription. I said, “That’s why I called on Friday.”

I spent the whole day on the phone with Kaiser Permanente trying to get a refill yesterday. And I was out of pain medication. I was literally in tears.

During my last call, I cried into the phone “Let me cut your leg open, saw your knee out, then not give you any pain killers and we’ll see how you feel when I tell you I can’t help you.” I admit I got a little nasty. (I’ll also admit to using my acting training in situations like this.) I had to apologize to the nice lady who was helping me, but I was totally frustrated. I gave them two day’s notice and they couldn’t get their act together to get me a refill.

Finally, at 4:40 in the afternoon, they called to say the prescription was ready, but that they closed at 5:30, so I better hurry and get there.

Dawn immediately took off for the hospital, bless her, and got me the drugs.

Since the Oxycodone had been so ineffective, they prescribed Hydrocodone instead.

It’s worse. The Oxycodone held the pain at bay for three hours. The Hydrocode only lasts for two hours. Once again, I’m having to take the medicine at twice the rate the doctor prescribed. I will try it out for today, but if it doesn’t even out, I’ll have to call again tomorrow and subject myself to the horrors of the medical grinder again.

In the meantime, I can’t say enough good stuff about Dawn. She has saved my life. I can’t imagine going through this by myself. She has been there at three in the morning to empty my urinal or make me a quesadilla, she has made all my meals, washed all my clothes, done all of the drudge work around the house with nary a complaint. When I try to thank her, she says that I don’t need to, it’s implied.

Well, I want the whole world to hear that I’m implying thanks to her.

Since you haven’t heard from me for almost two weeks, you can imagine I’m behind in everything. I finished the first draft of Bikini Baristas before I went into the hospital and haven’t looked at it since.

Somehow, the Outlook account on my computer managed to get corrupted and I couldn’t receive email for more than a week. I finally got it fixed yesterday and am back in business, but very far behind. If you’ve emailed me in the last couple of weeks and I haven’t responded, you might want to resend it.

I’m also behind in my posting of chapters of Bikini Baristas on my web site. I’ll post a chapter today and try to catch up before the end of the week. I apologize, but I really didn’t expect this surgery to knock so much wind out of my sails.

For now, it’s just PT, PT and more PT. From everything I’ve heard and read, the success or failure of knee replacement surgery depends on how hard you work on the physical therapy after the operation. I’m doing my darnedist to meet my obligations and get back on my feet as soon as possible.

I hope that by the time I write my next column, I’ll be well on the way to mending.

1 Comment

February 09th, 2015

2/9/2015

12 Comments

Okay, okay, I admit it. I’ve been a very baaad boy. I’ve been having so much fun writing Bikini Baristas that I haven’t paid proper attention to my blog. You’ll all be happy to hear that Bikini Baristas is coming right along. I’m about 68,000 words into the story, about 2/3rds of the way done. I expect to finish the first draft by the end of the month.

Click here to read the first four chapters.

This frenzy of effort doesn’t excuse me from keeping up on my blog though. So, in contrition, I’m posting today’s blog on the San Diego State University Writers Conference. We took a group out whale watching on the Victory on Saturday, so I’ll post that soon thereafter.

The conference was held January 23rd to 25th at the Mission Valley Marriott here in San Diego. I was privileged to be asked to make two presentations. The first, Marketing 101, was well attended, it was standing room only, and had good audience participation. I think it went well and the attendees all learned something.

The second presentation that I made was Organizing a Critique Group. That was less well attended. We only had about a dozen or so people there. However, they were enthusiastic and asked many questions.

I loved making the presentations and felt like a celebrity. After the presentations, people stopped me in the hallway and asked questions or told me about their projects like I actually knew what I was talking about. It was great fun.

As a matter of fact, I don’t think that anything that much fun should be legal.

Jonathon Mayberry talks about Acting Like a Writer

I also attended several presentations, the best of which were “When is the Best Time to Plan You Book Events?” By Susan McBeth, “Act Like a Writer” by Jonathon Mayberry and “Organize and Revise Any Manuscript” by Stuart Horwitz.

Susan is the president of Adventures by the Book in San Diego and an expert on staging outside the box book events. She told us about a book about horses. She staged a reception and charity event at a horse rescue ranch which not only sold books, but raised money for the charity. This month, she is staging an event at a French Lingerie store to coincide with Valentine’s Day for a book about Paris. Her message was to get out of the book stores and go where your readers are.

I like this and since part of my 5-year Marketing Plan is to make at least one personal appearance a month this year, I will start contacting yacht clubs and boat shows to do readings of Blue Water & Me, Tall Tales of Adventures With My Father.

Jonathan Mayberry’s message was if you want to be a writer, you need to act like one. I have a friend who used to say “I’m fakin’ it ‘til I’m makin’ it.” Well, that was thirty years ago. She is makin’ it now. But she acted like a success long before she ever was one. Jonathon talked about how to build your brand as a writer, a subject which I endorse.

Stuart Horwitz has written a book on writing called Blueprint for a Bestseller in which he details his system for building a story’s structure. Being a reformed software engineer myself, I appreciate his methodical approach to writing. This isn’t a new topic, but Stuart has a unique take on it. His method is especially helpful when you get stuck or when you’re editing your first draft. I bought his book, but haven’t read it yet. However, if it is as good as his speech, I highly recommend you read it if you’re interested in writing.

Conference Choice Award Winners

A big part of these writers conferences is the chance for authors to meet agents and editors. I lost count of how many representatives of the traditional publishing industry were there, but it was a bunch. (Who wouldn't want to get out of cold, snowy New York for a weekend in sunny San Diego?) I had the opportunity to speak with three agents.

Part of my Marketing Plan for this year is to get my Ted Higuera series in print. To this end, I pitched the series to these agents. I got mixed reviews.

Because the series is selling well as ebooks, they all expressed an interest in my writing. One reluctantly said to send her the first three chapters of my first book, then when I told her about my plans to write the story of Odin, our 170 pound Great Dane’s life, she practically jumped out of her chair.

The second agent said that she would like to represent me, but that she didn’t think she could sell a series that has already been published as an ebook. She wanted me to start a new series and send it to her. I do have starting a new series with a new hero on my Marketing Plan for next year, but this year I’ll stick to Ted and Chris.

The third agent’s eyes popped out when I told him about my sales numbers for the Ted Higuera series. He wants me to send him the whole series.

So, I’m hopeful that I can make progress on my plan to publish the Higuera series as hardcopy books this year. As I said, I plan to make at least one personal appearance a month this year and it would help if I had hard copy books to sell.

There were three excellent keynote speakers at the conference. Agent Chip McGregor told of his experiences in the publishing industry. Jonathon Mayberry gave a great speech titled “Good Guys Finish First,” and Karen Karbo talked on “Quitting Your Day Job.” She told us about her ups and downs as a professional writer.

One of the real fun things at the conference was that I got to network with friends. Joseph was down from Seattle. I hadn’t seen him in years. Members of my writers group were there and I knew several of the presenters.

Writing can be a lonely profession, but it is wonderful to meet and exchange stories with other writers who face many of the same challenges that we do.

To top off a wonderful weekend, my friend Dave Larson won a Conference Choice Award for his biography The Last Jewish Gangster.

All-in-all, the conference was great. I will be back next year and would certainly recommend it to friends and colleagues.

12 Comments

A New Year

1/14/2015

2 Comments

Our Christmas Tree

Christmas is over, the holidays are behind us. It all seemed to go so fast. They were here and gone in a blip.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season. As for my family, daughter Katie flew to Africa to spend Christmas with her boyfriend, Eric, who is serving in the Peace Corps there. Daughter Libby drove to Spokane to spend Christmas with our family BFFs the La Plantes. Steve and Susie, close friends and adopted aunt and uncle for the girls, flew to Kansas to be with Susie’s family.

I spent Christmas Eve with my cousins, the Pantoja Girls (+ brother Renee). I drove the ninety miles north to Santa Anna in three hours. That’s right, three hours. Traffic was at a crawl. The drive home only took me ninety minutes.

The Cousins

We had a nice time. I got to see Carmen, Brenda, Yollanda, Susie and Renee. I hadn’t seen Renee since we were kids. He’s an old man now. I’m sure glad I haven’t aged.

Dawn and I spent a quiet Christmas together, then her brother, Duane, came over for Christmas dinner. I cooked a prime rib and we had a marvelous time.

By New Year’s, Dawn was beat. She has been working as a temp at Costco and they worked her into the ground. She didn’t feel like going out, so we stayed home and watched the ball drop in Times Square. It’s nice to have someone to share a New Years kiss with though.

Odin opens his Christmas presents

Now, it’s time to settle back into regular life.I am teaching two workshops at the San Diego State University Writers Conference on January 23rd and 24th. I’ll teach a session on marketing your books and one on critique groups. I’m really looking forward to it. I have completed my materials and now just need to practice out loud to get the time down. Poor Dawn, she will have to listen to me prattle.

If you’re a writer and you haven’t signed up yet, there’s still time.

I’m well into the new Ted Higuera thriller, Bikini Baristas. This story takes Ted and Chris back to Seattle. I have an idea that I want to try out on this one. I’m going to publish it as a serial novel. Each week I’ll publish a chapter on my web site and ask for your input. Click here to check out my home page for more details.

I still need reviews for The Mexican Connection. I have ten now, but that’s only half of what I need.

I wanted to run a BookBub promotion on The Mexican Connection in January, but they turned me down because I don’t have enough reviews.

If you are one of the bunch of people who has bought the book, please, please do me the honor of posting a review. I really need your help here folks.

Click here to post your review.

The Seven Seas Mysteries has been a success. We have sold almost two thousand copies so far, with all proceeds going to the Veterans Writers Project. This box set compiles seven nautical themed mysteries in one volume. It has some great authors and fun books. If you like the genre, you can’t go wrong for only 99 cents. Download your copy today here.

Finally, I am getting ready for knee replacement surgery. I must admit, I have some fear of the operation. They are going to cut the knee joint out of my leg and replace it with a metal joint. I have some trepidations about letting them cut up my bones, but it is getting so hard to walk, that even if the operation is a failure, it can’t be worst than what I live with now.

Surgery is scheduled for February 20th, but I have a whole host of appointments and tests to take first. To make matters worse, Covered Cal has screwed up my coverage. For some reason, known only to them, they sent my application on to Medi-Cal. I am not eligible for Medi-Cal and do not want to enroll in it, but it has messed up my coverage. Hopefully I can get this straightened out before my surgery date.

That’s it for now. Hopefully next time I’ll have more exciting news for you.

Remember, I need reviews for The Mexican Connection. And don’t forget to check back every week for a new episode of Bikini Baristas.

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December 25th, 2014

12/25/2014

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Merry Christmas Everyone!

Shameless Self Promotion

First of all, I have to give you my plea on bended knee. I need at least twelve more reviews for The Mexican Connection. I know that bunches of you have downloaded the book; I hope you’ve read it by now.

I plan to run a promotion for the book in January and need at least twenty reviews for it to be considered. If you’ve read the book, please click here and write a review right now. It will only take you ten minutes and will mean the world to me.

If you haven't read the book yet, you can get a copy here.

You’re back so soon? Thank you for your help.

Now on to the Parade of Lights

Sunset over Coronado Island

Dawn has been working at Costco as temporary holiday season help. (You don’t have any idea how difficult it is to find a job in San Diego.) She had been getting Sundays off, so we decided to take the Victory out for the annual Parade of Lights.

The Parade of Lights is a parade of decorated boats of all sizes and descriptions along the San Diego waterfront. The parade starts at the west end of Shelter Island and runs down the water front to the Coronado Bridge, then doubles back along the shoreline of Coronado Island. About one hundred boats participate, all decorated with tons of Christmas lights. This year’s theme was Children’s Stories.

I spent the week doing some necessary repairs and cleaning the boat up for the event. The topsides were a mess. After several months of sitting in San Diego bay, a layer of dust and dirt had accumulated. I spent four days fixing, cleaning and scrubbing. I was beat before we ever left the dock. That’s not even mentioning the time it took for me to decorate the boat with festive Christmas lights.

You know what they say about the best laid plans. When Dawn got her schedule for this week, she was scheduled to work on Sunday. I had already invited a dozen or so people to go, so I felt like I had to follow through.

I was going to cancel the trip, but fortunately, Theresa and James volunteered to act as hostess and host for me. They came aboard early Sunday and I gave them the tour and explained how everything worked. Then they took over and ran the galley, producing a lovely ham dinner. All guests contributed to the pot luck and we had a grand time.

Grade school classmates catch up

The south end of San Diego bay is quite shallow. There is a well marked deep-water channel to allow vessels to transit to and from Chula Vista harbor, but the water rapidly shoals to about three feet outside of the channel. The Victory draws seven feet of water, so you can see that it would be bad mojo to stray outside of the channel.

On top of this, we had a historic low tide at 4 pm, our scheduled departure time. The good news was that the tide would be on the rise if we ran aground. The bad news was that much of the bay was exposed mud flats.

Ken lives on his boat in Chula Vista Marina and he is intimately familiar with the channel. With his help, we picked our way up the channel to deep water under the Coronado Bridge.

I believe that I have already told you that Theresa was my deceased sister, Quita’s, best friend. Well Quita, Theresa and my cousin Carmen all were in the same class in grade school. Carmen and Theresa hadn’t seen each other in fifty years. They spend hours talking and reminiscing about the good old days.

I had Christmas music blaring from the stereo and the cockpit speakers. We anchored off the embarcadero and waited for the parade. The shoreline was crowded with people. As far as we could see mobs of people stood and waited for the coming of the decorated vessels.

We had time to get the anchor down, get the ham out of the oven and serve dinner to our guests, then the first boat came down the bay. For the next two hours, dozens of boats of all sizes, from decorated kayaks to hundred plus foot schooners paraded just off our starboard beam. We had the best seats in the house.

On many vessels, Santa shouted a merry “Ho, ho, ho.” We, of course replied with a hearty “merry Christmas.”

I could tell right away that we weren’t in Seattle anymore. We did the Christmas Ship parade in Seattle and froze our little tutus off. Here in San Diego we wore parkas for the trip up the bay into the wind, but as soon as we were at anchor, off came the coats in the balmy weather. On the way back down the bay after the parade, the wind was with us so we didn’t need the coats going home either.

Lights on the bay

At this point I put “Stan Boreson Fractures Christmas” on the stereo. If you aren’t from Seattle, you probably don’t know Stan. He was a kiddie show host in the ‘50’s and his wacky Swedish immigrant character plays the accordion and makes up fanciful words for your favorite Christmas Carols. He does old standards like “Lena Got Run Over by a Reindeer” and “Walking in my Winter Underwear.” He had the San Diegans rolling on the deck.

We had a marvelous meal, thoroughly enjoyed watching the parade, then pulled the anchor and headed home.

Nothing is ever as easy as it should be. For some reason, the anchor windlass decided not to pull up the chain and we had to haul in the last thirty or forty feet by hand. That’s a couple of hundred pounds of chain with a sixty-five pound anchor on the end. Four guys took turns being macho and hauling that puppy up to the deck, but finally we were free.

The trip back to Chula Vista was a little nerve wracking for me, but I’m sure the guest had a good time. While they enjoyed pie and ice cream, I had to pick my way up the channel, marked by navigation lights (with Ken’s help), without running aground. This time we were on a falling tide, so if we got stuck, we would be in deep kimchee. (Or should I say “shallow kimchee?”)

My cousin, Yollanda, sat next to me at the helm. “It sure would be easy to get lost out here,” she said. “They don’t have any street signs.”

“But they do,” I answered. “See those red and green lights? They mark the safe channel home. The flashing blue light is a police harbor patrol boat. The flashing yellow lights are the stake boats for the parade that mark the parade route.”

“I guess you have to know how to read them,” she replied.

We made it back to Chula Vista Marina and I managed to get the Victory back in her slip in the dark. Docking this big, ungainly boat is a little like trying to park a semi in your garage without the use of brakes. She fits, but just barely and there isn’t a lot of room in the fairways for backing and filling. Basically, you have to judge the turns right the first time or you’ll be poking your bow sprit into someone else’s boat.

All in all we had a marvelous time. All the guests were happy and I managed to get everyone back alive and in one piece. Any time I can say that, I consider it a successful trip.

I spent the next day watching football, eating and napping. I was totally wiped out.

Back to Shameless Self Promotion

I hope you have all purchased a copy of Seven Seas Mysteries by now. If you haven’t, to get yours at Amazon.com click here.

Seven Seas Mysteries is a boxed set of seven pulse-pounding nautical mystery novels by seven bestselling authors for only 99 cents. I had the honor of including The Inside Passage in this set.

All proceeds from the sale of this box set go to the Veterans Writing Project.

Pick up your copy today. Have seven great reads and support a really worthy cause.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

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Wayne Stinnett Interviews his Character Jesse McDermitt

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Merry Christmas Everyone!

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Now on to the Parade of Lights

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