October Greetings

Hello, Fire Enthusiasts. Now that summer is officially in the death throes I have finally climbed out from beneath my air-conditioned rock. *laughs* You folks who know me know full well that I think summer is over-rated. Of course here in central California our winter is a season in name only. It might get grey and there will be Tule Fog, but that's about it. I realize that if I actually had to live through a real mid-west, upper east coast kind of winter, I might be a lot less cavalier about it.

Well, summer isn't the only think that's dying around here. If you follow me on Facebook you know that my youth is dying as well. As I type this note I am sporting my new glasses. Yep, I understand I now belong to the distinguished-looking group! What say you? Thankfully I only need to to see the real small print...

Anyway, I'm cool with it. Go ahead and give me your comments. I'm just glad I can read a menu again, and certainly the bill!
"How much does this say, Dear?"
"If you wouldn't have had that second drink..."
"No, I'm trying to figure out the tip." *sigh*

I have had two book events since last we've spoken. The first was a release event for Infernal in my hometown. It was held at the store that sells my books. I did pretty well there. I signed about 33 copies, if memory serves. We were slammed that first hour, but it was a lot of fun. There were certainly friends and family in attendance; however, a lot of fans came out, too. That never gets old!

The other was a street event where downtown was closed off and there were bands playing on stages on either end. It wasn't bad, although it was all day and quite warm. I only signed about 18 copies or so, but four new people bought all four books at once, and many others stopped by to get to know me and what I do. It's what it's all about, isn't it? I have another event coming up on Halloween morning at my local library. It sounds perfectly delightful to me and I'm looking forward to sharing. More on that later...

My wife and I took some time to get away again. We headed for the coast to attend a concert in Paso Robles at a relatively new amphitheater that turned out to be really cool. The weather was great in the evening and I finally got to see Tears for Fears. It was a very good show, and I'm hearing rumors of a new album in the works.

I finally have a website. I've been fairly quiet on that front because I wanted to live with it for a time before letting the proverbial cat out of the bag. Before this I had been using this blog as my base of operations. Hopefully, this new site will be another step forward in my attempt at global domination. *winks*


Lastly, I am taking part in a vampire books for blood event this month which benefits the Red Cross. If you have yet to take a bite into my crossover vampire series, this would be the month. 100% of the proceeds for each and every ebook sold this month will go to the American Red Cross. It's a very cool event and I hope people will consider buying. You get the book(s), I have the word spread about them and the Red Cross gets the money. It's the brainchild of author Scott Burtness and there's a bunch of vampire authors participating. Check them out here.

That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by. We'll talk soon.  

February 2014

Hello, Fire Enthusiasts. How's it going?

2014 has been crazy as I look for a routine that has yet to present itself. Yeah, I'm that guy! Life at a particular moment may not be tough, but if its inconsistent I find myself struggling. *sigh* Something to work on, huh? *grins* How's your year? Do you have a firm routine?

In the past I have spent a lot of time whining about my day job, but I'd rather not continue that trend this year. My hours have changed, but they are still crazy-busy. I was hoping not to work as many hours this year, but I think I'll have to content myself with starting early and getting home before dark. We'll see. A couple of weeks ago I worked 70 hours. Blah, blah, blah...

You bloggers probably noticed that I haven't been around. I miss you all, and wish I could take the time to reach out, but it isn't possible. At least not right now. For the meantime I'm going to treat this site like a website and just keep everyone updated once a month. It's all I can do. Hopefully our paths will cross on social networks or something. My wife has had enough of me attempting to cram 30 hours of work (day-job and writing) into a 24 hour day, and I absolutely cannot blame her.

Okay, I have three e-books and one of them is also a paperback. You can find them on Amazon.com. A local store in my hometown is selling my paperback - which is very cool. We just held an event and I sold a stack of books. I had people I have never met come up to me and tell me they had already read my books. That was very cool. I may never be a best seller - God knows - but the few people who have read my work say they loved the experience. That's got to account for something, huh?

I am now one-hundred thousand words into book four (book three in my crossover vampire series). I'm having a ball writing this first draft. I even made myself tear up the other day during a particularly moving moment for a character I first created over twenty years ago. She was dealing with a sudden loss. Those moments are few and far between, but very special. I can't wait to share it with the readers. Hopefully the book will be completed and published before 2014 is over, but we'll see. I want to finish the draft and then turn my attention toward publishing my first two e-books in paperback formats. This should give me a nice time-out between drafts.

What else can I tell you about? My wife and I attended the second to last Pink concert of The Truth about Love Tour which just ended. I had some Pink tunes on my trusty iPod, but had no idea how cool her shows were. Thankfully my wife wanted to go, so I bought us tickets. What a spectacle! It was so good that I just bought the Blu Ray concert. If you have no idea, check out clips on You Tube. You'll see. From now on, anyone who just stands there is going to bore me to tears. Seriously, check out the clips!

Well, I'll see you in March with another update. My 45th birthday will happen on the 22nd. Yikes! How did that happen? Thankfully the Rolling Stones are in their 70's. Know what I mean? *grins*

We'll talk soon.

A Life Not Worth Living

Hello, Fire Enthusiasts.

My run of discovering fresh new up and coming authors continued this past week as I completed the most amazing novel by Phillip Tucker. As you can see it is entitled Crude Sunlight.

The Plot:

Thomas has come to Buffalo, New York in order to clean out his brother’s apartment. Henry went missing, and everyone has long-since given up hope of his returning. There are strange photographs left that reveal an odd thrill-seeking activity that Henry and others were engaging in: trespassing old abandoned buildings. Videotapes taken during these excursions reveal not only the odd activity, but something else. Something horrible.

Thomas soon meets the other principles: Julia and Eric; and one way or another, they have all been touched in a very negative way by whatever it was that happened during a visit to the old abandoned State Mental Hospital. Thomas discovers that Henry never came out alive, although, during his own visit below the hospital, something of Henry indeed remains. And it’s coming for Julia.

The original four trespassers: Julia, Henry, Eric, Jimmy, as well as Buck (a friend of Thomas), Michelle (the estranged wife) and even Thomas himself are all flawed and scarred characters that seemingly will gladly give up their worthless and meaningless lives as not worth living once they have been properly poked and prodded by the devouring darkness.

My thoughts:

Using gripping and oftentimes elegant prose, Tucker tells a most imaginative ghost story that spans several generations, claiming one victim after another, as each willingly hands over their lives to the ghoul before. No one is spared, and even Thomas finds himself perilously close to succumbing as well, as he attempts to make things right with a brother he hardly knew, at the expense of a wife that will not wait forever for him to decide just what it is that he wants out of life.

Although I currently write vampire fiction, it is the promise of a great haunted house story which calls out to me. Some of my greatest disappointments have come from the much-promised ghost story which kept me enthralled for 75% of the adventure, only to leave wanting as it failed to deliver the goods. Crude Sunlight did not fail to deliver the goods. It didn’t end the way I had hoped, and it may not end the way you would think it should, but man does it end.

Being a do-it-yourself debut author, Tucker informs me that he is going back in to clean up a few things in the novel. I noticed them, too, but they were not enough to distract me as I barnstormed my way through.

Taking his readers from the slums of early New York to modern day, and to the very pit of hell, Tucker weaves a tale that pulls no punches and lands each and every one. And when he is done, we are not left with a book that we can simply close and add to our bookshelf, but one which continues to haunt, asking the reader not only what just happened, but also how closely we might mirror the victims and survivors of the incredible debut novel from author Phil Tucker that is Crude Sunlight.


Author Phil Tucker can be found on Facebook and his fantastic debut can be found on Amazon.

Another Author Event:


Before I go, I would like to share with you a photo from my most recent author event which took place this past Thursday. Myself and authors Lorie Ham and Marilyn Meredith met at the Sanger, California Library. We shared a bit about ourselves and read excerpts from our novels. I sold a couple of copies which is always great and people showed which was a plus. *laughs* Sadly, I neglected to bring my camera, but I'm grateful that my wife's niece was there to snap this one. Thanks, Lee.

We'll talk soon.

Kingsburg Library Event

Hello, Fire Enthusiasts. How was your week? Mine kind of sucked! Can we use that kind of language here? *flips through by-laws* Lol! Actually, the week was pretty busy, which is rather normal. It was mostly Friday that was the worst; leaving such a bad taste in my mouth. Picture 11 hours at work, no lunch, a work-phone that never stopped ringing and very little production on the Packaging floor. You guys know I work at Sun-Maid Raisin Growers, right?

Anyway, I didn't post today to whine about what has past. There were some good things that took place. My son had a concert Monday night with some of his buddies and did well, as always. The young man has skills! Then on Thursday evening I had an author event at my local library. It is about this that I wanted to share with you.

I joined the Chamber of Commerce last year in anticipation of this sort of thing. You'll recall that my novel is about vampires loosed in my hometown, so I have a built-in audience if I can only reach them. I attempted to get something going with the library before, but it was slow going. However, in May, while sharing a bill with Lorie Ham and Marilyn Meredith of Kings River Life Magazine at a library event in Fresno, I happened to meet a member of the Kingsburg Friends of the Library. That meeting led to this past week's event.

I freely admit that I was a bit nervous. I do safety meetings at work where I have to speak publicly - that wasn't the problem. I had also done a couple of things before, but this time it was all me. Needless to say, everything worked out well.

We had about twenty people come out which was great. You always worry that no one shows, you know? I was given no outline as to what to do, so after I was introduced, I began by telling them about myself. I told them who I was, what shaped me and how I came to be sitting before them. Then I read the synopsis to Dance on Fire. I then opened the book and read what amounts to be the prologue. We did questions and answers, too. I've been pretty lucky so far, in that the questions have always been good and thought-provoking. Nothing ridiculous or too repetitive...so far. Anyway, how could I complain? I never thought I would really be doing this.

Before I forget, I told the group that I felt it was important that we were all there, supporting our local library. In this day of tightening budgets, it is a shame to think of losing our arts in the schools and to have our libraries close. It was my discovery of horror novels in my teenage years that led me to be sitting before them. Without libraries and book stores, I might never have come to be a writer.

I met new people, got reacquainted with some old friends and was joined by friends, family and co-workers. I sold some more books and hopefully laid the seed for future fans. (By the way, the e-book version of my novel is 50% off at Smashwords until the end of July. See the link above.) One thing that I take very seriously is what I feel to be a responsibility that I have. Since I dreamt of being a writer for my entire life and am now having that dream realized, I hold the eyes of every young person that I meet and do my best to convince them to chase their dreams. Especially the teenage girls. I know how the world and young men try to get them to settle.
I tell them, either by my words or in the body of my autograph, to dream big and then to do everything in their power to chase that dream.

I hope you guys are doing that, too.

We'll talk soon.

Hello Fire Enthusiasts.

How is everyone? You know, I feel badly that I have done such a poor job of visiting your blogs. I typically see many of you on Twitter or Facebook and that’s great. However, one of the reasons why I left my spot at Wicked Writers was to free me up to do other things. I have been less successful with blogs, but I’m endeavoring to improve.

One of the reasons why I have been so busy is because I have really been doing a lot of events. Some of you may have seen a post or two concerning this fact, perhaps not. I have been asked to share how some of this has come about, so I’d like to take a few paragraphs to explain, if I may.

First of all, be aware that my ground is fertile. I wrote a vampire novel which takes place in my hometown. Not only did I mention Kingsburg, California, but I also used the neighboring towns and did a fair job of mentioning the valley in which these communities are located. I didn’t always feel that way about my area. People did not seem to notice me until I began doing events. I just want to make sure that folks understand because it isn’t the same thing as having written a western in Hawaii, for instance.

In any event, here’s how I have been able to start signing books:

Year One.

I spent the first year attempting to build a presence on the ‘Net. I covered most of the social networks. At some point or another I began writing for three blogs. During this time I garnered some reviews there. Six months into this effort, I had my local high school as well as a local magazine review the novel. The magazine review opened up an opportunity to write articles as the Kingsburg Beat Writer for a local on-line magazine that had just started up. Anticipating the soft cover version of the novel coming out, I joined the Kingsburg Chamber of Commerce and attended mixers.

Just as the first year was coming to a close my novel came out in soft cover. I began giving and selling copies, as well as attempting to garner reviews with it. I am in the first six months of this second year and I have been covered by my city newspaper (the Kingsburg Recorder), briefly mentioned by the newspaper in the largest city in my area (The Fresno Bee) and now reviewed in this month’s issue of Fresno Magazine.

Six Months into Year Two:

Being a member of the Chamber allowed me the opportunity to sell my novels in their building. I then partnered up with Pamela’s Boutique, a local shop in town. I had met the owner at my first mixer and she offered to sell copies in her store. Working for Kings River Life Magazine gave me an opportunity to attend my first library event. Then it was time for the annual Kingsburg Swedish Festival, a street fair of sorts that is the main draw of the year for us. I had a booth there and sold about 30 copies. Next, a wonderful group of ladies picked up my novel for their book club and then invited me to come and share my story with them and talk books. Recently, I had what promises to be the first of many author events at Pamela’s. I sold another 13 copies there.

(That's James, Sr. in the center)

The Next Six Months:

Armed with the excellent review from Fresno Magazine, I marched up to Fresno to speak with the big three: Barnes & Noble, Borders & Bereans. So far I have hit the corporate wall. They want me to e-mail corporate offices, see how many copies I’m selling and to know about return policies, etc. Vamplit Publishing is a new company which is building a firm foundation for itself and has a great stable of authors; however, we are not yet in a position to meet some of these requirements. I’m thinking that I’m going to back off a bit and focus on the smaller book stores in my area. I’m guessing that they will be more receptive. I have another library event planned for next month in Kingsburg, too.

So this is where I find myself, my friends. Things have gotten really exciting. The sequel to my first novel should be coming back to me shortly so that I may make some corrections. It should be published this year in both e-book and soft cover formats. I have already begun planning book three, although I am torn between wanting to pen book three of the trilogy and wanting to write something different.

(That's my great friend Mike, who I have known since grade school. He and his family came down to visit his parents and kept the surprise from me until he walked into the shop. Seeing the Graham family was the highlight of the night.)

As always you will be among the first to know.

Thanks so much for your interest, support and constant enthusiasm.

We’ll talk soon.

Monday Morning Musings

Hello, Fire Enthusiasts. Happy (long weekend) Memorial Day to you and yours.

Before I get all carried away I just want to give a shout-out to all of those who have worn a uniform for the United States or its Allies. You have sacrificed much for freedom, all too often sacrificing all that you had to give.

Forgive me, my blogosphere friends. I have been away too long. Things have been hectic at work, seemingly each week being worse than the last. On top of this, I began to attend/host author events which took up a bunch of time. Therefore, you have not seen me prowling about any of your blogs in a very long time. I hope to make up for this real soon. I visited several posts Saturday night and hopefully this trend will continue all long-weekend long.

For those of you who follow the Wicked Writers Blog, you may have already read this, but I just resigned and posted my last this past Friday. My leaving had nothing to do with drama of any kind. I simply needed to reevaluate the amount of time that I had each day and how I hope to dedicate it. I have written nothing new in well over a year while I focused on PR and Networking, and this needs to change...

...On that front, I just mailed off the contract for Dance on Fire: Flashpoint. I'm told that my edits will be in my hands (okay, my hard drive) sometime in July. Once that has been completed, I will have no new fiction to offer anyone, and will need to rectify this. It's either going to be Dance on Fire 3 or something else. I have some ideas for something other than vampires, but have yet to decide for certain. We'll see.

As to author events, I did a library event in Fresno, California because it is close to my home. A day later was the start of the Swedish Festival which was Friday night and all day Saturday. This took place last weekend. This past Thursday I attended a book club in town which had read my novel. It was a great time and I thank those ladies immensely. By the end of all of this I had signed and sold about 32 copies of my novel.

The subject of doing two other events at local libraries has been broached; however, in the meantime, I am definitely doing an event June 9th at Pamela's Boutique in my hometown. It is currently the exclusive home to my novel. It is going to be a meet & greet with wine! I can't wait.

What else? I can tell you that I am being reviewed in Fresno Magazine in the June issue. I haven't seen it yet, but I understand that it is favorable. *wipes forehead*.

Many may recall that it sounded as if I was contemplating not necessarily quitting writing, but certainly backing off everything that I was attempting to juggle. There was simply too much! Had these recent events not turned out so well, I just might have done that. For all of you who have offered words of encouragement or bought copies of my novel, I thank you. It appears that my writing has an audience after all and I will continue to endeavour trying to reach them.

We'll talk soon.

An Eventful Weekend

Hello, Fire Enthusiasts. I hope everyone is well and had a great weekend.

If you didn't hear from me on Twitter for #WW or #FF and haven't seen the familiar flame avatar on your blog in a while, I assure you that I am alive and well. I have just been treading water over here...

In my day job, we have been so busy. I have been working 11 hour hectic days. The kind of days where you want to slam your company-issued cell phone into the nearest wall, due to the volume of calls that you end up taking. You don't, of course. But you really, really want to. *sigh*

On top of this I had my first events as an author, and the build-up and preparation for these were taking all of my time. In fact, I didn't touch my trusty lap top for 48 hours between Thursday and Saturday night. It must be some sort of record!!

The first event was Thursday evening at a library in Fresno, California which is about 25 minutes north of me. I joined authors Lorie Ham and Marilyn Meredith. The three of us also write articles for Lorie's Kings River Life Magazine. Each of us spoke a bit about ourselves and then read a bit from our novels. We had about eleven guests attend, which was way more than I thought we might get. They were an enthusiastic crowd and asked some good questions. I had fun interacting with them and felt that it was a positive first experience.

Friday afternoon I checked in for the Kingsburg Swedish Festival. It is my hometown's big event for the year, and an event that I attended as a child. Now I was a vendor. I was given the spot directly in front of the local branch of the Fresno County Library. I met new people and surprised local friends that had no idea that I was a writer.

Now there is special significance for those who have yet to read my novel. The plot takes place in my hometown and occurs 10 days before the Swedish Festival in 2008. So perhaps now you can see why I have said that if I can't sell a book about vampires in my town, then I might not be able to sell it at all. Thankfully, it was a great event. I worried that I would speak to few and sell fewer still. However, armed with 43 copies of my book, Dance on Fire, I now only have 11 remaining.

After spending a year building a web presence, followed by attacking newspapers and magazines and now followed by holding author events, I feel confident that there is enough there to continue on. Had this weekend bombed, I would have felt compelled to back down.

Thanks so much to all of you who have encouraged me to continue chasing the dream. I hope you are doing the same, and that my progress encourages you in return. In other news, I just mailed my contract for Dance on Fire: Flashpoint. I am anxiously awaiting my edits to arrive so that book 2 will see physical and virtual bookshelves everywhere.

We'll talk soon.

Author Events

Greetings, Fire Enthusiasts. How is everyone? I have been busier than you-know-what, and it doesn't seem to be getting any easier. In fact, it's part of why I am coming to you today. I have a couple of author events this week and I would like to tell you about them.

The first one is an event with three authors on Thursday. I live near Fresno, California and we are holding the event at the Cedar/Clinton Branch of the Fresno County Library. As well as being authors, each of us write for Kings River Life Magazine, so it will be great getting the three of us together.

The second one is Friday evening and all day Saturday in my home town of Kingsburg. It is the third weekend in May, and anyone who knows the valley knows that it is time for the annual Kingsburg Swedish Festival. If you have read my novel, Dance on Fire, then you are aware that Kingsburg is a small town with a Swedish Heritage that we like to maintain. It is the biggest event of the year for us, drawing very large crowds. I will be there, manning an information table downtown, promoting myself as well as KRL Magazine. I will have copies of my book on hand to sell and sign.

I’m looking forward to these events. It is the next phase in Operation: Get The Word Out. Phase one was to create a presence on the “world wide web”. I did that, somewhat successfully. I’m all over the net and garnered good reviews; however, I don’t know that I sold very many copies of the e-book. Phase two was to promote the paperback version of the novel. I was reviewed/featured in magazines and newspapers and even placed my novel in a couple of stores. Again, I sold some copies, but still did not get the response that I was hoping for.

It isn’t as if I was expecting to sell a copy of the novel to every man, woman and child in my little part of the world; however, being that it is a vampire novel (big sellers these days) and is set completely in my hometown, I thought it might get more support. Perhaps it will, but getting the word out hasn’t been easy.

For those who have given me advice regarding setting up a table or preparing, I thank you. I will be sure to report back sometime thereafter, with photos.

We’ll talk soon.

Author Event Advice?

Hello, Fire Enthusiasts. How is your week? Good, I hope.

In the next few weeks I have several scheduled author events. It’s kind of a make or break month for me. You see, my novel is about vampires loosed in my real hometown of Kingsburg, California. In the novel the vampires show up a couple of weeks before the Swedish Festival. It is a real event which takes place on the third weekend of May. My point is, if I can’t sell this book in this area, I’m guessing that it might be time to close up shop, in a manner of speaking.

We’ve discussed this before, but I have an eleven hour day job. Life was busy before I restarted writing and found myself blessed with a published novel. I went from this blog to adding two more (although I rarely help with that third one) and then took on a job as an article writer for a local on-line magazine, Kings River Life as the Kingsburg writer. All of this, plus keeping active on all of the social networks is too much; however, I have been doing it because I’m 42 years old and feel as if I should hustle, attempting to see whether I might be able to make something out of this writing career.

Notice that I didn’t say anything about keeping up with housework, being a good dad and husband, etc.

In any event, I definitely wouldn’t quit writing, but I would most likely scale back. There’s no way that I can maintain this pace.

However, this is not why I have come to you today. Since I am embarking upon my very first series of author events, I would like to hear from those of you who have already done some of these for advice. Do you have any words of wisdom for me? I was thinking about buying a table which would be longer than a regular card-table, something to give me a bit more room. I was thinking about covering it with two tablecloths: one a long neutral one, and another a much smaller one, giving me a splash of dark red or maroon (going with the blood visuals, don’t’cha know). I have ordered several acrylic book displays. I am planning on buying a couple of baskets for my business cards and magazine bookmarks. I am also thinking about making up some binders with either short stories of mine as well as some of the articles that I have written for the magazine.

Am I missing anything? I have a library event and a book club that I am doing, but I am also doing an outdoor festival for two days.

I know that a few of you have done similar events and could share a few insights. I’d love to hear them.

We’ll talk soon.