Goodbye to 2009

The first decade of the twenty-first century is coming to an end. I remember when we left the twentieth century. It seems like only yesterday. I know that is an old phrase, but it is so true. These last ten years have gone by like a flash. When I look back I must say I actually managed to achieve a lot when it comes to my writing. I published my first story 'The Anniversary Gift' in 2005 (Sweet Revenge by Midnight Showcase) and my first book 'The Xandra, Daughter of the Dark' in 2006.
To date I've published 7 novels, 5 novellas, 1 short-story-collection (Tapestry of Dreams) and 5 short stories in various digests.
I also sold this year a two-book novel 'Stars in Chains' to MSFiction, publishing date not yet known.
In addition to the published ones I wrote a 180,000 word contemporary novel 'Tarnished Valor'. I'm still looking for a publisher (Print publisher) for that novel. Long novels like that are hard to sell as ebooks, unless I break it into two-volumes, which might eventually happen.
My new novel 'Epsilon' is coming along quite nicely. I managed to write some more since last I posted. I'm at 110,000 words right now. I will have to make two books out of that one as well. By the time I'm finished I will probably pass the 130,000 word mark.
I've proved to myself that I can accomplish a lot if I stick to it and not listen to other people who think it is a waste of time to pursue something that does not produce any money. They don't understand that success is not measured by the amount of money you get for your efforts. Success to me is anything I start and finish. If I can make a few people happy with what I write then I have achieved what I set out to do...share my creative dreams with others.
Some people golf, some play hockey, some people just watch sports played by others, some play soccer, some play football, or ride bicycles. There are others who paint, take pictures with their cameras, play an instrument, read books, etc. I write. It is as simple as that. Writing my stories takes me away from every-day-life into the world of the imagination where, no matter how many problems the heroes encounter, eventually everything always turns out right. Of course, that is up to me. I control what happens. (That's what you think, buddy. He...he...he). Sorry about that; just one of my characters popping in to undermine my wonderful essay.
I hope you all have a great year-end and a successful 2010.
Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas

Well, it's Christmas again. It seems this year just zoomed by. My two-book novel 'Stars in Chains' was accepted by MSFicion, so far I don't know when it will be published. I checked Fictionwise last night and discovered that 'Orion, Symbiont of Passion' has reached number 6 position in sales. I didn't even know it was already available at Fictionwise. It is exciting in a way, but the sales amount to so little money it is hardly worth it. So anyone wanting to buy it, please go to the MSFiction site. At least from those sales I profit a little. Fortunately, I don't depend on that income, otherwise I'd be standing in the 'Soupkitchen-line'.
On some other news. I passed another milestone. I'm at 102,000 words with my novel Epsilon. I hope to finish it early in the new year.
I'm looking forward to working again on my other novel, as yet no title, except for 'Book Four in the Xandra series'. As I mentioned before, so far I've written about 20,000 words; just the beginning.
I hope everyone reading this has a Merry Christmas and spends it with family and people they love. I know it is a Christian celebration, but the message it carries applies to everyone. Peace on Earth and Good Will to Man. Wouldn't it be nice if instead of all the hate that exists on our planet we could all get along, no matter what we believe, no matter the name of the god we pray to?
Unfortunately, Christmas has been so commercialized that its real meaning seems to have been forgotten. Perhaps we can all take a few moments tonight and tomorrow to reflect on what Christmas is really about. To reach out and embrace each other, to see the other person as just another human being and forget about religion, skin color, honor, patriotism, duty, greed, and all those other things that create the problems we are facing every day.
Merry Christmas.

Hi

Welcome visitors from Love Romance Cafe. I promised you a free copy of 'Orion, the Hunt' just for visiting my blog. Just send me an email hegro@shaw.ca and mention your visit. Please, feel free to check out my books on my Website 'Herbert's World'. Perhaps you'll see something you like. Should you, by chance, already have 'Orion, the Hunt', then ask me for a free download of one of my other books. If you are a visitor who just stumbled across my blog, the offer stands also for you.
Hope to hear from you.

Right now I am busy writing my Science Fiction novel 'Epsilon'. I just crossed the 87,000 word barrier (not a special barrier. I just call it that for lack of another word). There is still much more to write until I'm finished. I don't know yet how I will end the novel, it is still a secret, even for me. That's the fun of writing. I never really know where the story will take me. I have ideas in my head, but they are still vague. All I know is that in the end everything will come together. It always does.
With Christmas shopping and other things to do, I don't write as much as I would like to, so the story is moving slowly ahead, but that also gives me time to reflect on it and fix some inconsistencies that sometimes happen.

Hello and welcome

Thank you for visiting. Remember me next Christmas was one of my first published stories. It is still among my favorites. It takes place in the future of the trilogy 'The Xandra'. I love the world I created there and decided to write a fourth book in the series. This time I'm following the colonists and scientists who became stranded on the fifth planet in the system. So far I've written about 20,000 words, but I put the novel aside to finish 'Epsilon'. I'm at 80,000 words right now, but there is still more to write before I'm finished.
Don't forget to visit my website Herbert's World and check out all of my other books, including the Xandra trilogy.

Stars in Chains and other updates

Just got an email from Midnight Showcase Fiction that my novel 'Stars in Chains' has been accepted and my contract is forthcoming. I sent it in August 31. So this is the longest time I had to wait for a positive answer from MSFiction.
I'm busy with my novel 'Epsilon'. It took me a while to get back into the story, but it is beginning to flow. I left it alone and wrote 'Stars in Chains', which took longer to write than anticipated; it also got longer than I had planned. But once I was fully into the story, I couldn't stop writing and more and more stuff popped into my head.
That's usually the way it happens. I'm over 70,000 words now with 'Epsilon' and no end in sight. I'm beginning to enjoy the story again. I had sort of met a roadblock when I was at 60,000 words. That's why I started with 'Stars in Chains', originally titled 'Mindgod'.
'Epsilon' won't have as much erotica in it than my other books. There'll be some to spice up the story a bit. I have a feeling my readers expect it, but perhaps I can attract a different group of readers. Not everyone likes erotica.
Once I'm done with 'Epsilon', I will continue with Book Four in the Xandra series, of which I've written around 20,000 words so far. I'm excited about that story also, but it will have to wait, even though it keeps calling to me once in a while. I MUST RESIST THE CALL OF THE SIREN. I MUST!
I have no title for it yet. That one, also, will have fewer sex-scenes in it. I want to concentrate more on the story itself, even though all my tales, no matter how much or little erotica they contain, do have a story line. They are not just one mindless sex-scene after another.
But you can find that out for yourself by reading them. Don't just take my word for it. ^_^

Symbiont of Passion is alive

Finally. Symbiont of Passion is live on MSFiction. That is one of the problems with publishing. It takes sometimes forever until a novel or story is published. I sent it to MSFiction in February 2008. That's over a year. That is a long time to wait. A long time of anticipation. But now the wait is finally over. I wrote the story probably over twenty years ago. I decided to bring it out of its drawer and rewrite and edit it. It has quite a bit of erotica in it; there was more when I wrote it. I culled much of it and rewrote other scenes. I believe it's a good story. Science Fiction, what else? This is the second story featuring Orion. The first one was 'Orion, the Hunt', also available from MSFiction.
Orion is an Agent for the Colonial Worlds of Sol Terra. He is human, on the outside, but inside he is much more. Part of his mind is alien, immortal. He possesses certain powers, like telepathy. But read the stories and you'll find out.
Anyone sending me an email at hegro@shaw.ca and mentions that he (she) read my blog and tells me on which site he (she) saw my post will get a free download of 'Orion, the Hunt'. I will also draw one name for a free download of 'Symbiont of Passion'. That will happen Friday, October 23. I will announce the winner on the sites and the winner will also be notified.
Thanks for visiting.
Check out my website Herbert's World for another excerpt.

Merry Christmas...I mean Happy Thanksgiving

What a surprise! Yesterday we had our first Winter storm. It is supposed to be warm around Thanksgiving, but not this year. Then of course what do we expect. It's been a lousy summer. Why not have a lousy Fall. We had a warm September, but my wife and I missed it. We were in Germany for three weeks. The only consolation we have, the weather there was quite descend also.
There is still quite a bit of work to do in the yard. All the plants are still in my garden. They need to be pulled, the soil tilled and prepared for next Spring. We can only hope the snow melts away.
I went duck hunting yesterday morning, but the ducks have started to go South. Smart birds. Not a successful hunt. It was nice though to spend the time outdoors standing among the bulrushes. It was cold, minus 6, but when you're dressed for it, the cold doesn't penetrate. The weather was otherwise not bad. The storm didn't start until about noon, by that time we were already on our way home.
Here is what we saw this morning looking out of our sunroom. Brr...too cold to even sit in it because it is not a 4-season's room.

FlashForward by Robert J. Sawyer

Has anyone watched the new TV series FlashForward? The story was originally written by Rober J. Sawyer, a Canadian science fiction writer, and published 1999. He watched the first episode in Winnipeg, Canada, where he was one of the writers attending the Writers Festival, which happens every year in Winnipeg. My son Perry organizes the event and he is responsible for bringing Canadian writers to Winnipeg. Part of his job is to pick them up at the airport and make sure everything runs smoothly. Well, I am very proud to say that Robert J. Sawyer sat in my car, because my son used my car to pick him up. Maybe some of his magic will rub off on me. One can only hope.
The show is different from the book, which is okay, especially for the people who read the book. I liked the first two episodes. The show may turn out to be the next hit series, like Lost. We'll see.

Review of Outpost Epsilon

My book 'Outpost Epsilon' has been reviewed by Coffee Time Romance and received three cups. Please check it out by clicking on Coffee Time Romance
Coffee Time Romance is open again after their site had been attacked by a nasty person and had to be shut down.

I'm back

It’s been awhile since I posted, but I took a little three-week holiday in Germany. It was great but now I’m back and ready to carry on with my chores and my writing. My novel ‘Orion, Symbiont of Passion’ is scheduled to be released next month, but I still have to approve the edits.
When I checked my book sales on Fiction Wise I received a nice surprise. Fourteen of my books (or digests that contain a story of mine) are in the upper thirty list. That means approximately 50% of the sales are from my books. That’s feels good.
Here is the list as of September 27, 2009:
Orion, the Hunt: 5
A little Holiday Romance: 11
Orola: 13
Outpost Epsilon: 14
Xandra 1: 16
Xandra 2: 17
Xandra 3; 19
Seeds of Chaos 1: 20
Cliffs of Time: 24
Beyond the Stars: 25
Seeds of Chaos 2: 26
Midnight Raunch: 27
Stardogs 1: 28
Stardogs 2: 29
Men of Eros: 46
Dual Visions: 51

Some of them have moved on the list today, some up, a couple slipped (Holiday Romance and Orola).

Check it out at Fiction Wise.

My novel Outpost Epsilon has been reviewed by Coffeetime Romance, but they have a major problem with their site right now and it has been shut down until they fix the problem. I will publish the link here when it is safe to do so.

Done

I've changed the title of my new novel from 'The Mindgod' to 'Stars in Chains'. Since it is 122,000 words long, I've made it into a two volume novel. Book One is 'Slave' and Book Two is 'Liberator'.
It is not easy to find a fitting and catchy title. I hope future readers will find this one intriguing enough to want to buy the books.
I sent it yesterday to MSFiction, my publisher, and I hope they want it. It has quite a bit of erotica in it. Kind of ironic, since I said I wouldn't write any more erotica, or at least less of it. But I wrote the first 40,000 words about 30 years ago and I liked the story, so a pulled it out of the dusty drawer and did some rewriting and finished it. I'm happy how it turned out, hopefully everyone else thinks so.
Now I'm ready to get back to 'Epsilon', but I have to read first what I've written.

Finished (sort of)

Wow. I finally finished my novel ‘The Mindgod’. 122,000 + words. Now the real work begins: Editing. I’m already at page 83 with that. There are 214 pages single spaced.
After that comes the spellcheck, but you can’t really trust that program. It doesn’t catch every misspelled word. The word might be spelled correctly, but it is the wrong word for its meaning. The title will definitely change. I’m still playing around with that. It is not easy to find a catchy title, one that fits to the contents of the novel.
I may have to make two volumes out of this novel because of its length. That means two titles.
Checked my sales at Fictionwise. The Xandra series was in number 7, 8 and 9 position for the last 20 days at August 20th. That has already changed. Now it is the digest Men of Eros, which contains my story ‘A taste of Paradise’, that is at number 4 position and number 5 in sales for the last 20 days as of today. That may change tomorrow again.
Once I'm done with Mindgod I will continue with 'Epsilon'. Of course, I'll have to read what I've written (60,000 words) so I get into the story again. I'm looking forward to visiting again the planet where dinosaurs roam and intelligent Spiders and Ants challenge humans for the right to Epsilon.

The Mindgod

I'm at 103,000 words with my novel 'Mindgod' and still so much to go. It is becoming too long for one book. An ideal ebook is around 70,000 words maybe even less. So now I may have to make this into two volumes and that may be difficult. Where to make the break? Book one won't have an ending and Book Two won't have its own beginning. Well, I had to do it with the Xandra series. The second book turnd out too long so I made two books out of it, ending up with a three volume series. I had to do the same with Seeds of Chaos and The Stardogs. I find it difficult to write a short novella. It seems I can't get enough into the story if it is short. Once I'm done with 'Mindgod' I will continue with 'Epsilon'. I'm at 60,000 words with that one and no end in sight yet. But right now it is not on my mind.
The other book I started, 'Xandra Four' (no title yet), I've written around 20,000 words with that one. After I finish Epsilon Xandra Four will be my next project. I'm excited about it but it will have to wait. I'm trying not to think about it because I need to concentrate on finishing Mindgod and then Epsilon. With Summer and lots of stuff to do in the yard I don't have as much time to write as I would like. Things are slow and yet, I'm surprised how much I wrote. When I sit down with my laptop and start writing the story flows amazingly well, almost as if someone is dictating it to me. Strange. No writer's block here I'm happy to report.
Sales of my books at Fictionwise seemes to have picked up but I don't know how it translates into figures. The money I get from those sales is pitiful indeed. Nobody can claim I write for the money. If I didn't enjoy writing so much I would have quit a long time ago.

Star Trek, Dinosaurs and more

I’ve been busy and have neglected my blog a bit. There is not much news anyway. I crossed the 90,000 word mark with my novel ‘Mindgod’. The End is in sight, but I’m still throwing around things in my head how exactly I will end the novel. As I’m writing new ideas pop up. Sometimes that means going back into the story and adding or deleting paragraphs etc. At first I had in mind to write between 70,000 and 80,000 words but when I got there I realized I couldn’t end the story yet. There was just so much more to tell. Sometimes I’m amazed how the writing process works. I sit down and don’t know exactly what I’m going to write next, I might write down a word or sentence just to get me going, and then suddenly the story begins to flow again and takes me somewhere I had not foreseen. I enjoy writing my stories much more if I don’t know where I am heading as opposed to writing an outline and following that. Somehow it takes the fun out of writing and the surprises that sometimes appears. It must be boring to do ‘Formula Writing’, where everything is dictated how the story must progress and end and on what page a certain thing has to happen. Not for me. I need to go ‘Where no man has gone before’, in the words of the original Star Trek series. ‘Man’ in this case me.
Speaking of Star Trek, we saw the last movie and were disappointed. They made Kirk such an idiot. The scene where he is running around in the spaceship chased by a young Dr. MacCoy was absolutely stupid. An eight year old Kirk racing in an old Corvette and then bailing out at the last minute? Come on! And the old Mr. Spock appearing on the scene at the exact moment Kirk needs help? A little farfetched. How stupid are we as moviegoers? I’m not commenting on that, but I read other reviews and many people thought it was the best one yet. Wow! There were some good scenes I enjoyed. I’m easily pleased when it comes to Science Fiction movies. I wish there’d be more good ones around. Most of the movies these days are relying on special effects and are much to loud and furious for my taste. For instance I really loved the first ‘Matrix’ movie, but didn’t care for the following two. The second one was so loud I had to stuff Kleenex in my ears. Actually, my wife and I did that in the last Star Trek movie.
We went to see ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’. What a wonderful show. Those dinosaurs are so lifelike they are scary, especially the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Hard to believe that creatures of that size once roamed the Earth. To see the narrator walking between them really demonstrated their immense size. Humans would have had no chance to survive in those days.
I’ve always loved dinosaurs. That’s why I wrote my novella ‘Cliffs of Time’ where humans go back to 100 million BC. Before I wrote that story I didn’t know that T-Rex didn’t appear until 75 million BC. I did some research to make the story authentic and learned quite a bit. Stuff I never learned in School.
In my novella ‘Outpost Epsilon’ I populated a planet with giant mushrooms and dinosaurs. In fact, I liked the story so much that I started a novel titled ‘Epsilon’ where I go into more detail about dinosaurs, intelligent giant ants and spiders, and the geography of the planet Epsilon. I’m at 60,000 words with that novel. I put it aside to write ‘Mindgod’ and I’m anxious to get back to it. My characters are waiting for me to finish telling their story.
By the way, ‘Orola, Warrior Priestess’ never did reach number one position at Fictionwise, only ''Outpost Epsilon' did, but I’m happy anyway.

Reader's Ratings

I just checked the status of my novella ‘Outpost Epsilon’ and found that it slipped down the ladder in sales. I also noticed that two readers decided to rate it. One thinks the story is ‘okay’ the other one gives it a ‘poor’ (Sigh!!). I enjoyed writing the story and I think it is a great :-) story. I am reminded of a Seinfeld Episode where Jerry's mother says: "How can anyone not like my Jerry?" How can anyone not like my story? (Sigh again). It makes me sad if a reader thinks it is poor.
I went through the list of other books and found the ‘Alien Seduction Digest’ received one ‘great’ and one ‘poor’.
‘Interplanetary Passion’ by Jaden Sinclair was rated by 104 readers (wow!). The majority of them find it good and great, but there is still someone who rates it as ‘poor’. This leaves me wondering about what a reader expects when he/she reads the blurb. It would be helpful if we as writers could find out why one reader thinks a story is great and another one doesn’t like it. Just to say: “This story is poor,” without an explanation leaves me questioning it and wonder. Does this reader expect more intrigue, more adventure, more romance, more erotica? Or was there too much?
Writing, like any art form, is a passion. We write because we need to put our dreams on paper. It is a fortunate and lucky writer who manages to get paid a lot of money; most of us don’t. I’m not saying we would refuse the money, but let’s face it, the lack of compensation does not stop us from writing. We write to still some yearning we have inside us. That’s how we start out, but as we progress we want to share our stories with others. We want the readers to feel what we feel when we put our tales on paper (these days into a hard drive), and the last thing we want is to make readers feel they’ve wasted their time and money. I wish I could say that I don’t care about what a reader thinks, as long as I am happy writing my stuff, but that would be lying. I care. That’s why it would be nice to get some feedback. I know, I am dreaming, that’s what a writer does best, but it still would be nice.

The number one position

It finally happened. Outpost Epsilon is at number one at Fictionwise. Orola moved into number four position. All of my other books also moved ahead a bit.

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b90231/Outpost-Epsilon/Herbert-Grosshans/?si=0

More news from Fictionwise

Good news. Outpost Epsilon made it to number 2 position in sales yesterday and Orola is at number 5. Maybe, just maybe...dare I hope?...one of them will make it to number one position. I haven't had a best seller for a while.
On other notes, I am at 71,000 words right now with 'The Mindgod'. I'm writing every chance I get, which is usually in the evening. We hardly watch TV in the summer. During the day I'm busy with my yard. The garden and other stuff. I've made some progress with my patio. I've put down 12 patio blocks. Only 122 more to go... Preparing the 'bed' is the hardest job. All that gravel I have to remove and distribute on the driveway. With a shovel and a wheelbarrow. And a bad back. In addition, the patio blocks are heavy too. But it will look nice when it's all done.

News from Fictionwise

'Orola, Warrior Priestess' and 'Outpost Epsilon' are available now from Fiction Wise. Just click on the titles and it'll get you there. They are in the last positions for sales (naturally, they've just been added). We'll see how fast they move up in sales. A little Holiday Romance is at position 5, Beyond the Stars at position 6, and Dual Visions at position 11. My other books have slipped. Maybe Orola and Epsilon will bring those sales up also.

More about the President and the Fly

Wow. I posted my article about Obama swatting a fly at ‘Allvoices’. I’ve had already over 880 views and some comments. Amazing how much buzz a tiny incident like that can cause. Check it out here: Allvoices.
It is the same article I have below. I changed a couple of things to make it more presentable.

The Fly

US President Obama killed a fly. Nothing unusual. We’ve all done that at one time or another. Except for the Peta people. They practice a catch-and-release program with insects. Give me a break! According to them ‘Flies have feelings too’. Maybe they do, but they are a damn nuisance, and there are way too many of them.
I sometimes wonder about people like that. Where do they live? Under some protective dome on a planet called “Moron’?
Do they know that flies carry all kinds of diseases? Do they have any idea where the fly that manages to land on your sandwich has been before? How about mosquitoes or ticks? Anyone who lives in the real world and has experienced them will gladly help them into insect heaven or wherever they end up if there is an afterlife.
Mosquitoes carry the West Nile Virus and ticks can give you Lyme disease. My cousin was bitten by one of those mosquitoes. He spent time in the hospital, couldn’t remember his own name and spent months trying to walk again. My son was luckier, he only had the lesser symptoms. Let those Peta people get bitten by one of these critters and they may change their tune.
I love animals and I don’t believe in senseless killing of animals, but there are limits. I feed birds all year round. I have birdhouses in the yard for them to live in. If I catch a spider in the house I carry it outside and let it go, but most of the time if an insect enters my home it is considered an intruder into my sanctuary and it will be dealt with harshly. The sentence for break and enter is DEATH. Last year I caught and eliminated 17 mice in my garage. I’ll be on the lookout again this year. The traps and the cheese are waiting.
Live and let live is a wonderful concept, but we are living on a hostile planet. We’ve been at war with the sauna and fauna, with the viruses and bacteria ever since Homo Sapiens appeared, and before. There are carnivores, omnivores, herbivores and who knows what else on this planet. One eats the other. That’s how it was designed.
The majority of animal rights activists are living in a dream world. They are fanatics causing trouble, just like most of the minority groups who will do anything to call attention to their cause. Maybe their ideas are noble but as usual they carry it to the extremes, like the terrorist who blow up themselves and others for what they believe in. Or like antiabortionists who find nothing wrong murdering a doctor who performs abortions. (I’m not saying I am for abortion, but that is another topic).
Let’s get real here, peoples. Catching and releasing a fly borders on insanity. A person who does that should have his/her head examined and brought back to reality. All I can say is: Get a life.

Hello Visitors

As promised in my posting, I will send you a free story if you send me an email to hegro@shaw.ca

Another month gone

I’m finally finished with my garden. This year I am at least a week behind because of the cold weather. We had frost on Friday 29th of May and had to cover up the tomato and pepper plants. They survived. Today I spread fertilizer on the grass and as luck wants it, it started raining after I finished. Tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain, I’m going to spread some pesticides. The dandelions, as beautiful as the yellow flowers are, they are not a welcome sight on the lawn. And I have plenty of them. That means drastic measures need to be taken. In addition to dandelions there are other weeds growing.
My publisher MSFiction re-released my ‘Seeds of Chaos’ series with new covers. Check them out on my Website ‘Herbert’s World’.
I also did a minor change on the welcome page of my website. I added a picture that I drew a long time ago. I think it adds a bit of a fantasy setting to my site. I felt the welcome page needed something to make it less boring and more personal.
Some of my books are now available on Amazon.

Where is Spring?

This weather is just not getting any better. Where the heck is Spring? Summer is just around the corner and we still have frost at night. I’ve bought all of my plants and seeds and I’m ready to seed and plant my garden. My plants are standing in the garage, waiting and wondering what is going on.
I saw a hummingbird yesterday feeding from our feeder and today I watched an Oriole clinging to the feeder and dipping its beak into the yellow plastic flowers for some sugar water. Poor thing. It tired itself out by hanging on and pretending to be a hummingbird. Once in a while, it nearly fell to the floor from exhaustion and rested on the ground to try again a few minutes later. I’ve never seen that before. I wonder if it is common that Orioles feed from hummingbird feeders. They sure are beautiful birds.
The Juncos are gone now. They hang around only for a short time. We have plenty of sparrows, all different kind. I see a lot of Harris Sparrows; they have black heads and throats, with yellowish bills, and are fairly large. Then there are the White-Crowned Sparrows with their white strips running from the back of their head to the front. Some have three stripes, some only one. Some of them are probably White-throated Sparrows. There are also the Chipping Sparrows with their red heads. Of course, there are others that I can’t identify. I’m not really a bird specialist.
We’ve had a few American Finches on our Finch Feeder. Once they are here, they stay, but they do most of their feeding in the fall before they go back south. That’s when we get large numbers of them. Most of them are the young ones, they are quite small and need to fatten up before they leave.
A few Black Birds and Blue Jays also show up to scare the smaller birds away. They are a bit messy but they are beautiful birds. I don’t chase them away. We’ve also had a few Common Redpolls passing through on their way up north where they breed in the summer. I believe I saw a straggler yesterday, unless it was a Red Finch.
I started planting an apple tree but had to give up because it began to rain. And that after the weather people said this morning no precipitation today. Well, we all know how dependable those forecasts are. Luckily, it didn’t rain too much and I shall carry on tomorrow. Actually, I have two apple trees to plant. I did manage to plant a Pyramidical Cedar though. The one we had in front of our fireplace didn’t make it through the winter. I’ll never buy another Cedar from Home Depot again. Or Walmart. Those Cedars are grown south of the border, in the USA, and not hardy enough for our climate. This was the second one that didn’t make it. That means I lost two years of growth. The one I bought cost me $50.00 instead of $20.00, but it was grown in Manitoba and I have a five-year warranty on it. We’ll see. Cedars are finicky. Many of my neighbors planted large numbers of them around their properties and most of them turned brown and died. I never asked where they bought them, but I’d bet not at the local garden center. I’m not trying to run down Home Depot and Walmart. They are good stores and I buy there. In fact, when I was in business, I bought most of my materials at Home Depot, but there are just some things you have to buy at the right places.
The only good thing about rain is that I get a bit of time to do some writing. I’m over 51,000 words now with my ‘Mindgod’ novel. There is more to come.

Surprise, Surprise

Somebody screwed up. When I woke up this morning and looked out of the window I saw something that shouldn’t be there. Snow. Not on May 9. As a writer with a fertile imagination I immediately thought that I might have slipped into another dimension or possibly traveled back in time. Whoopee, I am young again. Then I looked in the mirror and still thought ‘time travel’. Only I traveled in the wrong direction: into the future. The image I saw in the mirror was that of an old guy in need of a haircut and a shave. Then reality set in. That old guy was me and I was still in the present. Damn!
Well, I guess I’ll have to beg my wife to give me a haircut. That always shaves ten years off my looks. Unfortunately not my age. Yes, that’s right, my wife cuts my hair. No, she is not a barber or hairdresser, but she has a talent for it. She used to cut our kids’ hair and one day she cut mine. I liked it and after that she did it all the time. There are advantages to that. I don’t have to take time off to go to the barber and sit and wait for my turn. I don’t have to pay and best of all, no tips. Well, that’s not true either. I help her with the dishes and with making the bed. And I go shopping with her. Although, she complains that we always buy too much when I’m with her and it takes too long, but she doesn’t mind when I carry the grocery bags.
Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and the weather people promised warmer weather. Let’s hope they are right for a change. Yesterday, I bought some seeds for my garden. I’ve already tilled it under and I’m ready for seeding and planting. Usually, I plant my garden in the last week of May or right after the long weekend. The way things are progressing it may not happen this year. There is nothing more heartbreaking than seeing your plants die because they were hit by frost. Even the seeds won’t sprout if the soil doesn’t warm up.
I put out the Finch feeder and the Hummingbird feeder because somebody told me they saw their first Hummingbird in their yard. Poor bird. There are no flowers blooming yet.
The birds are slowly coming back from the South. On Thursday I saw seven Pelicans circling over our property. I talked to a friend this morning and he said that he has a pair of Mallards nesting on his pond and also a pair of Wood ducks in the nesting box near his house. Maybe Summer is just around the corner.
Happy Mother’s Day.

Nothing political

Did my periodic check of my sales on Fiction Wise today. Here is the list of my book sales:

Stardogs 2 in position number 6
Cliffs of Time in number 7
Seeds of Chaos 2 in number 9
Stardogs 2 in number 12
Orion, the Hunt in number 23
Daughter of the Dark in number 27
Mother of Light in number 28
Goddess of Life in number 30
Seeds of Chaos 1 in number 31
Dual Visions in number 34
Men of Eros (Digest) in number 42
Midnight Raunch (Digest) in number 52
Beyond the Stars (Digest) in number 66

As you can see from 34 books 10 of them are mine. That is nearly 30 % of all the books published by MSFiction and sold on Fiction Wise. I have to admit that is impressive. If only the numbers were there to make it really special, but it still makes me feel good.

I’ve been busy with writing ‘The Mindgod’. So far, I’ve written 40,000 words. Most of the novel I copied (and translated where necessary) from my scribbler. I also edited it and re-wrote some at the same time. Now I’ve come to the end of what I’ve written, and from now on I’ll be working from scribbled outlines and vague ideas. That means it will go a bit slower. It’s been years since I wrote it (over twenty!) and, of course, I don’t remember exactly where I was actually going with the story (If I even had it mapped out in my head at that time). I wrote an ending for it but I’m not sure if I’m going to use it. We’ll see.

Right now, there is so much work in the yard and that keeps me from writing, but the work needs to be done. We’ve raked and cut the grass, collected and burned the fallen willow branches. It was a huge pile. I’ve tilled my garden once. Now I want to put in some fertilizer. In the past I’ve used Alfalfa pellets. They are actually rabbit food but Alfalfa is a good fertilizer. Last year, in the fall, I tilled a lot of leaves into the garden. They should help to make the soil fertile.

I also bought a couple ‘Goodland’ Apple trees. They need to be planted. The one I planted two years ago, died and my one good producer, a ‘Parkland’ Apple tree, didn’t have any apples at all last year. I hope it isn’t giving up now, I need that tree.

Today is quite cold (4 Celsius) and it is drizzling off and on. Not a nice day. It better warm up because I usually plant my garden in the last week of May when we shouldn’t get any more frost, but here are never any guarantees.

In case I don’t get a chance to post something until Sunday, have a Happy Mother’s Day.

S-Words

Smart, Stupid and Stubborn. They all start with the letter S. In fact, Stupid and Stubborn have the same first three letters. That’s quite a bond. Well, sometimes it is Smart to be Stubborn and Smart to take a Stand, but sometimes it is outright Stupid. I’m talking about Chrysler and its employees. Chrysler is on the verge of bankruptcy. Extreme measures have to be taken to Save the company and thousands of jobs. This is not the time to play tough, concessions need to be made. But of course, the Unions with their own agenda won’t listen to reason.
Electricians, Plumbers, and other construction workers earn about $30.00 an hour in Manitoba. Those are considered top wages. These tradesmen (I refuse to use the word ’Tradesperson’ or ‘Journeyperson’. It sounds so Stupid) work in all kinds of weather conditions. Much of the time outside. They have to go through years of apprenticeship training and go to school to get their papers before they can earn these wages.
Now, $60.00 an hour (that is after the drop of $19.00 Chrysler and the government propose) is not such a bad wage. I’m sure there are many unemployed workers who would gladly work for that. I’d bet that even a lot of employed workers would jump at the chance to work for that kind of money.
We are in a deep recession and being reasonable only makes common Sense.
I know what it means to make concessions. In the late eighties and early nineties, I experienced economic difficulties and had to adjust my prices down. Way down. Was I happy? Of course not, but it was a matter of Survival. Swim or Sink. I chose Swimming, barely Staying above water and I Survived the crisis. Nobody worried about me then.
I won’t feel Sympathetic either when Chrysler goes bankrupt because its employees (and Union) refuse to be Smart. Those unemployed autoworkers won’t find another $79.00 or even $60.00 an hour job. They’ll be lucky and happy to find work that pays minimum wage.
Somali Pirates is another S-word. Our Canadian government sent a helicopter and a Destroyer into the region plagued by pirates. Yesterday, they chased a pirate boat for Seven hours to finally catch and disarm Seven pirates only to let them go again so they can hijack another ship and take more hostages. Wow! Two S-words immediately pop into my mind: Stupid and Suckers. Those pirates must be laughing their heads off, while every other country groans. Any respect we had went out of the window. How many dollars did that useless little maneuver cost the Canadian Taxpayer?
But why are we Surprised? We let known terrorists into our country. When we catch them, we don’t send them back to their own country because they might be prosecuted there. We even pay them millions of dollars compensation when they have the audacity to sue us.
In days gone by, they used to hang pirates from the gallows. After all, they are nothing but common criminals. But, then again, we treat criminals with kid’s gloves. We call them misguided, troubled Souls.
Sorry about that but it needed to be Said.

Signs of Spring

Spring is here for sure. I counted over 50 Robins in our yard today. And a whole bunch more in the neighboring properties. They were digging in the grass, sitting in the trees and singing their beautiful songs. They won’t be around for a long time, probably just passing through. I also saw two red-winged blackbirds and one woodpecker. In addition to the many sparrows and juncos (another type of sparrow). A couple of blue jays also made their usual appearance by our bird feeders.

Took a walk down to the Red River. The water is still high and moving quickly. We’re expecting another crest in a few days. It wasn’t exactly warm today, only 5 degrees Celsius. Next week they promised us warmer weather.

Looking forward to working in the yard again…cough…cough…

FictionWise Stats

Periodically I check my sales on FictionWise. I did yesterday and found that 9 of my 13 books available on FictionWise are in the top 27 in sales, that means 1/3 of the 27 books sold on that date are mine. 'Cliffs of Time' is at number 3 position, 'Orion, the Hunt' at number 7. In fact, Orion is my bestselling book so far. Pretty impressive I’d say. Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean that my books are selling hundreds or even thousands of copies (sigh!). When it comes to being profitable these sales mean little since I get only pennies for each book sold, but I’ve whined about that before. They are good for my ego and that’s all, but I’m still happy.
I had an interview with Whohub. If you are interested in reading it here is the link: whohub.com/hegro
I’ve been able to do a bit more writing. I put aside ‘Epsilon’ and Book 4 of ‘The Xandra’ and started a novel, which I wrote years, and years ago. I never finished it and I’m determined to finish it now. So far, I’m up to 20,000 words. Part of the novel is written in German (yes, that’s how long ago I started writing it!), which means I have to translate it into English. The novel is titled ‘The Mindgod’, but that may not be the title when I’m finished with it. I had a dream last night where an old man asked me if I was still writing. When I answered ‘Yes’ he said, “That’s good. You always finish what you start.” Maybe that is my subconscious telling me to finish all the stuff I’ve started writing. Wow! I have a lot of work ahead of me.
All of the snow is gone now. We are lucky because we are not living in the Flood zone, even though we are close to the Red River. They declared Winnipeg a disaster zone. Most of the farmland south of Winnipeg is flooded and it looks like a huge lake. The Red River is 20 km wide in some areas. Some towns are isolated islands, cut off by flooded roads. North of Winnipeg many houses and cottages have been destroyed by giant chunks of ice that were pushed on land.
It proves again, Mother Nature is stronger than ‘Mighty Man’. Floods, hurricanes, snowstorms, earthquakes. We are helpless against the forces of nature. But of course, that is not enough. We still have to make war and kill each other. Another Canadian soldier, a young woman, was killed in Afghanistan a few days ago. What a shame. I cannot support that war, not anymore, even though I support the young men and women who are there fighting a losing battle. You can’t fight religion. We in the Western World are trying to push our ideas on people who have lived with their customs for over a thousand years. You can’t change people unless they want to change. Yes, it is crime how the women are treated in those countries and we want to help them, but what is the price we have to pay to bring about changes? How many people have to die? Do we have the right to interfere in other people’s affairs?
People in the so-called civilized free world have always meddled. Missionaries went to Africa to enlighten the people who lived in the jungle. They were perfectly happy before the Missionaries came. They didn’t want to be ’enlightened’. I could go on but I won’t. Those are facts of history and can’t be denied. Do-gooders and fanatics always believe that only their view is right and everyone else is wrong and needs to be freed from their evil ways.
Of course, there is more behind it than what it looks like at the surface. The need for power and control is one of the factors driving some of these people. Money and greed are two more. Let’s face it, we are a violent race, and this will go on forever as long as mankind does not evolve and learn from mistakes.

Happy Easter

Spring is here for sure, even though we still have snow on the ground. We’re finally getting warmer weather. The coming week it is supposed to stay above zero Celsius even at night. That means the snow should be melting away. I picked some pussy willows yesterday and I saw my first Robin. The geese are also coming back in huge flocks.



I did not get a chance to take a picture of the Robin I saw, but I found this one on this cool site http://www.treknature.com/gallery/North_America/Canada/photo48252.htm




Happy Easter to everyone.

Only the geese are happy

Took a ride down to Lockport for a look at the St. Andrews Lock and Dam. This is what it looked like:








Like the title says: Only the geese are happy.

A little update

Spring is supposed to be here but looking outside it doesn’t appear that way with all of that snow still on the ground. We had some warm weather a couple of weeks ago and the snow was beginning to melt. But then it got cold again and we had another snowstorm which dumped more snow onto the ice that had been forming. The culverts are still frozen and the water has not been able to drain toward the Red River. We don’t live far from the river. I’m a bit worried that we might get water in our basement from overland flooding. We’ve never had problems before but that doesn’t mean anything. Like they say when you invest money in the stock market: Past performance does not guarantee future results.
The river rose quite a bit last week and there was some flooding along River Road. A few houses had their basements filled with water. Now the municipality raised the surface of the road by putting gravel on it. In some places the road was raised up to six feet. Actually, the road is acting like a dam that is supposed to keep the water away from the properties on the other side. The river level has dropped a little but it will rise again when the water comes up from the States. Maybe even higher than before. Apparently it is not to reach the level we had in the Flood of the Century in 1997. Much of the land south of Winnipeg will still be flooded. Winnipeg will be spared with the expansion of the floodway around the city.

This is a picture of the ice that was pushed up onto the road while it drifted down the river toward Lockport.




This is River Road with a view toward Lockport. It won’t take much until the water floods the road

We went to the Museum of Man and Nature in Winnipeg last week to see the display of dinosaur skeletons. The display was lent to the museum from China. Some of the skeletons are genuine but most were replicas of originals. To read about dinosaurs is interesting but to see the skeletons is mind boggling. It is hard to believe that these giant creatures once roamed the Earth so many millions of years ago. I’m glad I wasn’t alive then. But maybe I was? Some people call me a dinosaur.

I haven’t done much writing. Been busy installing a new floor in our kitchen. I used those laminate floorboards that just click together. Apparently it’s easy and anyone can do it. What a nightmare with all the angles around the counters! It took me a whole week of measuring, cutting, and clicking (and cursing) until I finally finished it. I still have the back hall to do but that will be a cinch now that I’m an expert. (Ha, ha…)

I’ve been tracking my sales on Fictionwise and found that my books seem to be selling quite well. Six of my books were in the top twenty sellers on March 14, with ‘Mother of Light (The Xandra, Book Two) being at number 7, Goddess of Life at number 9 and Seeds of Chaos, Book One at number 10. Seeds of Chaos, Book Two was number 5 in overall sales in the twenty days before March 21. Dual Visions was number 4 on March 21 and Cliffs of Time reached number 7 on March 29 in overall sales.
Stardogs Two (Redemption) reached number 3 in sales on February 7. How many books that translates into I have no idea. Unfortunately, the money I receive for my books is so pitiful it is hardly worth mentioning. Fictionwise takes most of the money. It seems to be the Law of the Universe: The one who does most of the work gets rewarded the least.
But that’s okay…I guess. I write for fun and not for the money (Grrr….)

King Cobra

My novel ‘Mark of the Cobra’, which I pulled from publication by MSFiction last year has now found a home. I did some revisions, changed the chapters around, changed the title to ‘King Cobra’, and sent it to another publisher. This publisher concentrates more on erotica and is more suitable for the type of novel King Cobra is.
I don’t write sweet romance. My stories are mostly geared up to male readers. I’m not saying that women can’t enjoy them if they like these kinds of stories. By all means, do read them. Most of my stories have a male protagonist. The heroes are tough and usually oversexed (horny?).
King Cobra has a lot of sex in it and also some violence, but I believe it is basically a good story, a thriller, and I didn’t want to re-write the whole book, as my editor at MSFiction suggested. Had I decided to do that it would have been a different story, not the one I wanted to tell. Maybe some day I will write a novel with the title ‘Mark of the Cobra’, but it will be another story.
I am busy with other works right now. I’ve reached 60,000 words with my Science Fiction novel ‘Epsilon’ and I have much more to go before it is finished.
Right now I’m taking a break from it and I’ve decided to write Book Four in the Xandra series. I had some ideas kicking around in my head and they wanted to come out. So far I’m at around 13,000 words. I’m aiming for 75,000 words, but this is something hard to predict. It all depends how it progresses. Usually, once the story starts to grow, more characters want to join and the novel becomes longer than planned. Strange, how things sometimes develop. A minor character who was only mentioned briefly suddenly wants a larger part in the story. And that is a good thing. That is how a story gets fleshed out and more interesting. This creation process is a wonderful thing and sometimes I ask myself Where the heck did this come from? It seems the deeper I move into the new world I’m creating the more stuff I notice and the more is to tell. Sometimes I have no idea where I’m going with what’s happening to the characters but it always seems to come together in the end. It is not only the reader who enjoys reading a story; the writer also enjoys writing it. And that is a good thing because I don’t read that much any more. If I didn’t find pleasure in writing where would I find my enjoyment? How would I be able to explore new and wonderful worlds?
Check out ‘King Cobra’ here and don’t be shocked by the explicit picture: A1AdulteBooks

You can also go to my website to read more about it.

President Barack Obama

I watched the Inauguration of Barack Obama with a lump in my throat, because I realized that I was witnessing something that would go down in the history books as one of the momentous events in the history of the world. Yes, the world, not just the United States of America. The fact that a black man whose father was not allowed in a restaurant frequented by white people not that many years ago could become the President of the mightiest country in the world was historic in itself, but I believe that President Barack Obama has a greater ambition than just being the most powerful man on Earth. He has a vision that will bring about great changes, not all of them popular with some people. It won’t happen overnight; many people will be disappointed and wonder if they made the right choice when they voted for him, but he has a difficult job ahead of him. There will be those who will try their best to make sure he fails, those whose toes he has to step on, those who want to control him, those who want to keep things the way they are. The greedy and the power-hungry who brought the economy of the world to the gloomy state where it is right now will want him gone. The enemies of the free world want him gone. Not everybody voted for him for their own reasons. Many are afraid to have a black president, afraid of what he might do to upset the status quo. That is the chance you take every time a new president is elected, no matter what his color.
The color of President Barack Obama’s skin should not matter; what matters is his charisma and his vision. Our world is facing an uncertain future and we need men like him. Men who are not afraid to change things, men who don’t abuse the power they have been given by waving a sword in front of them but reach out with an open hand, offering help instead of threats.
Maybe this will usher in a new and better world. Let’s hope so.

Orola, Warrior Priestess

It is finally available from MSFiction: Orola, Warrior Priestess. The book was written in the space of about 10 years. It consists of a number of short stories featuring Orola. She lives on the Island of Witches. She is not quite human and possesses certain abilities. She is a warrior priestess who worships the god Solar who resides on one of the moons circling the planet she lives on. It is a primitive planet, forgotten by the rest of the Galaxy. Orola travels across hostile territories to find out what happened to one of her sisters who was the adviser of the queen in one of the provinces to the north.
The short stories are all connected. They are not about love and romance. They are dark stories, dealing with rape and revenge and contain much erotica. When I originally sent them to my publisher MSFiction I wasn't sure if the book would be accepted. It was, but my editor culled much out of the stories to make them acceptable for publication. I am happy with the way the book turned out.
To find out more about the book visit my website or check out MSFiction for an excerpt.

Changeling

We went to see the movie Changeling. Clint Eastwood did a wonderful job as the director and Angelina Jolie’s performance as the mother whose son disappears is superb. The storyline is set in the late 1920s when women had few rights. What makes it so heart wrenching is the fact that this is based on a true story.
I read the reviews before we went and as usual, some reviews were positive and some negative. This is not a movie for people who love action flicks, because it is not that kind of a movie. Younger viewers probably won’t like it either. There are no gadgets, no ear-deafening endless car chases, no computer generated animation, no mindless fight scenes. This a wonderful movie and I am glad I decided to go and see it, even though it was darn cold outside. This movie touches you heart and leaves you wondering about the awful things Humans are capable of doing to others. There are such few good movies made these days. Changeling is one of those good movies.

Of civilized men and uncivilized mice

Enough of political comments. I’m not really into politics at all, but sometimes there are things that irk me and I need to get it off my chest.
It’s cold outside today…still. Minus 34 Celsius and minus 43 windshield factor. That is damn cold. The same is forecast for tomorrow. Sometimes I wonder if I’m living on a hostile alien planet. How Humans survived in this type of environment is sometimes hard to grasp. Sure, now we live in houses heated in the winter and air-conditioned in the summer, but our ancestors didn’t. The aborigines on the North American continent lived in tents. In the summer they were plagued by mosquitoes and in the winter they had to deal with the extreme cold. The smoke from the fire in the middle of the tent couldn’t have been very pleasant.
We get our streets plowed by huge machines so we can drive in our heated cars, warm and cozy. Those natives had to stomp through high snow. They had no roads. They had no chainsaws or even other saws to get firewood, no augers to drill a hole through the ice to fish or to get drinking water.
What a hard life it must have been!
Of course, it wasn’t any different thousands of years ago in Europe or in the rest of the world. Just think about the primitive people with their weapons made from bones or stones, hiding from lions, tigers and other carnivores hunting for food. And Humans were considered food animals.
Those times fascinate me and I like to write stories about it, set on other planets where I can add my own unique dangers and challenges the people face. That is fine in stories, but actually living in those conditions is not for me. I enjoy going hunting in the fall when I spent a few days in the bush with friends. We hunt deer, walk around in the bush or sit on stands waiting for the deer to come by. It is cold sometimes. At other times it rains. It can be miserable. But we enjoy it. Don’t ask why. We sleep in a trailer or in a van.
After a week of that I am ready to go home to a warm house and a comfortable bed.
There is only so much I can stand of primitive living. Actually, compared to how the primitive people lived, those days in the bush are still quite civilized.
Talk about living in a warm place brings up another matter. There are other critters out there who also seek warm places for the winter. I’ve been busy catching them for the last week. I’m talking about rodents, mice actually. I made the mistake of leaving a bag of birdseeds standing on the floor in my garage. When I noticed holes in the plastic and seeds spilling out of the bag, I knew I had uninvited guests. They even tried to take up residency under the hood of my car. That called for extreme measures.
I bought a couple of mousetraps, baited them with peanut butter in the beginning, but now I’m using small pieces of cheese. So far I’ve caught 16 mice. They are living (sorry, were living) in the wood I have stacked up for my wood stove. It makes for perfect living conditions…for mice. I had no idea there were so many. At first I thought I had only one mouse. How naive can you be? It probably started with one. That one called all its relatives and now I have a tribe. I hope I’ll be catching the last one soon. I always worry they might decide to look for refuge inside the house. Can’t have that.
I’ve been busy with more writing on my novel ‘Epsilon’. 19 Chapters and around 57,000 words so far, but much more to go.
Orola, Warrior Priestess, should be available from MSFiction tomorrow. Finally.

Happy New Year

I can’t believe we are already four days into the year 2009. It’s been nearly a month since my last post. Our political situation has not been resolved, just postponed. The Liberals have a new leader and gained back some popularity and the NDP have lost ground with the general public. People don’t like radicals. Unfortunately, they’ll be rearing their heads again. Leighton has openly admitted that he wants to bring down the Conservative government. No matter what. This time he may not get the support from the Liberals. One can only hope. Right now is not the time to go crazy. The economy is getting worse, even though governments around the world are trying to stimulate the economy by pumping billions of dollars into it.
The autoworkers are fighting for their jobs, but if they don’t make any concessions, they’ll lose them. They’ll never find a job again that pays them that much money. An autoworker makes more money than a professor!
If they want people to buy American cars they’ll have to bring down the price and stop building gas-guzzlers.
I know our next car will probably be a foreign car. It’s just plain economics. Many are built right here on the North American continent. The workers work for lower wages. $45.00 an hour is not exactly a low wage. Just talk to anyone who works for minimum wage! The same people who buy cars.
Sometimes you have to face reality. I remember in the late 1980ies and early 1990ies after the market crash of 1987 the building industry came pretty well to a standstill. I was an Electrical Contractor at the time. All the General Contractors I worked for either retired or quit building. Suddenly, I had no work. I put in a lot of bids but couldn’t get any jobs. My prices were too high. I vowed I wouldn’t work for less, but financial hardship forced me to adjust. I lowered my price and voila, I did get jobs.
Sure, I was not happy, but at least I was making money to pay the bills.
That is the way life is. You either adapt or you perish. It’s as simple as that. You can’t force things. Force has never been the answer to anything.
Something else I would like to mention. We have a lot of problems here in Winnipeg with car theft. People are getting fed up with it. We had our car broken into a number of years back. The police did nothing. If they do catch those criminals, they usually end up on the street again so they can keep on doing their business. Stealing cars, smashing them and possibly even killing innocent people while on their joyride. A couple of days ago, one of the car thieves got beaten up when he was caught breaking into a car. His picture was put onto the internet. Big uproar from the Bleeding Hearts. It’s funny how criminals always end up the victims.
Most of these car thieves are repeat offenders. The police know their names. Many of them come from a certain ethnic background, but it can’t be mentioned because it would be considered racial slur. That is illegal in Canada.
Yeah, the criminals always hide behind the law. That’s what makes a free country like Canada and the United States so great.
Years ago someone I know beat up a guy who tried to break into his neighbor’s house. Broke his arm. Guess what? He was sued by the criminal for assault. What a joke!
It seems criminals have more rights than law abiding citizens.
I’ve been getting some writing done over the holidays. I’m trying to write something every day; even it is only a couple of paragraphs. Eventually I’ll get the story finished. I’m close to 50,000 words now with my novel Epsilon.
I also dug up some ideas I had written down. Beginning of stories.
One is about an Immortal, no title yet, but it takes place here on Earth. The other one is also about Immortals, but the background is more complex. In the far future. On some other planet. Perhaps more than one. The title so far is Yulan.
The third story starts out with a bit of humor. Titled Mark Cannon. Private Investigator. I don’t know where I’m going with that one.
A fourth story I started long time ago is about Rhodar, the Barbarian. The title Saleen. Rhodar was featured in one of my stories in the book Tapestry of Dreams.
If I get stuck with Epsilon I have those to work on. That way I won’t sit idle. Who knows, another story might just pop into my head.
My book Orola, Warrior Priestess still isn’t available. It was supposed to be published before Christmas, but it didn’t happen. My publisher at Midnight Showcase Fiction had her computer crash on her. I’m hoping the problem will be resolved soon and Orola will be available. I will post it here and on my website.
Thanks for visiting and reading.
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