Saturday, September 8, 2012

My review for Total Blueprint for World Domination by Jolene Stockman

Let me say first I love the way this book has been written. Though it is written for young adults and teens I feel older adults can get something out of it also. It is after all about you empowering yourself to achieve your goals. Of course it includes quite a good roadmap of how to you can create achievable goals for yourself.

I consider it a very uplifting book with an extremely positive message for everyone. It's one I would have wanted my teenagers to read when they were growing up. In fact I personally would recommend this book to anyone wanting to make a career change. Even though it wasn't written for that purpose I feel it will help with seeing a few aspects clearly from a slightly different viewpoint.

This is a very well written and concise book. Just about anything you don't need has been eliminated in my opinion.

http://www.amazon.com/Total-Blueprint-World-Domination-ebook/dp/B005FDTCEM/

Welcome back

"Welcome back. Glad to see you on board with us again. The weather sure has been nice today for sailing. On the horizon though I've been seeing some clouds beginning to build that I need to keep an eye on so we don’t end up in trouble. Do you see them hanging low over there?"
This was done for the blog tour.

"Hey Cherise, our visitor is back! Why don't you come over and say hi to our visitor?”

“She’s not coming over I guess. I don't know why but she really likes to sit in the bow most of the time we're moving. Well, it was nice that she at least waved at you."

"Would you like to see where we are exactly right now? Come with me and we'll check the Loran and the charts. Quite an amazing thing that Loran is, it tells you right where you're at. Watch your head as you come in the hatch as the opening is kind of low. Wouldn't want you to bang your head, we're kind of used to having to duck our heads by now."

"Here's the stack of charts, let's pull out the right one for where we're at. There it is, the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. See the read out on the Loran unit here; it gives you the latitude and longitude for where you are at. I guess it works on towers on the shore and the way the signal crosses. Beyond that I don't know but it’s pretty accurate."

"Now you just take those numbers and find out where they land on the chart. See, we're right here it looks like we have about 80 nauts further to go to Christiansted. I don't know exactly what that figures out to in miles."

"Oh yeah, it is a pretty small space isn't it? Guess they couldn't make the galley any larger given the size of the boat. It's only 20 feet long and 7 feet wide but it has everything we need including a stove and of course this small table."

"You're leaving us again so soon? Well, it’s nice seeing you again and I'd better get back to the wheel and check the compass to make sure we're on course. Have a great day."

Thursday, September 6, 2012

On reviews

There have been a couple of stories recently about so rather famous authors reviewing their own books. Of course the authors in question gave their own books great wonderful reviews. Books that weren't their own they in turn gave bad reviews to. First thing I'll state is that I don't know if I could do that, it just seems wrong to me. The authors in question were even traditionally published. They weren't independently published like I am. Quite a violation of the code of conduct that supposedly exists but obviously doesn't.

My own experience is originally as a book reviewer before I became an author. I've reviewed a lot of books in the past, I'm still reviewing them and will continue to do so far into the future. You can even check out my Amazon and Goodreads review profiles.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1MYV5SYW2YS8N?ie=UTF8&ref_=cm_cr_pr_pdp

http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/7273607?shelf=read

163 reviews total on Amazon alone, 68 reviews on Goordreads. That’s a lot of reviews and in Amazon's case that’s over two and a half year’s (since March 21, 2009). The majority of those are for books. At one time I was even a part of their Vine program. If you look through the posts on this blog you'll see a number of reviews I’ve posted also.

Why I will continue to do them is because it forces me to read at least some everyday. By reading every day I conversely become a better writer. I may not be the best writer right now but I wouldn't be as good I am now if I hadn't read as much as I have. It's always a good experience to get outside of yourself and experience someone else’s viewpoint.

In darkness


Shadows lengthen and grow 
Edge of night enveloping 
While I hold you next to me 
Lost in beauty and passion 
Your heart beating softly 
As I delve into you 

Feelings begin to flow 
The two of us becomes one 
Until morning comes to call 
Chasing the shadows away 
My breath upon your skin 
Your lips on mine 

30 Aug 2012

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

My review for The Second Amendment (#1) by John Matthews

This is a controversial book. It seems that everyone has opinions regarding gun control. I'm not going into that in this review. Reviews really aren't the places for political viewpoints in my opinion.

I will say for my part, I love the conspiracy theory that the plot line is built around. I also consider the book very well written and engaging. What would have normally been a very boring subject has been made very interesting. Can't think of too many times when political debate could be interesting. On a side note, some of the debate looks to be modeled on some of discussions regarding the Patriot act.

http://www.amazon.com/Second-Amendment-thriller-political-ebook/dp/B007A53RX0/ref=cm_cr-mr-title

Connected life

It's amazing to me how we're always connected constantly these days. Because my Facebook notifications run through my Blackberry's email client I can't seem to get away from them unless I turn off all notifications. I'm not sure I want to either, I'm so used to the constant level of static as a part of my life these days. Soon I guess that will also exist on this Wolvol netbook I'm writing this blog post on. I think it's later this week we'll have the new router here in the house that it can connect to.

Kind of a side note but more than once I've gotten the whim to buy a song or a book with my Blackberry wherever I am. That is a neat possibility but of course it could be very detrimental to someones bank account.

Regardless of how you feel about being constantly connected you can expect it will be to a larger extent in the future. Pretty much you won't be able to find a job without having access to the internet. Of course , for about half of all companies that is the case now. In 5-10 years it will be all I'm positive. That isn't something from sci-fi, I just extrapolated what has happened over the last 10 years. Try to get a job without an email address, very difficult to do now. In 5 years it will be impossible to do. I'm kind of glad that its the way it is now, I would never want to go back to searching through newspapers again.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Hello, welcome aboard

(Written for the blog tour, http://allisonbruning.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-sound-of-ships-horn-bellows.html#.UEVDh0Ld7dk)

“Hello, nice to have you here and welcome aboard Sea Witch today. I hope you're comfortable on that little bench you’re sitting on. Please keep your head down, wouldn't want to have the boom swing when the wind changes and knock you out into the water. Off to our right is Roseau, Dominica. We had a lot of fun there when we visited a while back. We even got married at this little chapel up on the hill.”

"What was that?"

“You want me to tell you about me? Okay, my name is Timothy Hutton and I used to own a moving company in Denver. Back then I was also quite abusive to my first wife. Then one day I woke up to the divorce papers she left me. It was the first inkling for me that I had been doing something wrong. Now, I look back and realize that I was really the one at fault, my first wife didn't deserve the way I treated her. I didn't want to admit at first either but I'm so glad I did.”

“I went through a realization I had issues and decided to make some major changes. From that point in my life I left it all behind and have been having the time of my life in the Caribbean. I even found someone new and there she is sitting up in the bow. From the moment I had first seen her I knew I wanted her in my life. Cherise has meant the world to me, I'm so glad she came aboard that day and became a part of my life.”

“I'm never going back again to the person I used to be, I'm just not that man anymore. I really have found a better way of living for me, one with the waves and the wind. Sailing the Caribbean opened up a whole new world for me. It’s so great to feel the wind in my hair and the feel of the boat moving with the waves.”

“Oh cool, check it out! There are some dolphins swimming right now alongside the bow. I really love how they move through the water. Don't they almost look like they're dancing together? It’s nice to meet you again and I’d better pay attention to where we are going.”

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Fear (story)

There's a partial project I posted a while back that I started working on again at least temporarily. Since I hadn't written anything much in paranormal/horror before its been taking a bit for me. If I'm successful it will be in an anthology coming up at some later point. The requirements are of course the genre but there is also a 3k to 5k total short story length. It also has to be done by midnight the 10th. Even if I don't have it complete for the anthology I'll still soon have a short story available.

I'm taking a bit of a break from Jonathan's Rendezvous, so far that book has reached the same length as Sea Witch and there's a lot more story to tell.