Tag: books

Just Keep Trying

I wrote a brief post about writing novels and searching for agents the other day. My friend, Nan, commented on it and asked how I go about finding an agent. I pointed her to one of the places, MSWL, which I use to search.

Nan commented back.

Way back when I was ready to publish, I did my own research for potential agents and contacted a few with minimal success … which is why I ended up self-publishing.

I suppose a site like this is helpful, but from a quick look-see, it appears more like a resource for “agents” that aren’t getting enough submittals through regular channels.

But it’s been a loooong time since I wrote/published my book, so what do I know? 😉

Nan’s problem before remains my problem now. How do you find an agent?

MSWL is one of five online resources which I use. The publishing industry is changing, though. Traditional publishing and agents are still out there. So is self-publishing. But either one requires editing, marketing, sales channels. Doing these things yourself is a challenge when you self-publish.

As far as I can tell, all the agents which I review are getting many submissions. But they all have different requirements for submitting, whether it’s by snail-mail, email, or online tools like QueryTracker. Some want only the first five pages. Others request a light synopsis or outline. Some agents ask for the first ten pages while others request the first fifty. There are asks for bios, previous work, comps.

Will you hear back? Probably not. You’re generally submitting into a void. The agents are upfront about that.

The many sites are themselves problematic. It’s a challenge for agents to define what they’re looking for and how they’ll accept submissions. But keeping up with keeping sites up to date is yet another challenge. All too often, I find an agent which seems like they’ll be a good fit my offering only to begin the submission process and find that that they changed agencies or are closed to submissions.

It’s a familiar lament. Writers have put out many stories about how many times they’ve been rejected and how long it took them to find an agent and get published. More stories are rising about how writers self-published and achieved success, and then had agents and publishers come calling on them.

I began years ago with a simple question, how do you write a novel? I read books, magazines, blogs, and spoke with successful published novelists. The bottom line: you find out what works for you, and you do it.

It feels like that’s the same answer for publishing: find out what works for you.

Do it.

And to find out, you just keep trying.

2

The Writing Moment

I finished writing the sequel to “A Tribe Called Death”. The second book is “Alive and Dead”. It’s a smaller novel, just 189 pages, about 40,000 words. Was written fast for me, begun in July, finished a few days ago.

In parallel to writing it, I edited and revised “A Tribe Called Death”, trying to make it worthy of an agent’s interest.

Yesterday, I began writing the third book in the series, “A Shadow of Life”.

Of course, all this novel writing has cut into other writing, like blog posts. That’s also because I work around medical appointments, social commitments, housework, DIY projects, and the minutiae of living like eating, sleeping, bathing, exercising. It’s better to stay busy and focused rather than drifting, though.

On I go, writing like crazy at least one more time.

6

Thursday’s Theme Music — Driving Me Crazy

Ashland, southern Oregon. Thursday, August 27, 2026.

Another cool morning — 62 F right now — which will see temperatures in the mid to upper 80s again. No clouds are in view, just blue sky over a brown and green landscape.

Had beers with friends last night. Talking about Dolly Parton dominated. All admired her talents and abilities, but we addressed her sense of humor and willingness to support others more than anything. She’s left a tremendous legacy of kindness, a beacon of light in this nasty Trump era.

Mom is sick this week. She’s complaining of being in pain everywhere and freezing. I’ve asked for updates but she’s not responding, and my sisters aren’t communicating with Mom. The assisted living facility won’t tell me about her because security; they don’t know me.

Our conversations last night about what’s going on in the United States often circled back to the same point: Just when you thought it couldn’t get any crazier, it does.

Then I was reading about a rancher who is upset about Trump’s policies which were affecting her. She defended her vote for Trump, and it’s essentially because she worries about transgender children and her offspring being exposed to transgender children. Yes, oh my!

Which brings me to one of the most ludicrous things Trump ever said, and that’s a long list.

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

It’s an absolutely batshit crazy claim. These weren’t off hand remarks. This was Trump campaigning to lead the nation, feeding their fears and petty anxieties. And they have been absolutely debunked.

Just like Trump’s claims of stolen elections.

Does Trump believe what he said that day in August?

Doesn’t matter to me if he believed it or not. He said it to fuel hatred and divide our nation. We are stronger as a nation if we’re all helping one another and pulling together and was — and keeps — deliberately undermining that critical premise.

And then Trump has the gall to claim that he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker and unifier.

A unifier does not deliberately use hatred to turn citizens against each other. Nor does a peacemaker. A peacemaker also doesn’t start an unnecessary war, as Trump did with Iran (now going into its sixth month). Nor does a peacemaker order the military to kill over two hundred people at sea without going through the legal system.

Yet MAGA seems to generally support this. They foster a “conditional unity”, which is, we will support your and your participation and existence, as long as you’re like or fit into our narrow definitions of genders, sexual orientation, skin color, place of birth, ethnicity.

We’ve learned these lessons before. Under Trump, they’re being dismantled.

Yet, there will come a time when we’ll need to learn and employ these lessons again.

Today’s morning mental music stream inhabitant is by FYC. FYC is Fine Young Cannibals, a Brit group. The song today is “She Drives Me Crazy”. The band released it in 1988 and it’s about love and relationships. Makes it apropos for today. The Neurons fed it to the MMMS after I was thinking about how Trump and his supporters drive me crazy.

Sample Lyrics

I can’t stop the way I feel
Things you do don’t seem real
Tell me what you’ve got in mind
‘Cause we’re running out of time
Won’t you ever set me free?
This waiting ’round’s killing me

Hope you’re rocking this day and making good time on your daily life goals. Be good to yourself and to each other.

Cheers

2

The Corporate Merger Dream

I was working –

Though I can’t say where or for who, nor anything like that. Wasn’t anything out of real life.

I was a mid-level manager, mostly working alone. Our corporation was merging with another, a larger one. Although it was labeled a merger, the partner would subsume our company.

I’d ended up providing some important information to make it happen, things which were requested at the last minute. I’d worked fast, long, hard, alone, to make that happen.

Now the merger was taking place.

I went outside. Early dusk was falling over a spare, sort of rocky desert landscape with spiky green plants, along with some thick, squat bushes. Meandering out there, I spotted a wolf.

It saw me.

I cautiously moved back. The wolf closed on me. I moved slowly. As the wolf came closer, I saw it was a husky.

The husky and I regarded each other around bushes, wary and curious. I drifted back into work.

Celebrations about the merger were beginning. Cake was being serves, which was fashioned after NFL teams. My cake was based on the Steelers and had black frosting.

I ate my cake and enjoyed it, then wandered. Speeches were being made. The CEO walked by to make a speech, pausing to slap me on the shoulder and say hello to me.

I moved on, encountering a pair of young men. They were by a pipe. Light lime green water gushed out of the pipe into a large square bright metal pan. The two men sat by it watching. One said to me, “They were asking who you were.”

“Do you mean me?” I responded.

“Yes, they were asking, who are you?”

“Did they mean me or you? I think the know who I am.”

“The new people wanted to know who you were because you were mentioned a few times. They wondered why.”

Shrugging that off, I went back outside to the same landscape. As I walked, I saw orange stripped cats doing different things. A clowder of dark gray kittens were playing at another place. I wondered where the husky was and if the cats were safe.

Dream end.

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Thursday’s Theme Music — Billions & Trillions

Ashland, southern Oregon — Thursday, July 23, 2026.

Cooler today, although the sky is blue and the sun is brightly shining. 75 F now, we expect a high of 93 F.

The air was much better last night and today, as well. The East Evans Creek Fire is now 38% contained, and there were no flare ups despite yesterday’s strong winds and high heat.

Extraordinary how often things in the news are now measured in billions and trillions. They used to be eye-opening amounts. Now we see them daily in the news:

US House passes record $1.15trn defence bill to fund Iran war

US national debt hits record $39 trillion ($113,616 per person!) and $40 trillion could be right around the corner

Kansas City Chiefs Unveil First Renderings for $3 Billion Stadium Opening in 2031

Google hit with $1 billion in fines as EU braces for Trump battle

Trump made more than $2.2bn last year. Experts say this extraordinary haul is only part of the story

AMD to invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic as part of computing power deal

Meanwhile, down here in the trenches, life is still measured in dollars and cents as we struggle with affordability.

Current U.S. Beef Prices (July 2026)

As of the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data (July 22, 2026), national average retail beef prices are up modestly from last month, with most cuts seeing gains of 0.6%–1.2%. National Average Retail Prices (per pound, USDA Choice cuts unless noted)

  • Sirloin Steak (USDA Choice): $14.45/lb — ▲1.2% vs. June, ▲6.6% vs. last year
  • Round Steak (USDA Choice): $9.84/lb — ▲0.6%, ▲13.3% year-over-year
  • All Uncooked Beef Steaks: $12.88/lb — ▲0.6%, ▲8.5% YoY
  • Chuck Roast (USDA Choice): $9.55/lb — ▼0.6% (but still ▲13.2% YoY)
  • All Uncooked Ground Beef: $7.14/lb — ▲1.1%, ▲9.8% YoY
  • Ground Beef (100% Beef): $6.83/lb — ▲1.2%, ▲9.1% YoY
  • Ground Chuck (100% Beef): $6.98/lb — ▲3.8%, ▲10.1% YoY

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

Of course, Trump had already claimed 20 times that prices were coming down quickly, back in February of 2026.

The price of a pound of ground beef was $6.74 compared to $6.83.

That’s some more of that Trump math.

Same math Trump used to claim that the ballroom would cost US taxpayers nothing:

“It’s a private thing, yeah, I’ll do it, and we’ll probably have some donors or whatever, but it’s about $200 million. So, we’ve been planning it for a long time. They’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years. But there’s never been a president that was good at ballroom. I’m really good.”

Donald Trump, July, 2025

Back then, Trump was also bragging that the ballroom would cost $200M.

Trump administration quietly shifts $352m in federal funds for White House ballroom

That headline is from June of 2026.

All that has The Neurons playing “Billion Dollar Babies” in the morning mental music stream. The Alice Cooper song (and album of the same name) came out while I was in high school. My friend, Bob, was instantly enamored with both and used to spit out parts of choruses as we went from class to class, a period which I think lasted a week or two.

Alice Cooper was a cross-dressing rock star for a long period. Yet he’s expressed views against transgenders and supports Donald Trump. “(America) got so ‘woke’ with the Biden people, even they thought it was crazy. If a guy says to a coworker, ‘I like your new dress,’ that means he now gets fired? That’s crazy. It got so over the top that whoever ran against the Democrats was going to win. America got sick of the stupidness and all I can say is, in a shooting war, you don’t want a poodle; you want a pitbull.” Wikipedia

Because of this, I don’t often listen to Alice Cooper much any longer.

Hope your day brings fresh air and some good weather, good friends, and good times.

Cheers

4

Tuesday’s Theme Music — Once Bitten

Ashland, southern Oregon — Tuesday, June 20, 2026.

Blue skies and sunshine. A light wind is blowing. Temperatures are creeping out of the fifties through the sixties, heading for the seventies.

Hmm. Almost the reverse of the Trump administration. They’re creeping back toward through the seventies toward the fifties — the 1850s.

Hope they’ve read “Yesteryear”. *lol*

Back to the weather. The Gingerboi, Papi, declares it almost perfect. If not for the wind, he says…

Had an excellent sleep last night. My dreams had me laughing. I’d read again a historical novel, “The Winter King”, and watched again “The Last Kingdom”. I then ended up dreaming of myself as basically a character in those settings last night. They were fun dreams, and did not have the bloody violence of the television series or novel.

The War between Trump and Facts continues. In this episode, he battles on against what our eyes show: the Great American State Fair is another Great American Trump Mess.

Reputable reporters and bloggers reported low turnout for the heavily-hyped Trump event. Trump declared there were 45,000 people attending but offered no evidence of that while others provided photos

You know, I side against Trump. He’s lied thousands of times about multiple topics. He repeats lies — like how great the economy is doing and how much respect the nation has gained. Hard data and anecdotal experiences expose his lies.

He’s lied several times about predicting Osama Bin Laden’s attacks on the US in 2001. The documentation shows, he did not make that prediction.

Donald Trump misled We the People about the ballroom’s cost and how much US taxpayers would pay for it. Trump’s reasons for the Iran war and when it would be over were erratic from the start, changing by the day.

Then, there is Algaegate, the ‘redoing’ of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Trump began by denigrating how it looked, dismissing what others did to fix. He bragged about how great he would make it look, what a great deal he got to make it happen, misleading us about the price while doing so.

Then the results came in, and its horrible. And the story grows about who did what behind the scenes — driving across the pool, using materials on it for which it isn’t suited, spending more money than claimed. It was supposed to cost $1M to $2M. He’s now had $16.4M spent on it.

Now the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool looks hideous.

There’s that expression, once bitten, twice shy. Other sayings proceeded it: a scalded cat fears cold water. The point is that we learn to distrust. Once mislead, we’re skeptical. Once hurt, we keep our distance.

Trump does not respect that at all. But that’s how I respond to all his claims. Any trust which may have been there is gone.

Here’s today’s music from the morning mental music stream, “Once Bitten, Twice Shy”, by Great White.

I hope you have a gloriously happy but safe day. Go with peace and grace.

Cheers

3

Friday’s Theme Music – Yesterday

Ashland, southern Oregon — Friday, June 16, 2026.

Cooler forecast for today: 85 F. Thunderstorms and lightning are in the mix, making people apprehensive about lightning strikes and wildfires.

We had the windows open last night at 10.

“I smell smoke,” I said.

My wife agreed. “It smells strong.”

I went around closing windows and turned on a few exhaust fans. Then spent half an hour on different channels/media, trying to find where the smoke was coming from, what the threat was. 11 PM, I stepped out and took a deep breath.

Smoke smell gone.

Well, good. I returned inside and opened a few windows to continue cooling the house.

I’m a little groggy today. It’s a privileged whine, as I stayed up reading to finish a book, “Yesteryear”. I enjoyed it a great deal. Excellent satire. That’s the third terrific book I’ve read this month, the others being “James” and “A Drop of Corruption”.

All quiet with Mom. Mom is feeling better and asked when my sister, Gina, could come and visit with her, have a ‘real’ visit. Gina had to defer as her plate is filled with being parent & grandparent, taking care of Mom’s affairs, and working. There are also several graduations. It also happens that her vacation, planned for next week. It’s a trip down to the NC coast, where they’ve been going a decade, a small luxury to help her recharge. The house closing is set for July 17. She’s investigating whether it can be moved back, and whether she wants to.

Yesterday’s news was about the Iran truce deal. That was early hours. Later hours had Trump blustering about bombing Iran again if he’s not happy with the deal and how he thinks Iran is doing.

The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and Trump’s crowing about ‘fixing it’ is just like the Iran war. Trump complained about how the reflecting pool was, hired a crony to fix it and now it’s worse.

Trump starts something, boasts about how much greater he will make, and then it turns out it’s not. It becomes a recurring pattern of stupid is, stupid does.

The latest news out of the training facilities in San Antonio, Texas reflects the same pattern. The “I Know Better” administration decided flu vaccinations are not mandatory, but voluntary. About 40% of trainees opted IN for the flu vaccines. Now there’s 159 cases of flu reported and one recruit is dead. Way to go, Trump! Way to ensure the military is in top form and able to respond.

News yesterday included a report that a new Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll of 5,469 adults found that 59% now believe Trump is a “dangerous dictator”. Last year showed 56% of Americans thought that, while the poll results in March resulted in 52%.

Acting quietly, it appears that the Trump administration secretly moved taxpayer’s money to pay for the Epstein ballroom construction. After often and loudly proclaiming that the US taxpayer wouldn’t need to pay for any of it, Trump asked Congress for the money and was denied. Now, using his standard tactics, Trump is siphoning and moving money to pay for it, money that Congress earmarked for other matters.

Is it any wonder that most of us see Trump as a dangerous dictator?

That’s just one of a multiple of reasons.

It’s all sticking on Trump now. Trump’s economic approval rating is at 33%, below the lowest rating that President Biden ever had.

Today’s song is “That Was Yesterday”. This is a rock ballad by Foreigner released in 1985 about a failed relationship. The Neurons plugged it into my morning mental music stream when I was talking with my wife this morning about the news. Something she said caused me to laughingly respond, “Well, that was yesterday.” The Neurons, being the inattentive buggers which they are, thought I wanted to hear the song and fired it up. Now I must pass it on to you.

The video begins with the end of some other song before it leaps into today’s music. Just bear with it, okay?

Hope your day follows positive twists and turns as you make your way from yesterday until tomorrow.

Cheers

5

At the Goodwill

My wife and I are on the Oregon coast. We ate a wonderful fresh breakfast at the Fresh Harvest Cafe. Then we hit the local Goodwill.

My wife enjoys visiting Goodwill stores. She likes bargains and she likes re-using things. She did say today, “I’m not buying anything new. I’m death cleaning so whenever I see something I want, I just tell myself, ‘You’ll just have to throw it out.'” Books are the exceptions. We bought four, two for each of us.

Killing time, I wander the store and write a short story in my head. It’s about a future Goodwill. Dystopian situation. A guy ransacks an unused house. There’s a lot of them. Finding a cache of shot glasses, he brings them to the Goodwill. They give him a small bag of peanuts for them. He sits outside in the sunshine, savoring every nut as he eats them.

My sister texted me about her grandson’s birthday. He’s already fifteen, thoroughly discombobulating my brain, which still thinks of him as much younger. His mother is still a teenager in my thoughts. To see that he’s now a teenager is too much. I do the slow math; I was fifty-five when he was born. Time, you know?

Sis tells me that her grandson went to an Escape Room for his birthday. Muses gather in my head to conceptualize fiction about Escape Rooms.

Sis interrupts with a text abut Mom. She’s taken Mom to Urgent Care for another suspected UTI. Mom complains about dizziness as she Mom gets in and out of her wheelchair and the car.

Browsing Goodwill shelves, I see things which might be in my home. I go through an aisle of tools and imagine my tools in there.

I believe I have seen the future.

Leaving the building, I breath in fresh air and smile at the sunshine on my face.

0

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