About Facebook

August 31, 2022September 1, 2022 ~ tone3d ~ Leave a comment

My account was hacked. And there was some activity on there that didn’t “meet community standards” while it was hacked. So, Facebook put me in “jail” for 30 days. There was also suspicious activity on my business debit card through Facebook. Don’t ask me what that means but my credit union caught it as fraudulent activity, and closed out that card. Really, the getting hacked and someone trying to access my accounts is what troubles me. I’ve been seriously considering cutting way back (or closing) personal social media accounts anyway. So, being in Facebook “jail” is a-ok. A trial run of what I’ve wanted anyway. It has become a huge distractive time sink.

However, I do hope the my author pages and author’s group are still open, because the page is the home of my largest number of followers. It’s not a huge number, but I do want them/you to receive updates of when I have new books out there. Especially, given there should (finally) be one in the near future.

Unfortunately, I cannot even log in to check.

So, if you’ve commented on my page or group and I haven’t responded, please accept my apologies. I’m not dismissive of interaction with my readers. I just happen to be ignorant of it at the moment. Further, I do not know if this will blog post will be shared on my pages. So, if I could ask a favor (?). If you see this, and actually clicked on the link to read the whole post, would you please comment here on this site? (Not Facebook for obvious reason…If you’re getting this through Twitter, I’d be happy for a comment as well, but I’m not fishing for attention and Twitter doesn’t seem to have been hacked. I am just hoping to become less ignorant.)

NOW, all of that out of the way. I am off for the next six days. Tomorrow, is my 21st wedding anniversary to my beautiful and very understanding wife, Jill. I’m looking forward to spending the next (almost) week with her and Dylan…and writing A LOT. I’m excited for the reprieve from the long hours on the day job, and fully expect to enjoy immersing myself in my stories, again.

I hope all of you have a wonderful Labor Day weekend.

–TD

What’s Going On

August 7, 2022August 8, 2022 ~ tone3d ~ Leave a comment

Apologies to Marvin Gaye and 4 Non-Blondes for stealing their title. Though, I guess in the case of the Non-Blondes the title is “What’s Up” and I’ve simply stolen the chorus. Hmm.

Here is an update.

Persy’s Song is finally in Jill’s hands. Digital hands, but hands nonetheless. Everything is going slow, and will continue to do so. The reasons:

I am working 60 Hour weeks. And have been for nearly a month. This will continue for the foreseeable future. No, writing is not my full-time gig.
I still need to do cover work. And it’s been awhile. I need to re-learn things that I have forgotten since the last time I’ve been through this process
I need to relearn much of the publishing process. More importantly, I must learn the ‘stuff’ that has happened and changed in the process over the last 3 years.
I am writing another book, and writing will always take priority over the two items above.

Most of these items are not difficult. Some are even fun. But they do take time, which is at a premium at the moment. See the first bullet point. I don’t have the luxury of being able to hire things out. My writing makes enough to take the family out to a nice meal on a good month. Some months enough to buy single cup of Joe for Jill. Many months absolutely nothing. This is only to illustrate that I cannot justify taking on the added expense of getting help with the above tasks. So, they will take time.

There is a lot of good right now, though.

Since late May, when I started writing in earnest again, I have only missed two or three days. Probably the best part of this is that I’ve learned to be OKAY with those missed days. Again see the first bullet point above. Missed days have had the tendency to spiral into missed weeks and months in the past. Even when they were justifiable, because y’know 60 hour weeks.

I’m writing a little slower now. I’m learning to be okay with this, too. Sometimes, I purposefully slow my start in the mornings to allow me to “tap into my characters.” It’s a fine line, and I have to be careful to not let critical voice creep into this process. There is a lot be said for just sitting down and getting the next sentence down, but I’ve also learned that I am a deep thinker. Very deep. And to not leverage this strength is doing a disservice to my stories (and the characters.) The writing of The Smallwood Harp is going well. I am somewhere north of 15,000 words. New words happen in the morning before work. Most evenings I get something done on the stuff needed to release Persy’s Song and other publishing business related items on my already released books that I’ve neglected for too long.

My son is starting his second year at the local Community College and will head off to a university next Fall. We’ve had a couple of campus visits this Summer. It’s been all good, and I’ve been grateful for the little time I can steal away from his studies and video game play.

Anyway, there you have it. An update. BTW, What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye is one of the best albums ever made. Not that I have a strong opinion on it.

Talk at you soon

Check out my books.

Everything is Broken

North Country Girl

–TD

Research

February 12, 2020February 12, 2020 ~ tone3d ~ Leave a comment

It’s been some time since I posted. Not much to say. Things are going well.

Rattling on about writing has become a little –eh, boring. But, I’m going to have to do a little bit of research on a topic that I uncovered in a story this morning. So, I thought I’d share this little bit of humor. The writers that are reading this will just nod. Readers will probably get a kick out of it.

Here goes:

I am convinced that if I am not on the FBI watchlist. I will be soon.

Consider this –

For my first book, my internet search history includes:

Where to find prostitutes in Myrtle Beach, SC (this was infamously uncovered in the search history by Jill, my wife…fun)
Forums where strippers and their patrons post about their experiences
How to pick the lock of the modern hotel keycard lock

For my second book, at the very least, my search history included:

Vodun teachings on the afterlife
Historical weapons of Native Americans (the Mohawks, in particular)

In addition, I regularly look up stuff about guns. Despite my love for crime fiction and the violent stories found in the genre, I am for all intents and purposes a pacifist. I have never owned a gun and can only remember once shooting a shotgun. So, yeah, call me out on it when I get something wrong (I don’t mind, actually … I do my best). My only point is … my internet search history would make me look like a budding domestic terrorist.

I won’t share what I’ll be researching during my next writing session, but yeah, it’s FBI watch list stuff.

*FBI is not a reference to JoJo Bigtree

–TD

Reset the Streak

January 12, 2020January 11, 2020 ~ tone3d ~ Leave a comment

Yep. Already need a reset. This week has been hectic. I’ve worked an incredible amount of overtime. I won’t put numbers to it, but suffice to say I worked overtime last week, and managed just fine to get some writing in every day. This week I worked OVERTIME.

And it’s a learning experience. As I’ve mentioned before on this site, I’m a slow learner. (I’m also stubborn). I swore, while I was going through the lay-off period, that I would never give myself SO much to a company like I had at the last two. Alas, I still have a lot to learn about achieving some life balance. And the power of saying “no.”

It was also reminder of one of my best practices. Get what’s important to me* (writing and exercise) done first thing every day. When I do this, nothing the day throws at me can de-rail those priorities. I failed to do this on Wednesday morning, and no writing got done. In fairness to myself, Thursday wasn’t going to happen out shear exhaustion anyway. Friday, I probably could have/should have gotten a run and some writing in, but I slept in (until 6 a.m. haha), and chose to spend time with family* after work. So, I lost three days. Two of those days I lost that I feel I could have written and run, but I chose not to. One of those days, I lost because… well, because me.

So, on that ‘me’ thing, I’m trying to figure that out. I know I have to concentrate on being less busy. On one hand, I know I perform much better when I have a regimented day. When I know I have to work my hour of writing into a relatively full day, I generally do better than when I have a ton of free time on my hands. But it’s a delicate balance, and my days can get away from me like they did this week. I know there’s an answer. Add this to my priorities for the year, too!

My streak ended at 7 days. I wrote today, so now it stands at One. And that’s okay, because I know I can get up and write and run (7.5 miles) tomorrow.

I re-read The Deep Blue Good-by by John D. MacDonald this week for maybe the sixth time. I love the book and the entire Travis McGee series, and I just wanted to revisit it and see what I could pick up on and learn from JDM. There’s surely a lot of stuff, but what I focused on was the balance JDM achieved in his action scenes of pace and enough depth of detail that he doesn’t leave the reader filling in too many blanks. I’m currently writing a chase scene on the beach, and I am trying to borrow from the master on keeping those scales level. It’s a lot of fun to write.

I’m also nearing the finish of Pepper Pike by Les Roberts. Also a PI novel, featuring Milan Jacovich, and set in Cleveland. So far, so good. I feel like I’ll be continuing on with this series.

We lost Neil Peart this week. I knew I had a lot of friends, who are Rush fans, but I had no idea the sheer number until my Facebook feed got lit up with them mourning his death. I’ve never been much of a fan of Rush, or Mr. Peart, but I’ve always admired their abilities (in the case of Peart his skill with the drumsticks in his hands is undeniable). Something to keep in mind. Just because something isn’t to our tastes, doesn’t mean anything about the quality of the work.

Looking forward to the week ahead. Long run tomorrow, which I hope I won’t suffer from the missed days this week. Then, who knows, maybe I finish a book (?). I certainly don’t know how it ends yet.

*Obviously spending time with Jill and Dylan trumps even these, but I’ve learned also that if I get the writing and running done first thing it frees up the quality time in the evenings. Of course, I failed miserably this week, and saw maybe 5 minutes of them on Wednesday (actually think I missed Dylan completely).

–TD

Words this week – 3,417

Words so far this year – 7,926

Current Streak – 1

Longest Streak to date – 7

Miles Ran/walked this year – 15.5

2020

January 5, 2020January 5, 2020 ~ tone3d ~ 4 Comments

But first 2019…

As I mentioned in my last post, I ended the year in a new job. That is going well. And is all positive.

Some other ways I ended the year:

In December, I took a day off and made a whirlwind tour down to Florida and back to deal with a family legal matter. It was ridiculous in a way that typically would make me furious…especially at others involved. Instead? I got to see my father and stepmother, and spend some rare (and far too little) quality time with them.
On Christmas day, I finally got around to watching the film noir Christmas Holiday, something I’ve wanted to do for maybe the last 10 Christmases (is that a word?). It’s a Siodmak film, which makes it worth watching in its own right, but how can a film noir fan pass on the opportunity to watch it on Christmas Day? (It’s available on YouTube to watch any day FWIW). It wasn’t my favorite Siodmak film (Criss Cross), but I could think of far worse things to waste time on.
I ran three 5k races between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Eve. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed participating in these events. And I also forgot how the adrenaline takes over! Despite telling myself each race, “I’m just going to take it easy this one.” I improved my times each time out.
My last read of the year was The Virginia City Trail by Ralph Compton. Recommended for fans of westerns and/or historical fiction. It very much reminded me of Lonesome Dove but it moved along at a brisker pace. I even wonder if Lonesome Dove’s fictional characters were based on the historical characters found in Compton’s book.
My last run of the year was 7 miles! It shocks me to even type that. On that run, I encountered a herd (?) of five deer. (Unless I’m getting my runs mixed up). Incredible experience, and when I finished I was disappointed…
Since Labor Day weekend, when I accepted the new job offer, I have lost 42 lbs. Going back further (about a decade), I am down 119 lbs. from my highest weight. You read that correctly.

Now 2020.

I have some goals, but I’m going to mostly keep those to myself. Some of them are very high reaching, and I’ve learned that voicing them just gets criticism…especially writing goals…I will share the simple one.

Write. Every. Day.

and if I fail?

Don’t attempt to “catch up”, just jump back on the horse and start another write every day streak. The longest streak I’ve ever managed was sixty days. That time I set out to match Joe D’s 56 game hitting streak. I’m not sure what 366 streak is out there to emulate, but I’ll pat myself on the back every time I bag another Joe D.

(One note – I only consider new fiction as writing. So these posts don’t count, email doesn’t count, outlining, character development, and rewriting wouldn’t count either…if I did those things, editing stuff that comes back from the copy-editor doesn’t count either)

So far, I have written over 1000 words every day…and I’ve worked overtime. So, I feel like I’m off to a decent start.

The first book I’ve finished reading in 2020 was Kristen Lepionka’s Shamus Award winner What You Want To See. 2nd in her Roxanne Weary Private Eye series. It was excellent just like the first. I am now reading Pepper Pike by Les Roberts…the first book to feature Cleveland P.I. Milan Jacovich. It was a Christmas present. I have a good half dozen other presents to keep me busy reading in the early months of the year.

I have a short 3-mile run in the morning, so we’ll call it a night now.

Happy New Year readers!

–TD

————————————————————————

Wds this week — 4,509
Wds this year — 4,509

Influence

April 8, 2019April 8, 2019 ~ tone3d ~ Leave a comment

This is going to be one of those typical, rambling, Tony’s been drinking the Faulkner Kool-aid again posts.

Last post I mentioned James Lee Burke as my literary hero. Oddly, I don’t really see much influence in my work. That comes with the caveat, that I don’t consciously set about writing like Burke or MacDonald or Spillane or Parker or whoever.

But reflecting on some of my creation, I am able to see some of the fingerprints, and as much as I’d love to write as rich and deep as Burke does about his setting, it just doesn’t seem to be in my toolbox yet. (Writing deep about setting is something that I set about, and I’m pretty happy with… I’m just not a master). But leaving Burke behind for a moment…

John D. MacDonald is my favorite author, and I love his Travis McGee series. Having grown up in Florida, finding the beach-bum salvage consultant whose adventures occurred in familiar locales was a joy to my teen-aged self. He was a bit of a loner (save his chats with Meyer and his many escapades with the fairer sex), who lived a pretty spartan existence upon his houseboat. It’s impossible not to admit that some of this seeped into Fuzzy Koella.

But there’s another P.I. with whom Fuzzy shares more genetic code — Jim Rockford of the TV’s Rockford Files. Rockford, too, is an offspring of McGee (acknowledged by the creators)… Rockford isn’t in the houseboat, though. He’s in some, probably non-compliant, trailer out by the Pier. Fuzzy’s in a renovated maintenance shed at the marina. Ok, so they’re all beach bums… but McGee handles himself just a little (lot) better than Rockford and Koella. Where McGee often gest the best of his foes when it comes time for bare knuckles, both Rockford and Fuzzy are, well, sort of bumbling fools and often end up getting their ass kicked. Hell, Rockford rarely carried a gun…when Fuzzy does he’s more likely to end up losing it in the fracas.

I didn’t set out to write “my” Rockford, but I’ve watched all the episodes. I’ve read all of the McGees multiple times. It’s impossible that some of the influence would not seep into my stories, unless I actively guarded against it. And why would I want to do that? I love those stories.

There’s another popular P.I. whose shadows can be seen filtering into my stories. Again, I’ve read all of the Spenser’s. I didn’t really see the influence (other than, yes, we both write/wrote P.I. stories) until my father referred to Jimmy Alou as the Hawk character. “The sidekick with the gun.”

I’m gonna go all Harold Bloom, and suggest that influence goes back much further and is inescapable. Bloom somewhat controversially suggests that all Western literature can filed into one of two camps. Cervantes. Shakespeare. I tend to agree with him, though I think there is more cross pollination of the silos than he seems to suggest.

So, while Fuzzy Koella is IMO of the Shakespearean school, a mostly “lone wolf” internal looking character, the Fuzzy/Jimmy relationship is very much a result of the Cervantes literary tradition… they are Quixote and Pancho. Spenser and Hawk are as well (though I’m not sure Spenser is quite as easily identifiable as Quixotic).

Anyway, not that I’m claiming I’m on par with Cervantes (and yes I’ve read Don Quixote in its entirety — I recommend it) or Shakespeare, but it is an interesting reflection to me. Robert B. Parker started his famous Spenser series very much as a throwback to Chandler/Marlowe and by extension Shakespeare, but when Hawk strode into the series there was a noticeable pivot. I think, nowadays, most writers draw on both schools throughout their stories (as I do, without really realizing it), but to my mind Spenser hopped in the Cervantes silo when Hawk came along and the series never again was Chandler-esque. Parker left Shakespeare behind until he was approved to write some Marlowe novels by the Chandler estate.

Wow. You can’t say I didn’t warn you! Of course, none of that Cervantes/Shakespeare stuff touched on the sidekick with a gun…which is a trope of the P.I./detective sub-genre (Spenser/Hawk, Dave/Clete, Cole/Pike, Easy/Mouse). I read a lot of P.I. fiction. The only reason I don’t read as much of it as the most hardcore Romance reader reads her/his favorite genre is because there simply isn’t as much of it. The point being I crap out those tropes and the structure without even thinking about it. I’ll leave that up to the reader whether that is a good thing or not. I’ll just continue to follow Fuzzy around, and watch him stumble into danger with or without Jimmy along. Until, of course, Fuzzy’s told me all the tales he needs told…

–TD

Photo by Arunita DH on Pexels.com

James Lee Burke

April 2, 2019April 2, 2019 ~ tone3d ~ 2 Comments

James Lee Burke is my favorite living writer (and he is a writer…he continues to write into his 80s). He’s also my literary hero. Those two things aren’t necessarily inclusive, but for me Burke is both things.

The hero part comes from his persistence in getting his novel The Lost Get Back Boogie published. Burke was published in his twenties and met with some critical acclaim for his literary novels. Then, he went nearly a decade without being published. Boogie was rejected over 100 times by editors before finding a home with LSU Press. It went one to be nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His next novel was The Neon Rain, a literary detective novel which paved the way for his best-selling career. He’s also my hero for being a “literary” genre writer. He is without any doubt in my mind the greatest living American writer of prose. Seriously, I’d put his craft up against Pynchon, DeLillo, Morrison and McCarthy any day. Burke comes out on top in this reader’s mind.

In today’s environment of ghostwriting and collaborative, Patterson-esque writing, it would be easy to conclude that 80+ year old Burke may go down that path. But only if you have never read his work. His voice (see yesterday’s post) is so compelling, so unique that it simply cannot be replicated.

No, we will know when Burke has stopped writing. Unfortunately, it will be when he has passed.

There are plenty of reasons that he is my favorite writer that has nothing to do with him being my hero, though.

He writes vividly of setting. (One of those settings being lush, south Louisiana)

His characters are colorful, larger than life beings.

He writes unapologetically of the violent tendencies of man. And he does so in a way that makes you realize that the violence victimizes the inflictor as much as the victim.

His explorations of evil are downright Biblical.

He believably covers themes of the struggles of the poverty stricken in the face of greed.

He does all of the above in the mystery/crime genre framework.

April Writing Stats

April 1 – 1038

April 2 – 1072

Total – 2110 words

Voice

April 2, 2019April 2, 2019 ~ tone3d ~ Leave a comment

greyscale photo of man singing — Photo by Thibault Trillet on Pexels.com

Of all the elements of writing (fiction), the one which I hold highest is Voice. Maybe your characters are two dimension cut-outs or your plot is like a train rolling down the tracks or maybe your setting is paint by numbers… if the voice is compelling you’ve got me.

It shows up in the characters…it shows up in the author. And there isn’t much anything you can do to build it in my opinion. Which comes across as “either you got it or you don’t.”

Talent.

I’m not sure that’s the case. I’m sure some authors’ voices appeal more to my taste. Some, dear reader, appeal more to your taste. But I think more than anything else in writing, your voice is like fingerprints… we all have a voice. The trick is to use it. Believe in it. And protect the hell out of it. And if your voice doesn’t appeal to every reader. Amen.

When I write a thousand words in an hour without any thought of where it’s going just listening to the characters and tapping away at the keys, and then cycle back and see there’s only some typos to touch up, maybe a little extra depth, etc, but damn this is pretty good! That isn’t a random act of fate (okay, maybe it is)… it isn’t a mistake. It isn’t the 9-iron you blade thin from 140 yards out that rolls up and tucks in next to flagstick. It’s the power of Voice, without the shackles of critical writing…free of re-writing and style manuals. It is the artist. It is me.

If I leave well enough alone…

April Writing Stats

April 1 — 1,038 words

Tabletop RPGs and Writing

March 18, 2019 ~ tone3d ~ 6 Comments

otus

Every Friday night I run a Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) game for my son and his buddies using the edition of the game I first played back in 1981.

Every other Sunday I run a game for my son and his buddies and some of my gaming buddies (read other 40-something geeks). We use the current (5th) edition of the game.

The Friday night game started with an old-school, open sandbox style module, but quickly has devolved into me completely making stuff up as I go. I do probably less than 15 minutes of prep for this game every week.

The Sunday game, I am running one of the published adventures for the 5th Ed. game. As written, it’s very railroady. And focused on running the players through a story.

The roleplaying game phenomena has an interesting timeline, which I won’t go much into, other than to say it has produced some distinct styles of play. I’ve spent plenty of time in the “collaborative story-telling” school of play (hell, one of the more popular RPG systems is called The Storyteller System), and as much time in the “it’s a game stupid” school. And in all the space in between those two extremes!

Oddly, I find myself mostly in the game-ist side right now.

Why oddly?

Because I am currently writing a post about the similarities in my writing process and my gaming table.

Right… I probably should get to that.

What I have found… I’m at my best when I am mostly winging it at the table. This shouldn’t be much of a revelation. The best game I’ve ever run was nearly 10 years ago (yes I remember a single night of gaming a decade ago), and I’ve come to refer to as the Doppleganger Murder Mystery extravaganza. For that game, I created a handful of 7-sentence non-player characters. Gave the players a situation, and let them have at it.

Today, in that Friday night game, I’ve been known to create the dungeon whole-cloth as I’m drawing it out on the map for the players. No prep whatsoever. Just, what would be cool right now?

Sunday game with the pre-written adventure? We’ve spent 3 sessions in the “episode” that allows the most free-styling in the whole adventure. And next session will be in that episode at least partially as well. I don’t think there’s any coincidence there. (I obviously don’t want to leave this place). But even when we are “on the rails”, my favorite parts (and I think the players’) are random encounter rolls and when the players completely go bat-shit crazy off the tracks.

What this all comes back to… why am I surprised? Even as a Dungeon (Game) Master, I want the experience to match the players’. I don’t want to know what happens, and I certainly don’t want to know how things end. It’s a game after all. Not a story. <grin>.

But since, we’ve mentioned story. When I’m the Dungeon Master of my novels, stories, etc. I don’t want to know how the games end, either.

In both cases, with players and readers… I strongly believe, if I don’t know where things are heading there’s a good chance they don’t either. If they do? More power to them. They’re smarter than me. And I’m okay with that.

— TD

Both of my books are widely available, and I would love to have you as a reader. Universal links:

Everything is Broken

and

North County Girl

Category: Writing