Can a dog hear peanut butter hitting bread at 50 yards?

Can a dog hear peanut butter hitting bread at 50 yards?
OK, here I am.  It’s 1:30 in the morning and I’m working on a project.  Everyone in the house is asleep, except for me.  The dog is snoring away in the bedroom with my wife.  I get a little hungry.  Good time for a peanut better sandwich, I think.  So I quietly get up, not allowing my chair to squeak and make my way to the kitchen.  Without rustling the plastic bag, I take out two slices of bread and lay them on the counter.  From the cupboard I take the peanut butter, from the refrigerator, the butter.  OK, it’s some kind of perpetually soft butter substitute.  I get a knife from the drawer.  All this is in Ninja mode, not making a sound.  I spread the imitation butter on one piece of bread, and peanut butter on the other.  In silence I return the spread to the fridge and the peanut butter to the cupboard.  I start back to the computer and there I see it.  The dog, lying on the floor in front of my chair.

I love our dog.  She is our baby girl. And whenever I make a sandwich, she gets the last bite.  It was a family tradition my dad started when I was a kid and I have continued it today through all the dogs we’ve had.  I don’t so much MIND her waiting for her due.  I just want to know how she does it.  She was ASLEEP… in the OTHER ROOM… I made NO noise.  But there she is.  Are her ears really good enough to hear peanut butter hit bread at 50 feet?  Or maybe she’s psychic.  Now there is a scary thought.

There is Nothing Wrong with: “It was a dark stormy night”

There is nothing wrong with this much maligned opening line.  The FULL opening line tells a different story.

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

The criticism of “It was a dark story night,” was not earned all on its own.  It had help. A LOT of it from the long run on sentence reminiscent of the hook in an agent query letter.  So “It was a dark stormy night” in and of itself is NOT a bad thing. 

What if your story starts out on a dark stormy night?  What if it’s actually an integral part of the opening scene?  I can’t very well have my heroine, running from her abusive husband; put her car into a ditch on a beautiful sunny day can I?  “It was a beautiful sunny day.  The sky was clear to the horizon, and the sun beating down heated the surface of the roadway giving her tires extra grip.  That would make her look incompetent behind the wheel.  You can excuse her if it was dark, it was stormy, and the dirt road had turned into very slippery mud.

This all came to mind because I have been thinking about my third, but as yet unpublished completed novel.  Still working on cover art.  I had an concept, but it just didn’t fit in the vertical format of a book cover.  Back to the old drawing board.  That was all it took for me to wonder if I should give it one more read through.  I hate it when I do that.

Inspiration Strikes

I have had a flash of inspiration lately.  I have found that happens when it comes time to work on promotion.  After creating two rough outlines for my next novel, a pre-post apocalypse story, I didn’t like my sequencing.  My order of peak moments just didn’t work.  The hero's motivations wouldn't work.  I was stumped for a few days.  Then I remembered something I learned at a writing seminar.

The instructor, author Jaimie Engle, spoke about writing techniques. One of them was writing in scenes.  Jaimie said that it doesn’t work for her, but a friend uses it all the time.  She writes her scenes on note cards, and then rearranges them until it suits her.  I've never been a note card kind of guy.  I've been spoiled by the computer.  I need my cut and paste when I write.
 
To that end, I have started a list of scenes, added notes, and in some cases begun filling in the details.  So far so good, but I’m still in the early stages.  At the very least, I will end up with the high points of my story, which I will piece together.  It seems to suit me as I tend to bounce around a lot anyway as the creative juices ebb and flow from one direction to another.  Sometimes working on a particular scene, I am inspired to add a character trait.  Then off I go to my character bios to add them there.  It’s a little ADDish, but it seems to be working.  Hmm, I wonder if that means something.

Beginning my Book Promotions

Advertising isn’t what it used to be.  In days gone by advertisers hit you with a pitch that encouraged you to buy.  It was a sheer numbers game.  Get your ad in front of as many people as possible, and SOME will buy.  The internet alone didn’t change that.  In the early days of the World Wide Web, advertising was still delivered in a similar manner.  But social media changed all of that.  Advertising has become interactive, and to be successful it requires more than just blasting out your sales pitch.  You have to develop an online presence and interact with your audience. 

Developing an online presence isn’t something that happens overnight.  You can’t just set up profiles on all of the social media sites and post “You’ll love my book.  Buy it Now!”  That’s why it’s called “developing.”  Developing takes time.  Building a following takes time.  And the only way to build a following is to give people a reason to follow you, and interact.

At first I looked with dread and the marketing and promotional aspects of my books.  But now I’m excited.  In a moment of self discovery, I realized it was getting started that caused me trepidation.  It seemed like such a huge job, one that had to be repeated for each and every web site on which I wanted to have a presence.  My first instinct was to put it off “until I had more time.”  THAT will never happen.  It’s like in writing, the often heard lament of: “I have this great idea but I don’t have time to write.”

Soooooo, I am starting with Goodreads.com.  It took a little over a week to take possession of my author page.  Sure I would have liked it to be instantaneous, but I know these things can take time.  I’ve filled in most of the profile, wondered if my bio needs work, and realized I can have fun rating and/or reviewing all of the books I have ever read.

Yes, I am looking forward to developing my presence on Goodreads, and adding other sites as well.  And maybe, somewhere, I’ll make the time to work on my next novel.

People ARE Reading my Work!

I’m pleased with the activity on my latest novel Apocalypse Road.  I’m getting page reads at a rate of about 5,000 per month (from Kindle Unlimited subscribers,)  and have even sold a few copies outright.  Not bad but considering all I have done is post it to my Facebook page once. 

Early in my research on Kindle promotions I thought I had read “don’t bother with the big sites until you have 4 or 5 reviews.”  Inwardly, I dreamed of becoming an overnight sensation; don't we all?  Realistically I expected it to sell a few copies to friends who would say "It was very nice," after which it would disappear into a black hole never to be mentioned again.  Even after a free giveaway of my first novel Soul Searching, I only had 1 review.  5 seemed impossible.  I thought “why bother.”  Why bother promoting it. If I had to wait until I had reviews, then it was hopeless to expect I’d ever get listed on “the big sites.” 

Apparently, I was misinformed.  Goodreads.com found ME.  They list both of my novels.  I even have 2 ratings, but no reviews, for Apocalypse Road.  After a quick bit of research, I learned about Goodreads Author Program.  So  I created a reader account, and claimed my author page.  Apparently there ARE sites worth joining that don't exclude beginning authors.  They say it will take awhile to process my claim, but once it goes through, I will have to start more serious promotion.

Time to find more such sites.  More to come....

Apocalypse Road now live on Kindle

ORDER NOW!

Apocalypse Road Update

Still working on the description.  Being that it is what will make people decide whether or not to read my book, I always agonize over what to write.

On the bright side, I have a cover, courtesy of www.pixabay.com.  The image was free for commercial use and requires no attribution.

Graphics and Design Links

Have a couple links to share.  www.pixabay.com is loaded with FREE graphics.  Yes, truly FREE!  Many are even free for commercial use and don't even require an attribution. Then there is www.canva.com/, another great FREE resource.  It's perfect for creating book covers and more.

Give them both a try.  I did and was very pleased.  I already found cover art my next novel.  Watch for a preview of it coming soon.

Why I Write

I haven't done anything with this blog in over a year, mostly because I didn't feel I had anything worth blogging about.  My skill at promotion is sorely lacking,   I've sold a few copies of Soul Searching, but its nothing to, as they say, "write home about."  That begs the question, "Why do I write?

Yeah, there is the fantasy.  There is the dream of becoming popular, famous, and yes, rich.  In reality, I know that none of that is likely.  Yet I still want to continue writing.  I want to write to tell my stories.  If anyone WANTS to read them, great, if not, I'll continue writing for ME.

I've also noticed that my blogging ability is also lacking.  Perhaps not my skill, but rather my determination.  So many things preempt my blog.  I heard a country song awhile back, about people not chasing their dreams because "life happened."  Every day life, family, earning a living, and assorted obligations, tend to take priority. 
I attended a writing workshop at our community college last week.  It was hosted by a local author.  I was "the old guy in the room," surrounded by young college students.  When it was over, I chatted with one of these young people.  Jon was working on his first novel.  He felt "driven" to tell his story.  It was as if it was fighting its way out of his brain.  But he was struggling.
I began to think about this blog to not only tell the story of my Kindle adventures, but the resources I have found.  Perhaps they might be of some help to people like Jon.  Even my failures could be of value, helping other avoid the mistakes I have made.
I decided I need to write something on this blog at least once per week.  When it comes to writing about writing, there is no shortage of subject matter.  So lets see what happens.

Stay tuned for new about my second novel Apocalypse Road, coming soon to a Kindle near you.