Tuesday Tickles: Revenge, is it worth it?

Anyone watch Revenge? I do. I love the show. Sunday’s episode was pretty wicked. So many different things going on and on so many different levels. It begs the question, is Revenge worth it?

They say, whoever they are, that the sweetest revenge is success. But the definition of revenge is: The action of inflicting hurt or harm for a wrong suffered at their hands. Not sure success then fits the bill for revenge.

I think we all want to seek out a little revenge on someone who hurt us in some way. It’s natural. Normal. Who has even gone through in their minds how to seek that revenge? Hell, I’m writer, so I get to take that all out on my characters, so obviously I’ve given it some thoughts. But revenge is a hard business. It takes up a lot of energy and it tends to pull you down, often destroying the person seeking revenge. In the case of Emily, in the show Revenge, it’s consumed her to the point she’s willing to let those she loves, or loved, suffer so she can seek her “justice”. Takes a pretty cold person to do that, if you ask me. Yet, her plight is so real, we want the revenge for her. We want to see the Greyson’s suffer. We want to see them fall because of all the horrible things they did to Emily’s (Amanda’s) father. But is there a better way? Could revenge come and exposure? No, that would be too simple, and it is TV (not reality). Under certain circumstances, I might go to extreme lengths to make sure someone paid for the wrong doing, but perhaps I’d do (in real life) within the confounds of the law. Then again, we are capable of things we think we are not capable of. Ah…a bit philosophical today, aren’t I?

Revenge comes at a price, we have to admit that. And I love what Aiden says to his Asian friend at the bar in this weeks episode. Something to the effect of that when Emily gets her revenge, she’ll see, as I saw, how empty that is. Of course, he then tells her to take the bastard down, so not sure what he’s thinking, except he’s got her back. That’s important. To have some really have your back. Revenge is not a trusting business, so it’s a risk, but someone has to have your back.

So, there is your brain tickle for this Tuesday. Do you have what it takes to be in the Revenge business?

Promposals, Steve Gleason, Kelsey Williams, Eagle Cam, Living Social, Sun Gum Gang, and other trending searches

As mentioned in my post from yesterday, the Internet has opened up a can of worms and that is: everyone is an expert. Okay, there are lots of real experts out there, some are authentic and some are self-procliamed experts who just decided because they spent the night at a Holiday Inn, they are now an expert. Or they read it on the Internet, so it much be true, they can’t put anything on the Internet that isn’t true…this is my date, he’s a French model.

I digress so quickly.

Everyone is looking for their fifteen minutes of fame, and in a weird way, it seems easier to get. Just do something crazy and put it on youtube. Well, it’s got to go viral, but maybe the Today Show will pick it up.

Ah, the never ending news programs. I used to love my news programs. I’d watch a bit of the Today Show. It was on from 7-9. Now I think it’s on freaking all morning, and with different hosts. It seems the news is on all day long. Is there really that much worthy news to report?

Well, I turned on the Today Show this morning (in hopes it might have something interesting) and the first thing I saw was Martha Stewart being interviewed by Matt Louer and whether or not she was dating. If I care. I tuned it out. The next thing, and I have to admit that it got my attention was Promposals. Wow. Now, thinking back to my days in high school and my prom dates. My first one I was a sophomore and was asked by a senior. He took me driving, he asked, I said yes. Pretty boring. The next time I was asked I was a junior. It took him forever to ask, though I new he was going to because, well, you know how teenage girls and boys are. He asked, I said yes. No one, and I mean no one, has ever preformed a booty dance for me to go the prom. Wow. And here it is just for fun. My son did paint ‘PROM’ on his T-Shirt when he asked someone to the prom. It was cute. They had fun. But I don’t think that goes in the book of promposals.

Then they had a person from Google, or maybe it was someone how just follows Google Searches, I forget, but he was talking about trending searches over the weekend. Basically, what were the most keyword or phrase searches we people were interested in.

Hence, the title of my blog post. That’s it. That’s what we were googling. Well, not me. I was googling procedure for evacuating a chopper when it was about to crash in the water. Actually, I want to know what someone should do if they landed in the water and then had to get out, but I think if I was in a chopper and it was going to crash in the water, I might jump. The water, well, it’s hard from high up, but not has hard as ground. Just saying.

I digress again.

But, and this is an odd question, but how my brain works. I wonder how many people follow trending Google searches and then base their blog post on those trends? Interesting, isn’t it? Wonder how many hits I’ll get by just using those words in my title?

Yes, this is the Glamorous Life.

Related articles

• How “Promposal” Works (promposal.wordpress.com)
• The 11 best promposals of 2013 (csmonitor.com)
• OMG, Prom! The 13 Cutest Promposals (mashable.com)
• Sunday’s Rant: Expert Land (jentaltyauthor.wordpress.com)

Sunday’s Rant: Expert Land

My Office

I spend my days sitting in front of a computer screen. Actually, two computer screens, a laptop and an iPad. My job (which I kind of hate calling it a job because I wake up every day excited to do it) requires me to spend a lot of time in front of a computer. My job is many things between designing websites, creating eBooks, covers, managing a publishing partnership, marketing, sales, and also writing. There is more to my job than all of that (yes, it’s exhausting, but it’s the glamorous life), but mostly I sit at a desk, in front of a computer, doing computerly things.

Here’s my rant. The Internet, which is a wonderful thing, has made everyone an expert. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of real experts out there. People in the trenches, doing exactly what they preaching about (or selling). However, I see all over Twitter, Facebook, Google + and other social media sites people tooting their horn saying, follow me, I’m an expert, I know all about XYZ. And I think, cool, and go check them out and they are, in a nut shell, regurgitating what they found in the Internet, or in a class, or wherever, yet they have not done the thing they claim to be an expert on. They are the authentic phonies. You know who they are. They have all the answers. They’ve solved all your problems. In every area! They know the super secret handshake and yet, when you go look up more information on this new wonderful expert, well, they fall short. Way short. I joke with computer programmers that I know just enough to be dangerous but not enough to really know anything. They laugh, because they know what I’m talking about. I can talk the lingo, I know the walk, but frankly, I’m a bit dated. Last time I wrote any programming code was in Assembly 370. Is that still a language? Pascal was fun. And of course, BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) was the first I learned. Here is an example of BASIC taken right from Wikipedia. What I love about this code is the word LOOP. I remember having a loop issue when I was writing something in BASIC back in the day, but I can’t remember really what, or why, and certainly wouldn’t know how to fix it today.

INPUT "What is your name: ", UserName$
PRINT "Hello "; UserName$
DO
  INPUT "How many stars do you want: ", NumStars
  Stars$ = STRING$(NumStars, "*")
  PRINT Stars$
  DO
    INPUT "Do you want more stars? ", Answer$
  LOOP UNTIL Answer$ <> ""
  Answer$ = LEFT$(Answer$, 1)
LOOP WHILE UCASE$(Answer$) = "Y"
PRINT "Goodbye "; UserName$

But I now have totally digressed…though I remember this damn loop as if it were yesterday, it wouldn’t close or something and the damn thing just didn’t work. Argh.

The Internet has gotten crowded with all these people living in expert land and frankly, it’s a bit annoying. I used to do a fair amount of blogging on writing. Not so much how to write, because, even though I’ve published a few novels, I’m no expert. I don’t think I’ve been doing it long enough, or have written enough to say I’m an expert, but I can share what has worked for me, or hasn’t. Big difference. I’m kind of tired of expert land. I just want the land where people are in the trenches, doing xyz and learning how to do it better, and also adjusting as things change in the trenches. Thing is, they are hard to find because they are so busy doing their thing instead of standing naked in a room yelling “follow me, I know it all! Look, over here. I’m the expert!”

Okay, so that was kind of a tame rant. I must be getting old.

Thursday’s Rant: Hockey Mom gets her Crazy On

Hop on the Crazy Train.

I”ve been a hockey mom for about 17 years. My middle boy got us started when he was 3 years old and just had to play hockey. He had ear infections and often woke in the middle of the night and joined us in bed. The only thing that calmed him down was watching hockey. We had big dreams of him being a star downhill skier, but he had other plans. We rolled with it.

So when my oldest, a girl, who I had put in dance when she was 3 years old (I was a dance teacher) came to us after years of being dragged to the hockey rink, hating hockey, and said, “I want to play hockey”. We rolled with it. She did both for  a while until she decided to play girls travel. Couldn’t do both. She had to choose. We rolled with it.

The baby boy, in all fairness, we enrolled him in hockey at age 4 because it was easy for us. We lived at the rink, why not. But we did give him a soccer ball. He tried. He hated it. We gave him a lacrosse stick, he played through 7th grade where he decided if he was going to play a sport other than hockey, it would be golf. The baby boy has never questioned playing hockey. He’d like to play college hockey. He eats, breaths, sleeps hockey. If he wanted to quit, no worries. He can. I believe he knows this. No pressure from us. But he loves the game and it shows. And he and his team just had the season of a lifetime. They made it all the way to the state championship game. They lost, but in our minds, all these boys are winners.

Those who know me know that I often have strong opinions about certain things and have no problem expressing them. I grew up in a competitive family. My siblings and I had a lot of fun trying to out wit and out sport each other. We all found our strengths. In HS my sister was a great softball and volleyball player. I tried them I sucked. My brother was a great downhill skier. Me, well, the coach called me Crash Gordon. I shined on the stage. I danced. I was also an excellent swimmer (though never swam for my high school). I was however the first person to swim five miles at camp. Huge accomplishment as I was in a race with a BOY! My whole goal was to show girls could do anything boys could do better…and we look better doing it! To this day, I still believe he let me win. What a gentleman. But hey, I did do it.

As my own little family grew, it was quite clear we had some great competitors. It all started with my daughter who all of a sudden at age 2 had a little brother that got more attention than her. LOL, happens in every family. Where I chose to find sports I was better at than my siblings, my family ended up with one sport…HOCKEY. They are all true fans of the sport. And, let’s be real, they LOVE to win. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

So, where is this hockey mom getting her crazy on? Well, out of respect for privacy to those involved, I can only say that I recently read an on-line blog from someone associated with the son’s school and with a sports concept that takes the “fun” part to the extreme, basically attacked a child…calling him a train wreck coming. I am APPALLED. I would be appalled even if I didn’t know this young man. Adults should NOT attack a child on the internet. It’s just wrong!

The blogger talks about one child on a TEAM and his celebrations and his penalties and how they were wrong… a train wreck coming. If a child can’t celebrate his/her accomplishments what is the point? He scored a goal. He celebrated. With his team. Who hugged him. The crowed cheered. It happens when EVERY kid scores.  This team went to the State Championship game. As a team, we celebrated. What is wrong with that?  The championship game did not go our way. Oh well. But where is your outcry for the young men on the other team. Aren’t they a train wreck coming team. I mean. The other team CELEBRATED THEIR GOALS BY FIST PUMPING, POINTING TO THEIR FANS, HUGGING EACH OTHER, THEIR FANS WENT WILD!  And believe you mean, these young men celebrated, throwing their helmets and sticks in the air when the buzzer blew. Um, hello, they won. And frankly, they deserved to have a reaction to that. They won! We lost. We got over it. We stayed on the ice, shook their hands and applauded the other team. These boys are a family and they gained so much more than just going to the championship game. They have a bond that can never be broken. Kind of what it’s all about, blogger. As far as the penalty is concerned? Perhaps not a shining moment, but your comments are false, get your facts straight. So much of what you say in this article is not true about this child. You are no better than a bully. You want to talk about what is wrong with youth sports? You want to talk about how to make programs better? Great, but don’t bully a child. You, Mr. Blogger, are not helping, but you yourself are a train wreck coming…..

Deadly Secrets, Writer’s Mojo, and Karma

The last three years of my life have been dedicated to creating and making Cool Gus Publishing a huge success. The next 3 years of my life will be much more of the same as we take on new authors, new projects and move forward with our most brilliant, latest, up-to-date plan (which changes quickly).

Things have been crazy with Cool Gus. We went up to the Kobo Offices most recently and sat down with the entire merchandising team to discuss plans 2013. It was a great trip. This past year we also attended many conferences and conventions and got to meet with some pretty smart people in the industry. We learned a lot, shared what we have been doing, and what we plan on doing, and we keep moving forward.

Personally, I’ve decided to finish book III in the NY State Trooper Series. Dark Water (book II) hit number 10 on the Barnes and Noble bestseller list. This was a fantastic journey for me and I was so excited that I just had to take a picture of the book’s climb to the top 10! Since then I’ve updated the covers to do a little branding for myself. A great thing about indie publishing is that as things grow and change, so can you and your books. The process is totally organic.

Here is the cover I did for book III titled: Deadly Secrets. This books picks up about 6 months or so after the end of Dark Water and it takes us through a maze of deception and secrets that run so deep that some may not be able to forgive all the lies. It is the story of Reece McGinn, who we meet for the first time in Dark Water, and the web of lies of his past. Will Patty Harmon be able to live with who Reece really is?

Its a story of necessary lies in order to survive, but ultimately the truth will set you free…

It’s very hard for me to balance my home life with that of running a business with Bob Mayer and my own writing. There are many challenges I face, mostly with time. Prioritizing is easy for me. Family, Cool Gus, then writing. And I can find the time to do it all, the problem really is what I call the Writer’s Mojo. I tease Bob that he has made me a detail oriented person and my brain now only functions in machine language… but it has become increasingly difficult for me to shift from work brain mode, to writing brain mode. I’m going to be trying different strategies to overcome this, but most importantly, my goal is to write a few words every day.

I put Karma in this blog post to remind me to be positive and stick with the positive. There are so many people out there (guru’s that is) who are saying do this, or do that, or my way is the right way, or indie sucks, or traditional sucks, or whatever that it is very easy to get caught up putting in my two cents. My focus is on delivering my own quality product to my readers and to my company and its authors making sure I do the best I can for them. Everyone has an opinion. My only advice is to check out their street creds.

Now, on to my writing and here is a short excerpt of what I wrote today:

You can hide, and hide well, but like in the game of lost and found, there are only so many places to hide and eventually you will be found. And, mark my words, I will find you. And I will kill you.

Those were the last words Reece McGinn heard his father utter. The words had been spoken to his mother via the telephone, who had no idea little Reece was listening on the extension in the family room. Three days later, Reece’s father held true to his promise. That was over twenty years ago. Now, in his trembling hands, he held the local newspaper and on he front page was a picture of his father. The headline read: Controversial Business Tycoon, Tony Augusta, buys prime real-estate in the village of Lake George. His heart pound erratically against his ribcage as he scanned the rest of the article. There was no way his father could have known Reece was here, could he? No. The child his father once knew as Anthony James August, III was dead.

It had to be a coincidence.

He folded the paper and put it face down on the table. His father had aged. His once black hair was now more of a silver color. His black eyes were still as dark as could be, but deep wrinkles and heavy dark circles under his eyes told a story of a man who lived a hard and dangerous life. Reece placed his hand on the newspaper, tempted to pick it up and get a better look at the old man, but instead, he fixated his gaze on the beautiful view in front of him.