Blog 78 posting

Progress has been made; however slight, it has been encouraging. A draft Glossary now exists for Sooley Base.

The struggle continues to merge the disconnected bits and pieces of thought, storyline, characterization, and action – into a somewhat more coherent, credible tale. As I work through the process nuances emerge, characters become more real, and bits and pieces of random acts of action move hither and yon. Hopefully it will all work out by the end of the year. That is when I hope Sooley Base will hit the streets. The same approach as used in marketing Golden Gate will be used, the prix fixe of www.bookbaby.com. I have not as yet had the courage to check on sales, but here is the data describing Golden Gate –

Golden Gate, by DP Tolan

Tagline - He woke frantically - Why were Arabia's worst terrorists working at a gold mine, and were America 's nuclear wastes really buried beneath its sands?

Product Details

·                                 ISBN-13: 9781618427670

·                                 Publisher: BookBaby

·                                 Publication date: 12/1/2011

·                                 Sold by: Barnes & Noble

·                                 Format: eBook

·                                 Pages: 190

·                                 Sales rank: 944,278

·                                 File size: 788 KB

·                                 Items ship to U.S, APO/FPO and U.S. Protectorate addresses.

Available now at Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com as an e-book.

Blog 77 posting

It turns out I won’t get to today’s writers group meeting. We’re heading to see Offspring at college (he needs a few more books).

I discovered a major OOPS in the second novel; it is a two year chronological omission that I need to work around. Fortunately there are ideas that fit perfectly into the breech. Still working on the sequence, characters involved and actually reworking the various segments into the rough chapters. Who knew writing could be such drudgery. Ah well, there’s always the thoughts of royalties.

Sooley Base word count hovers around 53,000, a comfortable value at this point. Pone needs to recognize that this includes a certain degree of duplication in the segments, before they’re pulled together and rewritten (several times).

Another tidbit from Golden Gate, the first novel of the Tessera Trilogy –available now as an e-book from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. The setting is Vietnam’s Mekong Delta.

As he walked to his barracks he heard it. The sounds grew louder as he approached the hooch.  That’s the Animals – We gotta get outa this place. That fits! He’d share this place with a dozen other JO’s and would come to treasure its infrequent tranquility. The most memorable feature of the hooch was its artwork, which he saw on entering. Its most endearing piece proclaimed it all!

The poster was of a truly menacing soldier. He was weathered, covered with camouflage markings and twigs, elephant grass, mud, sweat, and every conceivable weapon. He had a butt hanging, almost falling, out of his mouth, and looked like hellfire to come. It read in bold, intimidating letters - “Yea though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil – For I am the toughest Mutha in the Valley.”

Blog entry 76

Well it’s time for an update.

I have no further Orthopedic or physical therapy requirements, and can drive. That increases my mobility, so I’ll be back at the Central Rappahannock Regional Library volunteer job next week.

I’ve developed and am still revising a Characters Book for the Tessera Trilogy novels. It has pages identifying the essential bits of information on the characters of Golden Gate, Sooley Base, and Kashan Kashmeeri, the three novels of the trilogy.  The characters are tough to identify, name, and describe in a credible way. The characters, lets say from the Mossad, Israeli Defense Forces, Military units of the Saudi Ministry of Defense and Aviation, Central Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, National Security Agency, several news organizations, and sundry others, have to be named credibly (or humorously), and fit within the settings and action of the respective novels. This continues to be a daunting task. They then have to be credibly incorporated in the segments of interacting scenes. The characters have to be put in the correct sequence, and have credible bits of intelligence, action plans or responses, and be well sequenced. Then, of course, I have to rewrite and resubmit them for scrutiny and correction by my colleagues of the writers group.

I need to be ready with the first segment of Sooley Base to read and have critiqued at next Saturday’s Writers Group meeting.

The beat goes on. Work is progressing, and I hope to edit, annotate and put a segment of film on You Tube to bring some attention to the trilogy and Golden Gate, which is on sale via Amazon.com and the Barnes and Noble website. Rock on!!!

Blog 75 posting

Another “Hints for the Holidays” follows. These will sequence through the entire novel, not telling the entire story, but providing glimpses from Golden Gate that will tantalize.

First LT Moshe Ben Badoo was wingman in this section of Israeli aircraft, flying in trail of Captain David by about a half mile, and lined up on Liberty’s starboard beam. Both were on the deck at just a hundred feet, in their second run. It was scary flying at this altitude, something he’d never done over water. His French-built Mirage fighter/bomber was well suited to this attack. Adrenaline took care of any fear Moshe felt as he lined up on the ship’s starboard midsection again ... and closed his trigger. His 30mm cannons opened up, tracers arching to the ship in his cross hairs.

Quickly his eyes glanced up to those gauges. He gasped as he saw them. Numerous cockpit gauges turned red - warnings of imminent failure. He radioed Captain David, “I’m hit and am punching out. Get the PT boats to pick me up.”

He jerked up straight and activated the ejection switch. His body blasted through the protective canopy cover. He soon hung from his parachute and watched the attack continue on Liberty. At least I get to see our attack. What he saw from his life raft caused him to choke, PT boats making strafing runs, jets continuing their attack, small explosions from cannon rounds, and smoke enveloping the ship. Above Liberty he saw … a large American flag. How can this be?

Your comments are welcome. Thanks

Blog 74 posting

Distractions, that’s what accounts for my lack of discernible literary output. It’s not a writers’ block, but distractions.

For two months I spent much of each day laying on the couch, my feet raised to reduce the swelling of my right ankle. I hobbled around on crutches. Now I’m getting back to life. The crutches have been returned to our neighbor. Thanks “Momma.”

I got to last Saturday’s Writers Group meeting, even got mild supportive comments when I mentioned Golden Gate was available online as an e-book. The group roasted one of its elder members, a poet of state, regional award status.

I can drive again and my physical therapist says if I stay dedicated to the routines he provided I shouldn’t have to return. My ankle feels better. Surprisingly one of the sets I’m supposed to do is the Standard Field sobriety test … putting one foot in front of the other and walking five paces without the appearance of being uncoordinated. I failed my first several attempts. Strange to think that a broken ankle or heel could do this … but!!!

Am now working to repair a ceiling hole created to fix my shower drain problem. My shower drain leaked, but the leak is now “fissed.” Soon the patch will be re-installed and life will be good.

Word count on Sooley Base now stands at around 37,000 as I merge, reorganize, and rewrite small segments of the novel. I keep plugging away at it, so a deadline of the Fall seems attainable. Wish me luck!

Blog 73 posting

Liberty, besides being his ships’ name, was Navy parlance for temporary time off in port to blow off steam. Don’t I need to do that occasionally? What is an Irishman to do, sit onboard and play poker?

The recon aircraft circled the ship several times just below the clouds, which extended all the way to the shore of Israel. This diversion, all that changed the dull routine of steaming to this part of the Med, was the most exciting part of Tooley’s otherwise boring watch. Today was a hot Mediterranean day underway off Israel, but he sensed a difference in the expressions of fellow bridge watch standers. They were far more apprehensive than during those days of steaming. 

Blog entry 72

Well, it’s been awhile since I discussed progress on Sooley Base, the second novel of the Tessera Trilogy.  I’ve been converting my many scribbled notes, with new character names, scenes, dialogue ideas, and action into several Word documents. Have also taken a separate set of notes and imposed a tentative sequence of action, so the notes will be in rough order of appearance in the novel. Now I need to merge these two sets, and insert them into the very rough chapterization I came up with months ago. This should, over a week or two, give me a rough draft to work with. I’ve no idea of word count at this time, but anticipate the full novel will max out at about 100 to 125,000 words.  Wish me luck, and a minimum of distractions.