Changes

Things just seem to be blowing up for me. My mom is in the early stages of pneumonia, my son needs surgery to insert ear tubes, I need to complete a video for my teaching certificate, I am in massive debt and shit just blew up for me in my job so I am looking for a new one.

Can’t a guy catch a break?

I did tonight. I went upstairs to check the temperature in my kids’ rooms and to shut windows as needed. My daughter was in her bed, hugging the ubiquitous pink bunny named Bunny, sleeping like an angel. I shut her window and kissed her forehead. As I did, I was overcome with emotion. She is a pistol, averaging four goals a game in soccer, kicking butt in karate and giving her pre-k teachers a run for their money by throwing some monumental temper tantrums, but to see her asleep is to see the face of God!

Next was my son’s room. He was in his new big boy bed, butt up in the air and breathing contentedly. He has had seven or eight ear infections since September and his speech ain’t right because of it, but he is a peach, one of the sweetest little boys you will ever find. I took him to the Pediatrician today and to the ENT tonight and he made many new friends. He has such a sweet disposition that he collects adults like I collect bad habits.

I just pray that my transgressions aren’t visited upon my kids, although in several ways that has already happened. I always thought that being a parent would make me a better person, but it doesn’t; it just makes you more compliant, which sometimes means compromising your morals and values. You become more compliant so that you can provide for your kids. I know from doing the opposite; I wasn’t compliant, I spoke my opinion and held strong to my beliefs and now I am out of a job. C’est la vie.

Don’t get me wrong, I made mistakes. However, my transgressions did not warrant the treatment I received. Luckily, as a teacher, I am employed through June and paid through August, so I have a few months to make a soft landing. I feel more blessed than persecuted and eventually, this was the right move for me – I just wish I had a little more control over the situation. The moral is, if you work with snakes, know you will get bitten and have a plan. My plan wasn’t in place before I reached into the snake pit and now I am scrambling.

So Pilgrims, keep writing, be true to what you believe, but always be prepared because luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

Peace!

Spike

A Slice of Life

Well, I am thrilled that my second book is now out and available from Red Rose Publishing, www.RedRosePublishing.com. It should soon be available from all of the usual suspects, FictionWise, MobiPocket, Amazon, Crescent and Diesel. I just wish I had time to publicize and market it! I am so busy with the day job, the kids, the second job, that I just cannot find the time to promote it. So, do me a favor and help me out – tell your friends about it.

Hopefully it will get reviewed in the next six months, which is how long it took for “Pickup Lines From a Pickup Truck” to get reviewed, but hey, I am not on the top of the food chain...but if I was...well, I will leave that for another post.

For now, just know that I am inordinately busy with the daily detritus of demeaning demands of employment, parenting and paying the bills.

Spike

Ambiguity

It is a concept that defines and clarifies without being specific. One of my interests is New Criticism which is a critical analysis of literature based on its organic unity as demonstrated by the use of ambiguity and the intentional fallacy. It is interesting that Romanticism is also concerned with ambiguity, primarily the moral ambiguity of man and a focus on the beauty of nature as opposed to the imposed beauty of neo-classicism.

I guess beauty is where you find it. Beauty can be the perfectly constructed sentence and, it can be the appreciation of a perfectly formed Rose. These concepts have been exhaustively explored by philosophers much smarter than I and so I won’t be so presumptuous to attempt a philosophical enquiry, but I will give my take.

Beauty is selling a book, novel or short. Beauty is going through the process; submitting, editing and cover art. Beauty is seeing the process coalesce into a product for sale. For me, beauty is seeing my book for sale.

Don’t confuse my enamoration with seeing my book for sale with the joy and pleasure I get from seeing my child score a goal or seeing my child smile and laugh. It’s a narrow application of the concept of the sublime. My book for sale at www.RedRosePublishing.com is sublime. Watching my child smile or laugh is sublime.

Webster’s describes sublime as “supreme or outstanding.” I think all of the above qualifies, as does having you read my blog. Therefore, since I have a second book being published, I have kids scoring goals and you are reading my blog, I am living the sublime life.

Peace.

Reflections of a Green Monday

St. Paddy’s day has always fascinated me. I have memories of quaffing pints of green beer and gluttonous consumption of corned beef and cabbage. My heritage is Saxon, but on St. Paddy’s, everyone is Irish. I worked on Monday so I wasn’t able to engage in the festivities. My brother in law goes into the city every year for the parade and I am jealous. I have only lived in New York for a few years and I have yet to make the pilgrimage for drunken debauchery – my bad.

I have had a bit of an epiphany of late. I don’t want to jinx it by speaking about it yet, but I am more motivated, more inspired, more energetic and more committed than I have been in years. I feel as if a dark cloud has been lifted and the jovial visage of jocund day is smiling at me. The timing is fortuitous – I have a new book coming out soon, March 27th to be exact – and things at work are reaching critical mass requiring an inordinate amount of my time and energy. C’est la vie.

Not much else is going on right now.

Peace!

Spike

Writer’s Remorse

The new book will be released on the 27th. It’s called “A Slice of Life.” It’s a tightly written mystery, about 36 pages, in the vein of Mike Shane mystery mags.

I like this book very much. I think it is tight. I liked my editor and I think we did a good job. I penciled a drawing for the cover and Shirley Burnett brought it to life, made it sing!

So, if you liked “Pickup Lines From A Pickup Truck,” or you like my blog, you should buy “A Slice of Life.”

It’s available at www.RedRosePublishing.com in pdf and msn reader, will be available soon at Crescent, MobiPocket, Amazon in Kindle, Diesel, etc…

I am working on the next but am a little hamstrung. It will happen.

Spike

One for My Homey

My brother Jon had a birthday on Saturday. Unfortunately he wasn’t here to enjoy it. He checked out on me in 2001 at the ripe old age of 39.

Murph, I miss you terribly!

Spike

Internet Approbation

Finally someone has recognized my brilliance publicly (Cara Preston too). A romance website reviewed “Pickup Lines From a Pickup Truck” written by Cara Preston and me. The reviewer gave it four hearts. I am told that it is a reputable site and four hearts is indeed an accomplishment. She wrote, “This reviewer would definitely recommend this for a very quick yet satisfying read with humor, wit and romance!”

I’m thrilled. The review can be found at http://www.loveromancesandmore.com/reviews/0208/pickuplines_mandie.htm

In other news, a cover is forthcoming for “A Slice of Life,” my second release with Red Rose Publishing. I’ve spoken to the cover artist with a few ideas and she is working on it now. Hopefully I’ll have something back in a week or so and then it will get in the queue to be published.

All for now.

Spike