New website

Same old url but building a new site. http://www.Dougball.com. it’s a mess. The old site was beyond repair. As I talked with a cohort of mine about the site it kinda literally blew up. So, I wiped it and working on a new one.

Do it yourself web sites is an oxymoron. Particularly when you’re 76.

Still working on a cover for the WWJD book. Have a great one except for one feature that is kinda the focal point. Working in it.

Book 22, not 21 as stated above, is coming together quite well. The good guy is on trouble and no help in sight. Right where I want him at the 25% mark. N

Hi oh sliver.

I’m off to the trail tomorrow and wont be back til Friday. Yipee !!!!

Go write.

WS

Artsy fartsy stuff

Got a young lady that is an artist of the first water and she is working on the cover pics for my latest book. Roughs are great.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I’m working on book 21. Another western that is challenging me for something different without going the cowboy and aliens route. Anybody got any ideas? There’s always Kenny’s space cowboys. Dumb. Cows need grass.

Wife has been fighting arthritis and a sinus infection. Guess who the nurse is?

I went on line to work on my website DOUGBALL.com only to find it is locked for some reason. Something about taxes. So, sometime in the near future I will need to spend a week on line and phone to get it straightened out. Then I need to get it up to date. My tech guy left me for a paying job. Not just a better paying job, but a paying job. I told him I would pay if that’s what it took, and he said, “Bye.”

I need a techie that can take on the load. Maybe after August, I’ll get a handle on the whole tech and sales sides of the self pub regimen.

Writing is fun.

Publishing is easy.

Web is beyond me.

Sales is for specialists.

So so.

Write.

WS.

Spelling

Not my best subject, but a worthy one.

Yesterday the new church facility was insulted. One on of the ladies texted my wife and ‘has the church been properly insulted today’. Not knowing how that could happen she responded ‘what? By whom?’ She went round and round for a few dozen texts and then called her.

“Who would insult the building?”

“The company we paid to do it.”

“We did not pay anyone to insult the building.”

“Not insult, insulate.”

“Duh!”

Go rite

WS

Sitting

Can’t get in for 20 minutes, so all I can do is sit here watching the cars go by. Prisons kinda work that way. A other Tuesday in prison serving time for my errors. Actually, I’m going to do another session with men who got caught and are truly repentant. A Bible study in the book of Peter at this time.

While I sit I’m actually working. The plot line of my new work in progress needs a bit of tweaking and with no excitement out side of my head, that I can do here with no interruptions.

What do you do during dead time in your schedule?

Go write.

WS

Of Spades and Shovels.

I pray you are all well and warm this day. I am warm, the well part is somewhat nebulous. Be blessed.

Today I begin a new book. The WWJD book is done except for the cover. I have it my head. Now comes the manual labor of digging it out and making it real. The final title, as of now, THE WALK. Catchy? I guess you had to be there.

My new book is hiding under the covers of THE WALK. It is a pointy toed boots, stomping the cow manure, bang bang shoot’em up, western. The plot is a misty picture and the words are hiding in the manure pile to shovel out.

I am a pantser. I grovel in the dirt on hands and knees, searching for just the right opening sentence. Bingo, a grabber that will make potential readers salivate. I wish. Actually, I have about 9 pages written from before NANOWRIMO last November. It got buried under the manure pile to be shoveled aside, until WALK was finished.

Now it’s time to dig it out and grab the thoughts as my brain releases them. The dust is gagging me.

Sometimes I think that if I sold my books on a monthly basis, one chapter a month, I could make my motivation to dig higher and make more time for writing. How about 10 USD a year and delivered to you reading device. Think it would work? If 20 people bought in I’d make half what I’m making now. IOUs accepted. What do you think about that idea? I know some folks do it, but I haven’t seen anything on it in a long time.

Snarl pretty.

Go writing.

WS

On the contrary

I love to write. NO doubt about it.

Do I love everything about being a writer. No.

I love writing, rereading, finding just the right title that points to plot and genre, publishing, and selling. I hate editing, rewriting, marketing, reading reviews, inserting corrections, and additions. I truly abhor middles. The center 40% is always where the doubts hit and the thoughts of suck burn into my brain.

Probably the absolute worst are the rejections, the failure to grasp the meanings by readers, and the people who pick a book off the table with no intent of buying in their eyes. They look at the back cover, usually upside down. Then they thumb slide the pages like they expect a cartoon, before they lay the book down with disdain written all over their contours. I wanna smack them with a knuckle sandwich.

I have gone so far as to pick up the book and wipe it off with my clean handkerchief before laying it back on the table. I stare at them when I do it.

I asked a lady one time what she was looking for by bending the cover and thumbing through the book so fast. I got a shoulder shrug.

I guess ya gotta love it to keep from killing someone.

Go write right now.

WS

On Dogs

There’s big dogs and little dogs, tall dogs and small, skinny and fat. I love them all. So much for dogs.

Dumb huh?

Just lined up my fifth retirement. To bad the don’t all send a check. I will be working in only one church and writing pretty close to full time. It will take me a week to find all the passwords and get my website up graded and up to date. Then my listings in various places need work. Two books need a 2nd edition. Three books are hanging in the void of my mind. A short story collection is bubbling over on the keyboard. Other than that I still have 39 miles to finish the Arizona trail after 14 years of effort.

The idea of going full time has not before been a serious discussion on my mind. I will never be able to sit for more than an hour at the computer due to the circulation in my legs and my ADD. But, when I sit I’m writing. I think on my feet.

Go write, edit, write, repeat.

WS

40 miles

Just hiked 40 miles over some of the roughest terrain in Arizona. Sunburnt and tired. The ups and downs help wear out both groups of muscles. 40 more miles and the Arizona trail is done after 13 years if chipping away at it. Two major surgeries and working at least to places most of the time.

The gooder news is I have a great plot arc for my next book. Its amazing what you can do with the brain as your feet move.

Editor finished with my current book based on WWJD while I was out walking.

Nap time. Soaking feet first

Write.

WS