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Friday, May 29, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Gilles Duperon: Karl's Last Flight
DOB: 1976
Place of birth: Southern France
Physical Characteristics
Height: 6’2”
Weight: 215 lbs
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Skin: Caucasian
Other:
Tall, thin. Dark personality and brooding expression, he looks like a movie vampire in the right lighting.
Education:
Little is known of his past except for a few bits he told Liam and Kharzai. His parents are dead. He went to public school in France until he joined the military at the age of seventeen. He prefer Cognac over wine and likes attractive yet timid women.
Military Service:
Legion Etranger, Le Regiment Deuxieme Parachutiste (French Foreign Legion, 2nd Parachute Regiment) 1993-2003.
Professional Career:
Gilles served in the Legion for ten years and attained the rank of Sergeant Chef (Chief Sergeant). He is known to have seen action in Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Cote D’Ivoire. He left the Legion and signed on with a mercenary firm based in South Africa but quite midway into his first assignment due to an argument over the treatment of a prisoner. He wanted to kill the man, but his boss would not let him. He became a free lancer and was introduced to Kharzai through a third party contact.
Other Characteristics:
Gilles has a naturally intimidating personality. He is quiet and tends to stand in the shadows. He is also a ruthless killer. Kharzai and Liam have a contest between them to be the first one to see him smile. In six months neither has seen it happen.
Current:
He has been hired as an extra gun by Kharzai and Liam in Iran.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Accupuncture & Yucky Tea
For the past several months I have been feeling...well...like a slug.
Until about mid-summer of last year I worked out a lot. I had a full time day job, a part time job as a youth minister of my church, and spent about two hours every day in the gym on top of that. I also had the energy to write and podcast three novels and a set of short stories during that period. I seldom slept more than six hours and was always doing something. I have run that hard since I was a teen and never felt a need for a break.
Then all of a sudden I got tired. I mean really tired. Tired like I have never been before. Not only was 4-6 hours of sleep not enough, no matter how much I got I could not get rested. My work suffered, my writing faltered. I transferred my ministry job to a younger leader, thinking that maybe it was just that I'm over forty now and need to quite hanging out with teens and college kids. ...no change.
I got so tired that I fell down a mountain and got badly hurt while skiing. That made it worse.
Now, six months after shoulder surgery I am still not fully recovered and still just plain exhausted.
Until last weekend. I figured something else must be wrong so I went to a local accupunture and herbal medicine doctor here in Anchorage. Dude!
Why didn't I do that a year ago?!?!?!?!
After just one accupunture treatment I felt markedly better. After the second I started to feel more like myself. And he gave me these bags of herbal tea to help cleanse my body and "equalize the energy levels in my system". This tea is not the kind you buy at the store. It ain't no raspberry & chamomile concoction. This stuff tastes like sucking dirt through a snail's butt.
But it works! Man do I feel good!
Look out world! I'm BAAACK! Sphere: Related Content
Until about mid-summer of last year I worked out a lot. I had a full time day job, a part time job as a youth minister of my church, and spent about two hours every day in the gym on top of that. I also had the energy to write and podcast three novels and a set of short stories during that period. I seldom slept more than six hours and was always doing something. I have run that hard since I was a teen and never felt a need for a break.
Then all of a sudden I got tired. I mean really tired. Tired like I have never been before. Not only was 4-6 hours of sleep not enough, no matter how much I got I could not get rested. My work suffered, my writing faltered. I transferred my ministry job to a younger leader, thinking that maybe it was just that I'm over forty now and need to quite hanging out with teens and college kids. ...no change.
I got so tired that I fell down a mountain and got badly hurt while skiing. That made it worse.
Now, six months after shoulder surgery I am still not fully recovered and still just plain exhausted.
Until last weekend. I figured something else must be wrong so I went to a local accupunture and herbal medicine doctor here in Anchorage. Dude!
Why didn't I do that a year ago?!?!?!?!
After just one accupunture treatment I felt markedly better. After the second I started to feel more like myself. And he gave me these bags of herbal tea to help cleanse my body and "equalize the energy levels in my system". This tea is not the kind you buy at the store. It ain't no raspberry & chamomile concoction. This stuff tastes like sucking dirt through a snail's butt.
But it works! Man do I feel good!
Look out world! I'm BAAACK! Sphere: Related Content
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Making a Best Seller
In terms of reaching the top it seems that there are two ways to me.
1. Write an outstanding book, both storywise and readabilitywise.
or
2. Have an adequate story/readability index, but a topic that everyone is hungry for.
Both of these are also contingent on finding the right agent/editor/publisher combo as well, which is pure luck it seems.
Things that don't work:
1. Using a time machine. It freaked out the agent when my cousin Leonard showed up in the past to tell him to buy my book and therefore changed history against my favour. I should have told Leonard to take off the crash helmet before speaking to people. (the agent later wrote a book about being visited by future people, it became "Back to the Future" and I got nothing because I was only sixteen then).
2. Lacing the pages with psychedelic drugs...that was just bad in all ways. Agents can't really fly. Sphere: Related Content
1. Write an outstanding book, both storywise and readabilitywise.
or
2. Have an adequate story/readability index, but a topic that everyone is hungry for.
Both of these are also contingent on finding the right agent/editor/publisher combo as well, which is pure luck it seems.
Things that don't work:
1. Using a time machine. It freaked out the agent when my cousin Leonard showed up in the past to tell him to buy my book and therefore changed history against my favour. I should have told Leonard to take off the crash helmet before speaking to people. (the agent later wrote a book about being visited by future people, it became "Back to the Future" and I got nothing because I was only sixteen then).
2. Lacing the pages with psychedelic drugs...that was just bad in all ways. Agents can't really fly. Sphere: Related Content
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Keeping Up With The Future of Publishing
A question has been bugging me as I am heading towards publication in the near future myself. How in the world does an author jump into this publishing business, become a best seller, then stay on top for the rest of their life? I fully intend, hope, expect, what ever you want to call it, to be the next Tom Clancy, Frederick Forsythe guy. At least that's what I am aiming for. And as the saying goes:
"It is better to aim for greatness and almost achieve it, than to aim for mediocrity and make it dead on."
Actually I just made up that wording, but I read something like it somewhere.
Basically, I want to make sure I stay in the game once I get on board. But how in the world did the world know to buy and read and buy again those great Military Fiction dudes like Clancy, Forsythe, Griffin, Higgins, et al and keep buying them for years and decades and into the next century. I want to know what the trend is going to be for the future so that I can learn and write in that direction. I do, afterall, have three boys to put through college. The oldest (starting college this fall) plans to be a great business man / musician, the second (class of 2016) an award winning biologist, and the other (class of 2019) a world famous doctor who cures diabetes. I teach them to aim high too.
To reach that goal, I have to make some serious dinero. Which means I have to write and sell some super terrific, spine tingling, brain jolting, keep you up until you've read the whole thing in one sitting, books. And once written get them sold.
As I write this my surprisingly wonderful and hard working agent is busting her tail cross country to achieve that last bit. I can almost taste it. I thought I smelled it earlier, but that was meatloaf & rice with colby-jack and powdered jalapeno sprinkled over it...almost as good, but can't pay my kids college tuition.
Once sold though, I need staying power. The ability to recreate success over and over ad infinitum. In addition to that, I need to be able to guess the next trend in what people want to read and jump on it. Which means I may not always write military/terrorist/espionage thrillers. As it is I have three historical fiction works synoptisized and waiting for the chance to jump on the page. Ken Follet, one of my favourite authors, has manageed to make quite an amazing career writing books that follow no sequence, or series. I hope to do the same as much as inspiration allows. But how to figure out those trends. Hmmmm....
After much long thought and contemplation I decided to work on my time machine a bit over the weekend. It needed some fine tuning. The Fifi experiment was tragic, and quite messy (on the bright side, the dog food bills are not a concern anymore). I think I got it right this time.
Not wanting to risk turning myself inside out or getting my body parts miscellanously reattached, I gave my cousin Leonard ten bucks and a promise of a six pack on his return. Wearing a 60's style blue motorbike helmet with a digital video camera attached he pulled down his clear plastic chemistry lab goggles and I flung him into the vortex to find out what books will be popular over the next fifteen years.
The time machine door opened, and Leonard looked up.
Some huge muscular guy dressed in a full body blue leotard turned around and stared at him.
Leonard stuttered a bit then finally blurted out, "Basil wants to know what kind of books do you guys like in the year 2019?"
To which the guy replied in a thick German accent, "GAAAAAAA!"
Then he punched Leonard in the face and ran away.
A bunch of people in red leotards came chasing after the blue guy. Leonard didn't want to get hit again. He scuttled backwards, tripped over the pilot's seat. His hand smacked the "go" button. The door shut and seconds later he was back in my garage. He stumbled out of the machine, wiping blood from his nose and looked at me with a wild eyed stare then went straight for the six pack.
So the trip did not answer my question in any significant way. Apparently, though, books based on 'Running Man' will not be too popular. So...I guess I'll need to rewrite that manuscript.
As a side note, Leonard downed the whole six pack in one go, without even removing his helmet. I think Leonard may be an alcoholic. Sphere: Related Content
"It is better to aim for greatness and almost achieve it, than to aim for mediocrity and make it dead on."
Actually I just made up that wording, but I read something like it somewhere.
Basically, I want to make sure I stay in the game once I get on board. But how in the world did the world know to buy and read and buy again those great Military Fiction dudes like Clancy, Forsythe, Griffin, Higgins, et al and keep buying them for years and decades and into the next century. I want to know what the trend is going to be for the future so that I can learn and write in that direction. I do, afterall, have three boys to put through college. The oldest (starting college this fall) plans to be a great business man / musician, the second (class of 2016) an award winning biologist, and the other (class of 2019) a world famous doctor who cures diabetes. I teach them to aim high too.
To reach that goal, I have to make some serious dinero. Which means I have to write and sell some super terrific, spine tingling, brain jolting, keep you up until you've read the whole thing in one sitting, books. And once written get them sold.
As I write this my surprisingly wonderful and hard working agent is busting her tail cross country to achieve that last bit. I can almost taste it. I thought I smelled it earlier, but that was meatloaf & rice with colby-jack and powdered jalapeno sprinkled over it...almost as good, but can't pay my kids college tuition.
Once sold though, I need staying power. The ability to recreate success over and over ad infinitum. In addition to that, I need to be able to guess the next trend in what people want to read and jump on it. Which means I may not always write military/terrorist/espionage thrillers. As it is I have three historical fiction works synoptisized and waiting for the chance to jump on the page. Ken Follet, one of my favourite authors, has manageed to make quite an amazing career writing books that follow no sequence, or series. I hope to do the same as much as inspiration allows. But how to figure out those trends. Hmmmm....
After much long thought and contemplation I decided to work on my time machine a bit over the weekend. It needed some fine tuning. The Fifi experiment was tragic, and quite messy (on the bright side, the dog food bills are not a concern anymore). I think I got it right this time.
Not wanting to risk turning myself inside out or getting my body parts miscellanously reattached, I gave my cousin Leonard ten bucks and a promise of a six pack on his return. Wearing a 60's style blue motorbike helmet with a digital video camera attached he pulled down his clear plastic chemistry lab goggles and I flung him into the vortex to find out what books will be popular over the next fifteen years.
The time machine door opened, and Leonard looked up.
Some huge muscular guy dressed in a full body blue leotard turned around and stared at him.
Leonard stuttered a bit then finally blurted out, "Basil wants to know what kind of books do you guys like in the year 2019?"
To which the guy replied in a thick German accent, "GAAAAAAA!"
Then he punched Leonard in the face and ran away.
A bunch of people in red leotards came chasing after the blue guy. Leonard didn't want to get hit again. He scuttled backwards, tripped over the pilot's seat. His hand smacked the "go" button. The door shut and seconds later he was back in my garage. He stumbled out of the machine, wiping blood from his nose and looked at me with a wild eyed stare then went straight for the six pack.
So the trip did not answer my question in any significant way. Apparently, though, books based on 'Running Man' will not be too popular. So...I guess I'll need to rewrite that manuscript.
As a side note, Leonard downed the whole six pack in one go, without even removing his helmet. I think Leonard may be an alcoholic. Sphere: Related Content
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