StanleyWheeler

"A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other works of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself." --Thoreau I suspect that some might disagree with Thoreau's statement above, but I won't.  Steling W. Sill referred in a talk  to Nicolas Appert and likened his development of food preservation, or canning, to the written word and books as the method for preserving ideas. The following shaded text is an excerpt from that talk: Someone has said that “books are among life’s most precious possessions. They are the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that man builds ever lasts. Monuments fall, civilizations perish, but books continue. The perusal of a great book is, as it were, an interview with the noblest men of past ages who have written it.” Charles Kingsley said, Except a living man there is nothing more wonderful than a book! A message to us from the dead, from hu...

"I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness." --Thoreau I cast a book into the chasm this week. I never heard it hit the bottom. Although that may sound like a reference to the way I publish my own books, it's actually about a book that I was reading which I cast off; I'm not going to finish it. The story ceased to interest me. I didn't like the characters and I discovered that I didn't really care where the story was going. It was a book that I picked up for free and thought it would be a quick read, a break from Brandon Sanderson's Oathbringer .  I saw that I still had 22 hours of Oathbringer left and I needed a break. Even a tasty main dish benefits from an interesting side dish. I chose the free book as the side dish. At about 40% or so through that book, I saw that I still had approximately 11 hours of reading left. I considered the characters...

"The more thrilling, wonderful, divine objects I behold in a day, the more expanded and immortal I become." -Thoreau Speaking of thrilling and wonderful objects, take a look at this: Which you can get here (hatchet and knife not included).  Immortality is looking me in the rude eye and I intend to expand. As far as the expansion goes, I fell short of my goal for the week on the sequel, but I did more than double what I had last week. I'm just over 8,500 words in -- so it's ten percent finished; I'm in chapter three. As you can see from the picture, my paperback copy came this week, honestly I set the paper size larger than I intended so the book is a little thinner than I had planned. Rather than change it, I'll make each book in the series that size--and I'm looking for reviews. The ebook is only $0.99. *** On another thrilling front, I dismembered three corpses this week. These three individuals had been hanging around my house for some...

“...Deal mercifully with any whose wounds are too serious to treat. Put tomahawks in their hands before you send them to Valhalla. We’ll escort the wounded to town before we continue the chase. First we’ll construct a pyre.” --The last words we hear from the Supreme Commander in chapter one of the sequel to Threading The Rude Eye (Tentatively entitled, Power to Hurt ) All of which means that not only is the first book available, the sequel is underway with the first chapter nearly complete--and serious carnage happens. (Serious Carnage -- should be a cartoon character name). I spent about 5 hours Friday night and Saturday morning working on the paperback version -- I got an email last night or this morning telling me that the paperback is now also live for purchase. I'll order my copy tomorrow and post a picture when I get it. I went to significantly more effort getting this one into paperback than I did with Smoke . It looked fabulous on the screen. I hope the finished pro...