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Maybe the FBI has finally gotten around to reading Subversive Addiction.
On November 15, 2022, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified in a hearing of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, saying, in part, “We do have national security concerns at least from the FBI’s end about TikTok…
Election day should be a holiday—a celebration of democracy, not a day of despair or divisiveness. Democracy is messy, contentious, and yet every year, on the first Tuesday in November, we the people cast our votes and make our voices heard. Let’s celebrate that.
On election day, all schools should shutter—not just the ones used for polling places, but also pre-schools to med schools. Banks, stock markets—closed. Businesses—convenience stores, retailers, factories—take the day off. Basically everybody, except for critical utilities and medical facilities—we all get the day to make good on our privilege, as citizens of a democratic republic, to vote.
Remove the competing obligation of work…
Twice a year, we all come together and argue about one hour.
In November, we “fall back” and set our clocks one hour back to Standard Time. Then in March, we “spring forward” and set our clocks one hour ahead to Daylight Saving Time. Both days are an opportunity for endless articles, clickbait, and opinions. Allow me to join in!
I’ve received a great deal of feedback on the ending of Vital Deception. For those of you who haven’t gotten to Book Four yet, without giving it away, I can reveal that the last sentence of the book proposes a question. Some readers have called it a “cliffhanger,” and it sort of is just that, even in a loosely literal sense.
I can also reveal (confess?) …
I’ve showcased James Patterson’s quote about Vital Deception once or twice or a million times before, and, yup, I’m gonna do it again. It reads, in part, “The story feels like it comes right out of today’s headlines.”
Well, let’s flip that backwards, because I just read a headline that felt like it comes right out of my story.
Pub day!
Phew. I’ve pushed all the appropriate buttons, and it’s out of my hands. Vital Deception is published!
Let’s make a movie!
Well, not that movie. Not the feature length flick that we are all hoping for, but something on a smaller scale, quite a bit shorter, and with a slightly smaller budget. And by “quite a bit shorter”, we’re talking sixty seconds, and by “slightly smaller budget,” we’re talking, um, zero. Which, to the penny, was my budget for the Vital Deception book trailer.
I took a break from wrapping up the final manuscript for Book Four — more on that to be publicized in a matter of days! — to catch up on the news. You know, the usual stuff; war, Olympics, burning car carrier, Covid —
I’ve been working on books four and five and as a result, I haven’t posted to the blog for a while. Not for a lack of content, though! Did I predict the future in Subversive Addiction?
Just before the May 2020 simultaneous release of False Assurances and Threat Bias, I received a warning from an expert in the book trade: “Be prepared for your first one-star review.”
I am absolutely not the first person to write this. But I’ll join the chorus. Ted Lasso (on Apple TV+) is an awesome television show.
One of the stories that I’ve been following in the news recently has nothing to do with research for my fourth novel but has everything to do with the process. And I’m pretty sure that authors everywhere are just as interested as I am.
My production team and I submitted the audiobook version of False Assurances — Ben Porter Series Book One — to Audible just about two weeks ago, expecting about a month for approval. To our collective shock, the audiobook was approved for distribution over this past weekend. Maybe that’s because it is (and yes, I’m biased) an awesome audiobook, and that Audible couldn’t wait to get it to their listeners!
Today is May 4, 2021. And, of course, May 4th is “Star Wars Day,” because, you know, “May the force be with you.” I can’t say I am a die-hard Star Wars fan, but I did quote the opening rolling credits of the first movie, kinda, in the Acknowledgement of False Assurances.
I considered riddling this post with typos. Like, riting a sentence tat contains a bnuch of spelling errors. Then I reconsidered, figuring that in line with my track record, I would manage to include a typo or two even after proofing and rereading over and over before pressing the “post” button.
My day job is in design and construction. For over a decade, I ran a combination design/build construction company (I scaled back several years ago to focus on the design side), and I have spent a lot of time working directly in construction. The carpenter’s adage of “measure twice, cut once” was of course part and parcel of everyday construction work. Little did I know then that I should apply the same lesson of exactitude to writing — and more specifically, to proofreading.
As excited as I am about the release of Subversive Addiction, Book Three in the Ben Porter Series, I could not be more dismayed about how it was launched. That’s okay; I’ll get over it. After all, it’s merely a moment in time. And now that some time has passed, it’s not only a good lesson for me, but yet another entertaining story to tell in my adventures in publishing.
I’m an independent author who works a day job in the design and construction space. This all started at about one in the morning on Monday, July 10, 2017, an hour that most people would be asleep. I was standing watch on a sailboat named Flying Lady and racing from Marblehead (Massachusetts) to Halifax (Nova Scotia, Canada). And, I had an idea… Granted, I should have been focusing on the boat, but no, I was distracted, imagining something very different in the dark of that night, well offshore and surrounded by nothing but waves and whales. Today, that idea forms the basis for three novels and has been optioned for a Hollywood movie.