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Let me tell you about my latest book. I’m excited about it. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited about any book that I’ve written. It took me some time to settle on a title, but once I did, I don’t think there could be a better title for this book. And the cover—I’m excited about that too. I love the bold colors; there are no pastels here. Thomas Nelson, Zondervan, Abingdon and everyone else take note; this is how I think you should be doing covers. But more than the colors, what I excites me about this cover is that no matter what you do with it, the title is readable. Scale it down to the size of a postage stamp if you like. Convert it to grayscale or even black and white. Whatever you do to it, it still looks great.
Okay, so I don’t think anyone is going to buy the book just to look at it; let’s talk about the important stuff, the story. As our story begins, we find a mother and daughter who are on their way to Fort Worth, but what we quickly discover is that the woman is not really the girl’s mother and the reason for this trip is for the woman to hand the girl over to her real family. The woman is trying to do the right thing, though she’s not at all certain what that is. Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, the girl’s grandfather, Fox, is preparing for a business merger and the opportunity to retire. It’s been a hard year. A tragic accident took the lives of all of the grandchildren only a year earlier. So when the woman and girl show up, the family is eager to latch onto the hope that she brings. But the woman with her is not desirable. She is a con artist by her own admission. Not only could she be lying about who the girl is, she could be a threat to the plans the family has been making. But just as Fox is able to eliminate her as a threat, an even bigger threat threatens to divide the family and bring them to financial ruin.
For you romance buffs out there, there’s even a little bit of romance in it, though the Romance Writers Association won’t be giving me a card any time soon. The romance is actually secondary to the main story. As for What is it?, it is a buddy love story. I suppose that’s true of nearly every story about a parent learning about a child he didn’t know he had, but in this case it isn’t the child and the parent who are at odds with each other.
I’m looking for people to review this book. Perhaps you will be one of those people. Following Thomas Nelson’s lead, I’ll ask that reviewers post their reviews on their blogs and on a review site, such as Amazon.com. And just like Thomas Nelson, I promise not to TP your house if you don’t like the book, or however it is they word that. I’m primarily interested in reviewers who have the ability to tell several people about the book.
Unfortunately, the book isn’t yet available for sale, so please stay tune. It should be out next month.
If the number of comments is any indication; the most controversial topic in writing is the use of the F-bomb. On a blog I follow, one of the writers brought up that topic and there were several times the comments they usually get. Though I don’t think we can completely divorce the word from the pornographic connotations, I think the reason many writers feel comfortable using it is because much of its usage in common language is to express frustration upon the realization that something isn’t going the way one might hope.
I choose not to use the F-bomb and a number of other offensive words in my writing. Some authors have the idea that we use it because it adds realism to our dialog. Personally, I think that’s utter nonsense. The author who writes truly realistic dialog writes boring dialog. Compare reading trial transcripts with reading a novel about a trial and you’ll see that they are far different. One is completely realistic while the other communicates the information and a way that is easy to read.
I think that the reason some authors are so adamant that the F-bomb should be used is that they use it themselves and they don’t like feeling guilty about it. I was talking to a co-worker the other day and he said something about a couple of different types of beer. I told him that since I don’t drink I wouldn’t know anything about it. While I think everyone would be better off if they wouldn’t drink, I don’t go around making an issue out of it and yet my colleague told me that he felt compelled to tell me that he doesn’t drink a lot. I wasn’t trying to make him feel guilty, he did that to himself. I believe the same is true of authors. They don’t like hearing that it is possible to write without the F-bomb because it makes them feel guilty when they use it.
Art of Illusion is a full featured but user friendly open source 3D graphics program. Get even more out of it by developing plugins and writing scripts for it. The book Extending Art of Illusion will show you how.
I am the author of both novels and a non-fiction. Stop by my blog, Timothy’s Thoughts, where we mostly talk about plot elements, characters and other things to do with writing fiction, but occasionally get off on other topics, such as platform development and leadership. I even talk about current events or my personal life, from time to time, but mostly we talk about fiction.
This blog is the property of Timothy Fish. It is intended to serve as a place for information that does not fit well on his website at www.timothyfish.net.
Flash Fiction contest results! - We had a very light turn out this weekend. Is it NaNoWriMo? Or are you all in a post-election coma? The entries we did get were the usual terrific stories ...
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We’re Proud to Announce ‘MacGregor & Luedeke’ - We have a new logo and a new partnership! For the past ten years, we (Chip & Amanda) have worked as colleagues, serving authors and doing our part to mak...
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Pub Rants Has Moved!! - STATUS: You'll have to check out the new location to see how I'm feeling. *grin* What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? At the time I wrote that blog...
What if You Don't Love Your Characters? - I've had all sorts of feelings about my characters over the years. I feel bad for them, I miss them when I'm not writing about them, I get frustrated if th...
Why do we get upset about these things? The other day, I walked into church and someone had set out a bunch of buttons that said, “It’s okay to say Merry Christmas.” I suppose you’re suppose to wear them to the store and the clerk will know that you won’t be offended by the use of the word Christmas. For the past few years, people have been upset over the use of the phrase “Happy Holidays.” Before that, people were upset about the word, “X-mas.” The belief is that people are trying to take Christ out of Christmas. But I found the irony interesting when I watched a video on Merriam-Webster’s website. One of their editors was talking about where the word “X-mas” came from. It turns out that it is a printer’s abbreviation from back when every letter took a lot of time to produce. The X, in this case, is actually the first letter of a word that we would translate as Christ. Today, we might have written it as C-mas instead. So, people aren’t taking Christ out of Christmas, they’re just abbreviating it.
And what of “Happy Holidays”? Here too, people generally mean Christmas when they use it, but the phrase itself comes from “Happy Holy Days.” That has meaning if you see Christmas as a holy day. I’m Baptist and we don’t really have true Holy days. We also don’t observe mass. So why get upset about all of this? Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Merry X-mas are all saying the same thing, so that shouldn’t be reason enough to be upset. I almost want a button that says, “It’s okay to say ‘Happy X-mas’” just because I know it will upset a few people, but think about it. None of these terms are accurate. It isn’t a Holy day and it isn’t a mass. We might call it Christ’s Birthday, but we know it comes at the wrong time of year for that. It certainly isn’t worth fighting over.
So here’s what I propose. Instead of worrying about people taking Christ out of Christmas or making sure people say Merry Christmas, let’s just enjoy the season. Let’s go about our business, buying gifts for our family and friends, eating too much, and watching kids play sheep in the Christmas play. Let’s remember that there was a day about 2,000 years ago when a baby was born to a virgin and shepherds saw angels. Let’s remember that wise men traveled from the east to see him. And most importantly, let’s remember that he came to be the final sacrifice for our sins. Isn’t that much better than worrying about what to call the day?