If I never earn a dime from it, it is a wonderful feeling to see so many years of your life finally result in a book in print.
Category Archives: announcement
Now on Amazon
For this holiday I am thankful for the chance to break into print. My best novel to date is now available in Kindle E-book and paperback versions. I have a lot more to say in the near future about the ever-changing nightmare world of publishing, but for now, I am happy. And I will be even happier if you read my book.
Filed under announcement
Snow Babies at Last!
I tested out Kindle Direct Publishing through Amazon and will soon have the best book I have ever written out in paperback and e-book forms. I had a contract to publish this with PDMI Publishing and then the publishing company died before my book was actually in print. I tested out KDP with Stardusters and Space Lizards. I can now hold a copy of that book in my hands. That went OK and I learned how to make the next book better. So be looking for an announcement soon that it is for sale on Amazon.
Filed under announcement, Uncategorized
Life is a Book
Life is a Book
I write chapters in it every day
The themes are more numerous than the stars
And the themes are always… always complex
But I work through them
One word after another
And soon I will close it
And write no more
But it will still be there
My book
With the conclusion of Stardusters and Space Lizards, I have now completed a novel nine times. The seven titles above are the ones I am actually proud of having written. I am beginning to feel like a novelist.
I should point out that I don’t claim to be a professional novelist. I have spent a lot more money than I have earned by writing. But I am not a hobbyist. After teaching ended as the career that defined my life, writing became my life’s work. I am trying to become a published novelist. But “published” is becoming an increasingly complex idea.
Catch a Falling Star is published and available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and I-Universe, the actual publisher. I-Universe is an Indie publisher, but connected to Penguin Books, and so owned by one of the big five. Aeroquest is published by Publish America, but I could’ve copied from the encyclopedia and they would’ve bound it into a book form. I am embarrassed to even own up to having written it. Snow Babies was a contest finalist manuscript and supposed to be published by PDMI Publishing LLC, but that publisher folded after the editing was done and so it never found its way into print. Magical Miss Morgan is currently with Page Publishing, a vanity press operation that already collected their fees and don’t seem to be publishing my work. I am looking into the process of suing in case they don’t come through on a process that is already a year overdue. And I am determined to see the rest of my books in print if that is in any way possible. Who knows? Someday somebody may actually read and like my books… by which I mean somebody that I haven’t paid to read it. The last one I paid to read one wrote the review on somebody else’s book by mistake and then corrected the error by writing a fudged book report on the back cover blurb. My luck as an author is reminiscent of Vincent Van Gogh’s luck as a painter.
My life is a book. I am still writing it. And I will never let go the pen while I still have life enough to hold it in my hands..
Filed under announcement, autobiography, humor, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, photo paffoonies
1,200 Followers
There are now more than 1,200 people following my blog, Catch a Falling Star.
That’s more than 4 times as many people as lived in the little town where I grew up back in the 60’s and 70’s.
It is hard to believe there are that many foolish or incredibly daring people cruising WordPress. I wonder if any of them are actually Muppets? None of the ones whose blogs I have read seem to be Muppets. Some of them seem to be businesses or corporations. Probably more properly, Buppets and Cuppets.
I wonder if my blog has caused mental issues for any of them. It certainly has that potential. My blog is a lot like a boomerang fish act. I throw a stinky fish into the wind and if you don’t get it when it comes back around, it can smack you in the head.
Concussions are mental issues, right?
I hope more people will read and like my goofy blog in the future. And if the stinky fish ideas come back around too often for your taste, you don’t have to catch them. You can always duck.
This image of Lew Zealand and his Boomerang Fish Act was shamelessly stolen from an interesting blog called The Muppet Mindset. But the stinky fish metaphor is entirely my fault.
Filed under announcement, Uncategorized
Drawing on Possibilities
I am seriously working on adding videos of me using a dry-erase board to teach goofy stuff that I like to teach.
I am really looking forward to that. People listen to stuff better than they read stuff. It just means I have to learn how to use technology more than I did in the classroom.
Filed under announcement, goofy thoughts, teaching
900!
I have reached 900 followers. Who knew there were 900 people in the blogosphere goofy enough to follow a cartoony former school teacher who collects dolls because of raging hoarding disorder? I am a loony conspiracy theory lover (though only a believer of a select few). I have six incurable diseases and am a cancer survivor since 1983. I am a writer goofy enough to believe I can write stuff that people want to read, and some of the comments seem to indicate that they really do.
Here’s this morning’s dawn. Every one of these I can photograph is something of a miracle.
The day before yesterday I got sick from Texas heat and diabetes while driving to pick up my son from school. I had to stop and dash into Toys-R-Us to throw up in their restroom. Yeck! Why did I have to talk about something as disgusting as that? Well, I feel guilty about having to do that in a business’s public restroom. So I felt compelled to buy something. Wow! PEZ dispensers! And I found Rainbow Dash! Um, yeah… every dark cloud has its own form of silver lining.
So, there is my goofy, disorganized post about 900.
Filed under announcement, humor, Paffooney
Happiness
It took a while. I started this blog in 2013. But I have built it up gradually. And now I have reached the point that my publisher’s publicity expert said I should reach in a few months. My novel is not doing nearly as well. My high-priced consultants (high-priced for me because I have no money) want me to spend more money to try again to get the novel noticed. What I have actually noticed is that they are making a helluva lot more money than I am. I am resolved now to do it on my own. I will find my own way in marketing, or fail on my own. I don’t need to be paying anybody to help me fail. I am doing that quite well on my own. And I have reason to think this blog might be succeeding. The I-Universe marketing team cannot legitimately claim to have anything at all to do with that. I thank them for what they have taught me about the business. They taught me that no one really wants to help me but me myself. They are in it for the money. And like unsuccessful authors everywhere, I have begun telling myself, it is not about the money… especially not money for them.
Filed under announcement, humor, Paffooney
Secrets in the Vault
The award that was given to me yesterday was not so much this blog as it was for my little vault. I opened a can of worms a while back when I created a second blog on WordPress more or less by accident. I wasn’t really interested so much in giving myself more writing tasks to do, rather, I decided I would use this other blog to store whole stories, poems, and cartoons. I really haven’t figured out how to link this blog to that one, or that one to this… and since WordPress “improved” everything by changing all the controls, I really don’t know how to properly link something or put a URL into this prose, but here is the web address for that blog;
https://authormbeyer.wordpress.com/2015/06/
It is a place where I have posted more complete works that, though mostly still unfinished, will take a little bit longer to look at and read. I know that my daily 500 words on this goofy blog is too much for most internet readers, and these things take way more time to read than is good for you. But some readers of this blog have recently discovered that the thing exists, and I have had a sudden burst of interest. I gained five followers to the vault yesterday. I think I have six total. I don’t post there often enough to generate traffic, but I do keep stuff there that certain of my followers here are likely to enjoy if they are foolish enough to buy into this whole artwork and wordswork nonsense that I constantly do. So, there it is… a little bit more of me than you were probably ready for.
Filed under announcement, blog posting, cartoony Paffooney, humor, my vault, Paffooney
Catch a Falling Star 