Let the Marketing Process Begin!

Self promoting a book on a limited budget has its limitations - to say the least! With all the effort, lost revenue in focusing on writing instead of building a private practice, and avoiding social situations in favor of typing time, the reasons are obvious why my budget isn't where I'd like it to be.

So I am beginning the process of visiting all the wonderful web sites that promote your project for free. I am picking the brains of friends, family and associates for their input - which has been extremely positive thus far. I will fill in the blanks for you as the process unfolds. For now I bid you farewell and happy marketing.

Peace.

Catching My Breath

Life is interesting ain't it? Lots of ups and downs and sideways. For what purpose? As a Spiritual Psychologist the focus is on soul education. The premise: We are all spiritual beings having a human experience. It is this human experience for many that causes great grief. If we can learn and grow from these experiences at the soul level, we evolve, grow, and hopefully won't have to return here again to undergo more of the madness.

I enjoyed the beginnings of my soul education at the Burn Ward. Things flew on their own, the power regularly went out, a chair could tell if people had good or bad energy. Fast forward to the present in which I am looking for new awareness, new avenues in order to grow and overcome my limitations, and above all finding ways to get rid of my damn anxiety.

I know - some people believe that anxiety is the belief that God doesn't exist. At times I do fool myself into believing I am all alone. Why do I have to continually do this to myself. Or, on the flip side how do others feel the constant presence strongly? I'd rather be in this camp. Unfortunately I am really having that human existence.

Hopefully I am at an end to my tooth issue. Hopefully the infections in my mouth will soon subside. Thank God for alternative medication and herbs. Hopefully this dream of a book and accompanying movie will soon come to fruition.

Obviously I had a bit of a shock at work today and it made me take a step back, catch my breath, and refocus on what is really important. People, family, workmates, clients, God's interactions. I wonder what tommorrow may bring.

Peace

Wa Hoo!!!

Well after about ten days, not only is the rewrite completed, the publisher also approved the book and are sending me a proof of it. I am so glad that I took the effort to go through the book an additional two times this past month. In doing so, the characters came to life, I was able to get into detail about certain facts that seemed vague, and had the opportunity to judge myself about how I handled blending in a few characters to speed up the time table of the story.

The blend, yes a bit of a touchy subject since I stand for honesty and had to fabricate a few peripheral facts, but I assure you I didn't fabricate any of the paranormal experiences.

So now after all the effort I sit and wait. After going hardcore for the past umpteen months it is all a waiting game till I have proof in hand.

Now is the time to start marketing, not only this book, but my first book "Crisis Management: Step by Step". That book is basically about how to counsel oneself through life's difficulties. Obviously we live in a world that doesn't know how to work through emotional issues. This book shoes people a number of effective tools on how to work on themselves.

So, to be honest I feel pleased. Finally something that has been stewing in my head is now down on pages and awaiting others scrutiny. I am a big boy and am sure I can handle both positive and negative reviews. At this point one review would be appreciated. I hope the reviews continue to multiply!

Four Chapter's Down

Slowly but surely, step by step, inch by inch, the blog remains the same. Well kind of...

Plodding along happily. Seeing only minor errors now and explaining details more fluidly. I am attempting to change lemons into lemonade as I continue fine toothing the text.

The cover looks great! Better than I ever imagined! Next week while on vacation, all talks will be the inner workings of the companion electronic game for the Ibook. If things go to plan, the name Burn Ward may be very popular. How ridiculous is that?

Who would have thought that the actions of two rebellious guys thirty years ago would lead to a book, a game, and I pray a movie. No joke. Dave and Don, both characters in the book are involved in the Hollywood production biz!

As you see I am a dreamer, but if it wasn't for us dreamers... well you know the rest.

So I continue to plod and dream away. The characters in the book have once again come to life. The old issues with my mother are once again in my face which is the only detriment in this process. We had resolved our shit a long, long time ago and reading about our past transgressions tends to transport me back to that time emotionally. If not for this, the rewrite would be more of a pleasure. Still, I have the ability to make chores pretty enjoyable.

So, for now, have a great week and you'll be hearing from me when I return home.

Peace!

Opps I Did It Again!

Guess what? Yep. I got the proof of the book alright and of course on the second page there were gramatical errors I didn't catch. Here I go again. Immediately, without even a thought I began the rewriting process. This wasn't anything like before where I had to rationalize fixing my errors. Now I am looking at this book as a professional endeavor. What is a few more weeks of trimming away the fat anyway?

I am proud of myself. I have always been a "Let's just get it done" guy. Now I am being more careful. A first.

There are a lot of examples of my being in just get it done mode. I did tile work for years and our motto was to just keep going - it is artwork, not perfection. Though with tile, most of the pieces are milled in different sizes. It is almost impossible to make a floor absolutely perfect. With the exception of Marble. With marble each piece is milled exactly because the grout joints are only about a sixteeth of an inch thick.

Taking the tiling analogy, I need to view this book as a marble project. I am simply laying it out as perfect as possible. Please, please God, make this the last redo. I've wanted to grout this job for months!

Thanks for hanging in there once again. I will be on vacation next week so won't be able to blog. Guess what I'll be doing? Tiling. No actually just finished a huge job in the desert recently. THis vacation it's watching the Dodgers in spring training - a first, and typing like a possessed man!

Happy trails!

Crossover

Inevitably while working as a therapist in a crisis setting people talk about demons, seeing things move, and feeling posessed. They are shocked when I tell them I have had the same experience!

In the clinical world, God, spirituality, and the paranormal are seen as something to take medication for. When people tell me they meditate, pray about their ailments, and feel dark energy I applaud them. To me they are sensitive to the unseen.

Let's face it, we have to some extent experienced something that can not be explained through normal channels. I saw a man of pure white light - I can't explain that, nor can the two other people I know that also experienced the same. Are we all freaks? Some believe so... Perhaps... Or maybe we are normal and all the flat liners, who haven't had these experiences are freaks? Makes you wonder.

In working in the psychological industry, we are aware of a fine line between sanity and insanity. Insanity developes when the thought process is a bit illogical and jumps around from a to b to g and to z. Lots of steps are misses in this example. When somebody who is logically thinking experiences the paranormal. You've got me.

Please share your paranormal stories, no matter how trivial they may seem. I am going out on a limb here and want you to join me.

Peace.

Ideas for Burn Ward Game

Next week I am going to travel with my buddy Mike who is working on the Corporate Bull game for the Ibook. His game is about "brown nosing" your way up the corporate ladder. Trust me this game is hysterical. I've played it for over twenty years and it still hits the mark.

Mike assures me we could use the same electronic structure to create the Burn Ward Game! What I've been focused on has been fun little exercises that would bring this game more three dimensional! Needless to say for our entire trip it's going to be like the good old comedy days in which we throw ideas around and attempt to make each other laugh!

While living at the Burn Ward, we played a drinking game called "caps". two teams sat across from each other and tried to toss their beer caps into a half filled plastic cup of beer. If you made the shot, the person had to drink and refill. :-)

We played miners darts, because of all the power failures, we tied a flashlight onto a hat and threw darts this way!

Well, as you can see, these are just a few of the ideas percolating. I have hundreds and can see the game being hysterical. I wonder if the Keg carrying competition would work. I dropped the keg years ago, but know if the conditions were just right I could have done it perfectly!

Stay tuned, excitement is definitely in the air.

Of yeah - I'm still awaiting the proof copy of the book.

Things Are Starting to Look Good!

As I await the proof copy of the book, an interesting opportunity may be coming my way. My friend Mike - Bigredshoes.com - is creating a game for the new Ibook. Mac has created a large version of their Iphone, without the phone however and they need games. Mike had created "Corporate Bull" years ago. This is a game in which you "brown nose" your way up the corporate ladder. Well this is way past the developmental stage and is almost finalized for electronic media.

Having the structure of the game, we had kicked around the idea of creating a Burn Ward game. Mike informed me this could be a reality - soon!!!

So please blog in if you lived, visited, or heard stories about the haunted party house. This might be the first game that ever marketed a book!

All Systems Go!

The book was approved for printing! I love this format so much better, it was worth the one month delay. Anyway the next process is receiving the proof copy, which I will again review, along with most of my work mates. If my fiance' wants to look at it I will be shocked! She doesn't want to read a book about my "glorified escapades". She believes this book is sexual in nature and hasn't a clue about what it really is about - the paranormal. Though most of my friends would call me that anyway.

Every time Collette has taken an interest in reading the manuscript, I had been working on a chapter in which I was discussing a love interest. I guess if I was in her shoes I wouldn't want to know - no, that isn't true. I would be curious at first, get jealous - maybe - but like a guy want to read all the gory details.

Let's face it, us guys are cursed. If there is an incling of sex we are all over it.

Years ago I lived with my best friend Don. He has a few mentions in the book. This took place after the house blew up and we were doing our comedy routine together. Anyway we purchased cable televison after it first came to L.A. and suddenly we had one zillion channels to choose from. We watched everything with one exception - fishing. We thought we had hit rock bottom if we were watching something so boring. Well, a few months later we were flipping channels and happened on a show with women posing in bathing suits. After about fifteen minutes we realized the women hadn't been shown since the beginning montage and we had been watching fishing ever since!

So Collette, no this isn't about my sexual conquests and yes, during one montage you might have noticed something suggesting my having sex. And NO this is not a book about Fishing! The book is about growth, gaining sobriety, friendship, and finding God.

I will keep you all posted.

95% of the way there!

Hello Burn Ward Fan! Yes all one of you! I am grateful you are supporting this early effort and here is the latest!

I finished sending the printer the revised book cover! I also finished the final rewrite / revision and am as pleased as can be. Tonight I will convert the text into the proper format and wait for the printer's approval. I can't wait to see the proof!

In hindsight, this last tightening up process was incredible. Twenty pages were removed from the book. It was all fluff, direction, and didn't help the flow along one bit.

I remembered the husband's name of somebody who had died in that time period after not remembering it for years and years. Sid. Ha Ha! My brain still functions.

I was talking to Dr. Jenkins, a psychiatrist I work daily with about the book today. He was curious if I had omitted sensitive information about me. I admit there are a few circumstances I regret, one was using a pellet gun to shoot at rats that somehow got into the house. We used to have a makeshift shooting range late night, and wore minors lights on our heads. Yes I bagged a few of those babies and didn't really want to include that and something else too - but I will wait for my one fan to ask about it. I may or may not disclose the one shameful act I refuse to include.

There were plenty of other gems left out. Some people who frequented the place, a fishing expedition, a time we all went to a lake and hung out. That lake trip was my first inclination that I wasting my life away and wanted a change.

In the writing process some situations were combined, people too. It would be a thousand pages long and really not change the story much if I wrote only about the facts. In fact the first time I wrote out the book it was in this fashion and wanted to shoot myself because it was so damn boring to read.

I am excited and you, my only fan so far are going to really enjoy what is about to hit the masses!

Peace!

Success!

The umpteenth rewrite has been finished! I am happy. Happy that I kept this commitment. Happy I cleaned up the interior. Happy that this process is complete.

It is interesting how I feel right now. I have focused on this story for thirty years, been writing about it for the past three years and am done. I am done with the same feelings I had so long ago. I am done with the same scenarios that haunt my sleep. I am done being hopeful. Now a long process has come to it's fruition.

The next steps: turn the format into a PDF, reformated the cover design, and turn it into the printer for final approval. Next comes getting another proof of the book, and then send it out to the masses.

I want to thank the friends and family members who have supported me through this process. Mike Browne and his fine cover art, Samantha Alpert, my sister for editing the book, Michelle Norkon for her input, John Gelwicks for his support, and if I forget others please blog back.

It's a week away!

How Many Rewrites Are Enough?

The intention of this blog originally was to get a discussion going about life, about our impending death, paranormal experiences, and maybe everybody pooling their information together in give hope that life is eternal, we have a soul, it goes on forever, you know that kind of stuff. As I've been caught up in the rewriting process, again, I have strayed from this original plan. C'est Lavie. Getting into a paranormal flow when I am burrowing through pages and pages of text can keep me in editor mode. Am I complaining? No, far from it. I enjoy both aspects of life. I am definitely right and left brained. Many opperate from only one hemisphere, I can feel and be logical with the best of them!

To keep you informed, I am coming up to the final ten chapters and by accident went back a few chapters, after my last, last rewrite and started working in that spot again. How many rewrites are enough? This is getting ridiculous. It is as if I have several writers inside of me, each at their own level of expertise. I pray the best stays present through the remainder of the book.

I am enjoying the writing process, my morning activities, drive to and from work, and other assorted alone times are always spent with God.

Have a great weekend.

Hello Ghost Fans!

I'm back. Well about 50%. Was sick and missed blogging Monday and Tuesday. Friday was too hectic so let me catch you up on what's happening.

The re-write has been tremendous. Thank God I decided to do it because old character names were still in the body of the text. I also chopped a lot of boring information that doesn't need to be read and have saved you all to this point, 10 pages of reading. Now it is only 420 pages.

There is about ninety pages left on the rewrite. When sick there was nothing to do but edit. I can't even do sick right. I definitely went back to work too early, still feeling like hell.

I love the book, if I do say so myself. I didn't realize how well it flowed in and out from one event to the other. I added some fun little entries, so if you experienced the house, it will be easy for you to read between the lines.

Reediting is a huge task and I have been obsessed with it. Maybe when the book is out I can finally rest a bit.