Friday 27 December 2013

A Writer's Blues

     Hello all!  Welcome back to the good old days of having something to complain about!  As some of you may be familiar with, there is an old Chicago DJ/broadcaster named John Records Landecker.  He was on WGN Radio a couple of weeks ago, giving an interview about a book he'd recently written of his history in the radio industry.  Have I ever mentioned that nearly 200 miles away from Chicago, and the Tribune Tower, yet I still receive their signal in my car?  Well, I do.  Anyway, he was asked how he had managed to find the time to write a book.  His answer was very simple, and quite accurate if you ask me.  He said the only condition there is for writing a book is not having a job.  I couldn't agree more with that.
     As I know I've mentioned before, the only reason I was able to write Daemon Infiri (formerly known here as New Life) was because I indeed had no job.  It was a great way to break up the monotony that is the online job hunt.  That mind numbing, brain draining, eye straining, ego sapping, self worth slaying, and downright depressing thing one can spend day after day doing.  Writing a new chapter every day was my relief from that.  Getting the old wheels turning again on a daily rotation was great for not only my creative side, but for my sanity as well.  I will admit, the self editing attempt was ultimately a bit of a failure.  I swear I do actually know how to write the words I mean to, in their correct usages, I really do!  Apparently, however, when my fingers are flying across the keys that particular message can get lost randomly, somewhere between my synapses and whorls.
      I started the new book, and had gotten a couple of chapters written when my phone rang one day.  It was a job offer from a temp agency, and I took it for my own personal capitalistic wants.  The first week I was able to get a few more chapters out, but right around week two of getting up at 4:15 a.m. every weekday I stopped writing.  It was always hard enough to come up with a daily blog when I started this whole thing a few years ago!  That, mixed with my continued lack of a proper writing niche, leads to a whole lot of not typing.  I would think about where I wanted to go with the next chapter, or develop character singularities, or more come up with more back story all day at work, but by the time I'd get home I didn't have a desire to use my computer as a writing tool.  More often than not I'd secretly play candy crush.
     A few weeks into the new temp job, they lost a major customer, and all the temps got laid off.  I thought that would be sweet, because I could spend real time crafting a new tale.  After about three days I finally opened my word program and wrote two more chapters.  I was getting ready to plow through at least fifteen more, but my phone rang again.  It was a major toy store (that employs a giraffe as a spokesman), and they wanted to see me about an assembly position that I'd applied for a couple of months earlier.  I took the interview, passed it that day, was asked back the following night for orientation, and started at 7 a.m. the morning after.  I had agreed to very specific terms, and was happy with the situation.  I got to work with my hands again, and didn't have to deal with customers too much.  This also meant that no new chapters were being written.
     Funny thing happened on that first day of work.  The store manager, the one who'd interviewed me and accepted the terms with me, was fired.  As positions got moved around to fill the void, my terms seemed to have been lost.  New management was not happy with my hire on terms, and decided that I was only a seasonal employee (without telling me about it), and today I found out that it was my last day.  Yay.
     I was planning once again to get back to the new book, but in a well timed twist, my phone rang once again.  It was the temp agency I'd gone through recently, asking if I wanted to go back to the graphic printing company I'd been at a couple of weeks before.  I said sure, so Monday morning I will be getting up well before the sun once again.  Maybe this weekend I can manage to get at least one new chapter written, maybe.  Not that any of you will know if I do (except for one of you), unless I tell you about it of course.
     I hope everyone is having enjoyable and mostly harmless holiday season this year.  A year that held more Friday the 13th's than any other that I can recall, and an actual blue moon to boot!  Take care or yourselves, enjoy time with family and friends, eat some good eats, enjoy your favorite beverage, and don't forget to laugh!  Until next time, peace out y'all!

Wednesday 27 November 2013

Last Minute!

Hello, friends and followers!  I can't tell you how difficult it's been trying to re-edit my own book.  It's an ongoing process that I may stop one day.  I tried to send it to my sister for editing, but there was a programming conflict, and the file ended up as read only on her computer.  I've changed some of the errors I've made, but I've gotten a whole whopping one fifth of the way through it.  Amazon will let me edit it, but with the pricing promotion starting tomorrow, those of you who buy it will just have to deal with the typos!  I would tell you to suck it up, buttercup, but really it's me that needs to do that.  You have a one time pass to call me buttercup, but only once.  I've made some good progress on the new book I'm working on, and my personal editor is telling me that it should end up on bookshelves with way better sales, but that may be biased.  I am, however, feeling much better about this new work, which is why I'm taking a lot longer to write it.  That, and a new temporary job that has me getting up dark and early at 4:30 a.m..  Anyway, I thought I'd remind you all that the countdown sale starts tomorrow, on turkey day!  So put your bird in the oven, or be like me and put it on the grill, then buy Daemon Infiri for only $0.99!!!  Probably the cheapest thing you have ever, or will ever buy on the last Thursday of November (assuming you reside in the only country that celebrates Thanksgiving anyway)!  In case you missed it before, here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Daemon-Infiri-Dave-Dabrowski/dp/1493734385/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385262402&sr=8-1&keywords=daemon+infiri

Enjoy your meals, and peace out!

Saturday 16 November 2013

Book Sale News!

I want to let all of you know that starting on November 28th, Daemon Infiri will be on sale at Amazon.com for $0.99!!!  That price will last for 36 hours, and only go up by a dollar every 36 hours after that for one week!  So don't miss out!  Tell your friends!  Well tell them if they actually enjoy reading anyway.  So mark that date if you haven't bought it yet!

November 28th
Daemon Infiri $0.99
on Amazon.com

With any luck, all punctuation errors will have been removed by then.  My apologies to anybody who has read it and wondered 'does this guy know how to use an apostrophe?'  Yeah, I fudged that one up a few times.  Anyway, if you haven't bought it yet, wait until it's only $0.99!

In other news, the new book is underway.  No, it's not a sequel to Daemon Infiri.  It's a whole new book, with all new characters.  When I near completion I will share the first chapter for free, right here!  That's not going to be tomorrow, or next week, or even before Christmas (unless I write this new book as fast as I pumped out the first one,) but it'll be yours to preview here first!

Take care of yourselves, enjoy the company you keep, have some good eats, your favorite beverage, and don't forget to have yourself a few laughs while you're at it!  Peace out for now, y'all!  And stay safe this upcoming holiday season! 

Wednesday 13 November 2013

Daemon Infiri Information

Hello readers of this rarely maintained blog!  As I've mentioned before, I've lost my personal space in which to write my blog posts, so I rarely have uninterrupted time to fashion a decently written and edited post these last three years.  The book I wrote on here, formerly known as New Life, now known as Daemon Infiri, was a way for me to get off the job listing websites, and do something I enjoy instead.  As the month it took me to write what became 32 chapters went by, I applied for at least one job every day.  I got a mere two responses, and ended up with neither job.  So I used my free time to find a good freeware program, do a fairly thorough edit and partial rewrite of the book, before sending it back off into cyberspace to find a new home at Amazon.com.

After getting a few requests from real friends and facebook friends to make it available in print, I did.  It took a bit of hunting down, but I found another Amazon owned website that allows new writers to get published in print, on a print to order basis.  So that is now available, although Amazon's main website only listed the print version for a single day.  I don't know quite why, but maybe both versions will be available again in the near future.  All I know is that when I get a paying job again, and I have a few hundred dollars to spend on marketing for my first book, I'm going to give it a shot.  In the interim, I have to rely solely on advertising through my limited social networking ability.  With that in mind, here are the respective links for the ebook version, and now the printed version of my best selling (by a margin of 8 books sold!) book, Daemon Infiri!

https://www.createspace.com/4520737   Daemon Infiri print edition


Daemon Infiri

So there you go.  Please help an unemployed artist out, and consider purchasing either version of the book, as it's not quite the same as it was when it was known as New Life!  I hope you all have yourself a good day, some good eats, a few good laughs, and don't forget to smile!  Peace out y'all!

Tuesday 29 October 2013

In Case You Missed It

Hello readers,

As most of you may have noticed, all but one chapter of New Life has been removed.  I had to do that for legal reasons, as I opted to publish it through Amazon, and their Kindle Direct Publishing platform.  Yes, it now costs money.  However, I did quite a bit of editing so it reads more smoothly, and it doesn't have nearly as many typos left in it, although one or two may remain.  If so, deal with it!  Anyway, should anybody be interested in reading the updated version, under the title Daemon Infiri, it can be found at this link:

http://www.amazon.com/Daemon-Infiri-ebook/dp/B00G9K6P72/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1383064840&sr=1-1&keywords=Daemon+Infiri


If that doesn't work for you, you can just go to Amazon's web page, and under books search for Daemon Infiri, and it should pop up!

Anyway, happy reading, and I'll keep you all posted about future works!  In the mean time, I'm working on a regular old fashioned blog post, so don't stop checking back here!

Tuesday 22 October 2013

New Life Afterword by me, the author.

     I'd like to thank everybody who has been following this story as it unfolded.  I know at least a few of you would have liked it to last a little longer, just as some of you would have liked it to be a little shorter.  I was somewhat surprised how quickly it all came to me.  The first paragraph came to me at the same time of day that this story started, under similar circumstances that Ben was living with.  I started it with plans to make it a short story, maybe three or four chapters.  Well 30 chapters later, I'm pretty sure no magazine would want to print New Life in its entirety.  I do have plans on marketing it for sale as either an e-book, or a printed book, or both.  At this time though, I am shopping around for my best options, and I plan on doing some rewrites of a few parts of the story.  I may also change the title, as New Life was only meant to be a working title, and not the actual title.  Somewhere along the line I forgot to pick a new name, but that will be remedied by the time I publish this work.  As a very early disclaimer, all names, places, and events, with the exception of the very real Abbott Labs and Botanic Gardens, and of course the tiny town of Avon, WI located in Rock Co., are works of fiction.  Names and associations are purely works of imagination.  Again, thank you all for reading, and stay posted for updates, or regularly scheduled blogging.  Don't forget to spend time with friends and family, enjoy some good eats, enjoy your favorite beverage, listen to some good tunes, and keep a smile on your face!  Peace out, y'all!


Please leave your comments, thoughts, and/or suggestions about the story in the comments on this post.

Thursday 26 September 2013

New Life Chapter 1

      He lay awake listening to the thin thrum of the nearby highway traffic.  If you could call two lanes with double yellow lines down the center of it a highway.  The last few weeks had left him feeling exhausted, what with the move, and the crappy job he'd managed to find.  Ben never expected to end up in rural Wisconsin, but here he found himself, listening to the distant semi's rolling to their far off destinations.  That hum used to put him to sleep, but those were days long past, when the hum was a much much louder thrum.
      No need for the alarm clock today, he rolled over and found the off switch, then begrudgingly got out of bed.  Grabbing his pants from the day before off the floor, he turned on the bedside lamp.  3:15 a.m. was never a time he wanted to be awake, for something wicked always lurked at this hour he thought.  Something he'd read a long time ago had convinced him of that, and either that author was right, or he just felt he was right.  Either way he wasn't getting back into bed.  Grabbing a shirt out of his old go bag,which was still packed and not put away, he made his way down the short hall of his first floor flat, and into the old farmhouses kitchen.  He had no need for that large of a kitchen, as he had no kids or a wife to give him any, but he had a coffee maker there.  It was already prepared for later this morning, and he turned it on.  Out of habit he went out to grab the daily paper.  The walk to the end of the driveway was long, nearly a quarter mile. Knowing that this walk was pointless, since the paper wouldn't be there like it had been in Chicago, he took it anyway.  Too early for anybody up here but the farmers, who were undoubtedly still in bed for the next hour.  He stood at the end of the dirt driveway,   far from the front of the shabby old farmhouse that some dumbass at the zoning department had dubbed an apartment building, and stared up at the stars.  He still wasn't used to being able to see that many stars.  Growing up in a city were you can only see the brightest of the constellations on a so called clear night was not a real introduction to the true vastness of space.  Cursing under his breath, Ben walked slowly back to his pseudo apartment, sans anything to read, but now mostly awake.
      Filling a mug with some no name boldless coffee, he settled into the used recliner that came with the furnished apartment.  Rejecting the inclination to turn on the ancient style turn knob television set, he sat in the dull glow of what he swore was on old gas light, though he knew that an electrical light switch would result in certain fire if that was really a gas light.  Ben just gazed at the black lit window, thinking about how to start anew.  Coffee in hand, and mind to change the world, nothing happened.  Ben had discovered quickly that the news up here was far different from the news back home.  He was used to political blowhards, and murderers a-go-go.  Not being much of a fan of that, he was also not a fan of newscasts the were fluffed with nothing but stories of a ten car backup because a new family of ducks were crossing a road.  Or when a local corn farmer's tractor had broken down, and five local dairy workers were delayed because of it.  As far as Ben was concerned nobody up in the cheese state were in any big trouble.  He was pretty certain that the cows wouldn't explode if their udders weren't drained at the regularly scheduled time.  He also knew that the owner of said cows would probably beat him senseless if he said that out loud within earshot.  All  Ben knew was that life up here was slower, and that gossip doesn't vary much.  Only in a small town, gossip gets back to you much faster than it does in a city of three and a half million people.  In a town of around six hundred, not counting the truckers that stopped on their way though, gossip about you reached you in no more than four hours, Ben figured.
      Four hours later, and a pot of crappy coffee fuller, Ben grabbed his car keys and walked out to his old Jetta.  Smiling as he unlocked the car with his car key, he dropped in thinking about all the locals who damn near called him a heathen for driving "that foreign p.o.s."  They all had shiny new Ford's or Chevy's, or an old International, and he was the new "city folk" with his German made piece of communism.  Still smiling, the Jetta's engine coughed to life, and Ben started laughing.  Not some kind of personal chuckle, but a full blown belly jiggler, and it felt damn good.  He knew he didn't fit in here, but after the city he loved had let him down, he was here, and that made him laugh even harder.  When he reached the end of the dirt path that served as the driveway, his laugh was cut short by an airhorn of a passing dairy tanker.  Ben slammed on the old VW's brakes, and felt the shudder of the passing truck's air steam.  Now wide eyed and more alert than he'd been a minute ago, he made his way to the diner he'd found work at.  Only when he got there, it was burning down, rapidly, too rapidly.  He had seen this before, and his heart started pounding. The regular morning staff, and a couple of regulars, were standing at the edge of the road watching their lively-hood burn down.  He felt his cell phone buzzing in his pocket.  Taking it out he only saw the 312 area code, and ignored the call, then threw it on the passenger seat.  He just hoped that what was happening to Carey's Diner wasn't his past following him.  He killed the engine and got out to talk to his newest boss. 

Wednesday 27 February 2013

Too Much Time, So Little Patience

Hello, all!

     Okay, so it may just be one these days.  Hi, mom.  Do I need to apologize for taking so long to write a new post, again?  I certainly hope not, because I've grown tired of doing that.  So instead, are you happy to see a new post finally?  Good.  The last few months were interesting.  Well, interesting to me that is.  I got to travel again!  All those years of bitching about not getting a proper road trip are over!  For now, anyway.  I had a job as an over-the-road driver, for an expedited shipping company, as a van driver (a.k.a. a non CDL holding driver).  I got to see some more of the country.  By see, I mostly mean I got to see the moon and the stars, and the occasional head/tail lights of the few other motorists in the middle of the night.  As well as a lot of gas stations, truck stops, and rest areas.  It was not a cushy job, by any stretch, but it got me on the road again, so that took care of some of my need to bitch.  However, I do still have a couple of things I can complain about, but I'm going to try to focus on only one of them today.  So, after much anticipation (by whom, I'm not sure), here goes.

     Remember being young, and having some life morals drilled into your head?  Or, alternatively, you are still young, and you will find this to be news to you.  There were adages, like idle hands are the devil's tools, many hands makes for light work, if you keep making that face it'll get stuck like that, etc...  Well the one that stuck with me, and one that I learned at a very young age, is the rarely used, and never followed anymore, patience is a virtue.  That may not be the oldest of them, but whoever first uttered that, plainly did not have visions of the future.  Which is unfortunate for them, but I for one, still see relevance in those words.  Patience is a virtue, and a long lost art, but so decidedly needed today.  Decided by me, that is.

     I'm not going to go out on a limb and say that people used to all have patience a few hundred, or a few thousand years ago.  If I did, I'd be lying.  Plainly a phrase including patience and virtue together, was come up with in a vain attempt to get somebody like kids, or adults alike, to settle the bleep down.  Did it work?  Doubtful.  Does it hold merit?  I think so.  It's impossible not to get all riled up when expecting something, or while wanting something to happen a lot sooner than later.  That is normal.  What really gets me, is a societal shift to what I will call the NOW NOW NOW phenomenon.  I could jump right to smart phones, and be done with it.  But I won't, because it started a long time ago, well before I was born.

     Introducing the steam train (in America), circa 1829, in New England, which provides the precursor to modern day train travel in America.  Boring, yes, for some.  But nevertheless the beginning of the end for public patience, although affordable train travel will not exist for another 130 years or so, and only the elite (those we now call the 1%) could afford this not so glamorous mode of transportation yet.  While the tracks are being laid to connect east to west, other engines are being built, and we eventually get the motor carriage (a.k.a., your car).  Though still too expensive for the other 99%, that will change as well.  This is yet another nail in the coffin for that little thing, patience.

     Next up, calculators.  That's right, calculators.  Nobody has to learn basic arithmetic anymore.  When was the last time you had to call up a mental image of the multiplication table, or physically write out long division?  Let me guess, it's been so long you can't remember?  Yeah, me either.  Well, actually I do, but for this purpose, I'm opting for selective memory.

      Remember your first pc?  No, not that mostly useless thing called political correctness, but the personal computer.  It was most likely a word processor, as the internet had not been introduced to the public quite yet.  This is only important to this rant, because the word processor did eventually lead to the machine I'm using to write these words on.  More importantly, do you remember one of the few programs that came standard on most word processors?  I'll give you a minute to think......that's right!  A calculator!  Still found on every single operating system, cell phone, smart phone, and even most GPS' today.  Hell, the calculator was even made into digital watches for a while there.  No wonder America is so bad at math in general.

     Next up came pocket pagers.  If you thought I was going to say cell phones, you thought wrong, but you're not too far off.  Pagers were great, and a curse, for doctors and nurses.  But did the general public need them?  Probably not.  This is when I really started to notice the world around me changing.  I can remember a time when I actually had to walk, or bike, through entire towns, to see if somebody was around.  Phone lines weren't always available.  Yes, phone lines, that ran to a telephone, which was connected to a wall, and had a cord.   Yes, a cord.  No hands free crap back then.  But with a pager, you knew exactly when somebody was trying to get a hold of you, or you them.  That was great!  Or something.

     Which leads me to cell phones.  I'm going to skip that awkward cell phone age, and skip right to standard cell phones, before "apps" were even an option.  Now everybody had the ability to reach out and call somebody, at any time of day, anywhere you were (assuming you weren't in the middle of a desert, or the middle of a mountain range, or in your basement), all year round.  One can make an argument for the benefit of cell phones, and I probably won't dispute it.  But I saw a problem back when we still used home phones.  For example, hanging out with my friend, when the phone rang.  It was the neighbor, asking for my friends little sister.  The conversation went something like this;  "Hey"  "Hey"  "Do you want to play?"  "Okay."  Then ten seconds later the doorbell rang, and it was the neighbor.  Yup, 13 yards away from door to door, and a phone was used.  13 yards!!!  What the hell?

      Next up, and quite possibly the final nail in that virtue's coffin.  The internet.  A double edged sword, the internet.  Great for looking up directions, or buying concert tickets, or downloading music.  But also a great way to provide instant gratification, and create a future generation of couch potatoes.  You can do everything on a computer nowadays.  Hell, most cell phones double as computers.  When was the last time you went to a school, and found a library that had actual books in it?  Or the last time you had to trundle down to the nearest shop to buy a map?  Or stand in line with a bunch of strangers to buy concert tickets?  Or even talk with a person face to face?  Face time to me, is actually sitting down with a person, in the flesh, and talking.  Not sitting in front of a computer with some camera, staring at a monitor.  Along with the internet, as we know it today, came social networking.  Okay, so I am guilty of being a member of one site, which I lovingly abbreviate FB.  But here's the thing.  With the current exception of one person, I actually know the friends I have.  The ones I talk to are the ones that I can't drive across town to have some face time with.  Or the ones that live across an ocean, where I really can't drive.  I don't get the people who "friend horde", the people who just friend anybody and everybody, as though that will somehow help them.  And with the advent of chat rooms, I've noticed another thing I'd never have known otherwise.  People are terrible spellers!  I can recognize the occasional typo, but the lack of grammar, and failed use of punctuation really gets to me. 

     What I am trying to get at here, is simple.  Everybody seems incapable of exhibiting patience.  It's the end of the world if a cell phone dies, or your car is in the shop, or the internet is down!  AAAAHHHH!!!!  What will we ever do???!!!  Wait, hold on, I think I remember.  Go for a walk, or grab a book, take your dog for a walk, relax.  Deep breathes...  There is no real need to rush around all the time.  All that does is take heartbeats off your life.  Slow down once in a while.  The highway is not a racetrack, stop signs really mean stop, speed limits are in place for a reason (although sometimes I'm really not sure for what purpose), and the sky is not falling.  The end of the world is not nigh.  Humans got along just fine for many thousands of years before the notion of a satellite signal was even dreamed up.  We can get along fine just now too.

     Okay, that's my rant.  I'll stop now.  As per usual, I hope everybody is doing well.  Don't forget to have some good eats, spend time with friends, enjoy a laugh or two, have your choice of beverage, and dammit, smile once in a while, at a random stranger.  Until next time, peace out y'all!