Smashwords Spring Sale - Free eBooks!!

Check out the Sales Promotion page beginning March 1. 

Three of my eBooks will be free along with many others not to mention discounts galore. Starting this Sunday to next Saturday, glut yourself on the electronic word. Read on your phone, your Kindle or Nook, your tablet or laptop. But read, read, I say.

Smashwords Sales Promo Page.

Grizzly Golfer

Griffith Park Wilson-Harding Golf Course

Surreal experience today at Griffith Park.

First off, excellent seven mile-run this afternoon on the bridal trails that encircle the golf course. Relaxed, practicing my various chi running focuses, finished strong. Then I begin my post-run stretches.

To better understand matters, there is a grassy area where I was stretching. Then a low concrete rail fence. Beyond that, the dirt bridle trail. Then a six-foot chain-link fence. On the other side of the chain-link fence is the golf course.

Golf balls occasionally drop into the grassy area. Not often, but occasionally, a golfer will ask you if you could bring over his ball. A polite request always results in a returned ball.

Today, there was a golf ball behind me as I lengthened various muscle groups. Something told me to kick it into the ivy. "What nonsense," I thought.

So on I stretched, working this muscle group and that. A voice sounded behind me from the golf course. "There it is. Behind that guy. Hey! Hey, you." Then "Hell-ooo" with a mocking lilt. "Right behind you. Get my ball."

Wow. It's like I was this guy's caddy. (He lost me on the 'hell-ooo.') But before I could brush him off, he erupted into non-stop profanity, cursing me for not quickly fetching his golf ball. My back was to Foul Mouth Duffer and I continued stretching, tossing off a curse or two of my own.

Back he came with his golfing partner. They hailed a woman walking past on the bridlepath. She was asked—politely I might add—to retrieve the cursed ball. Throughout, Foul Mouth Duffer stayed on his side of the chain-link fence and kept up a barrage of bile toward me involving the sexual act, the sexual act with my mother, me being fat and old, and, after I hoped he didn't have a heart attack, wished me death by heart attack while running.

At one point, he stormed over to his golf cart and threatened me with a golf club. When I didn't run, he grabbed his putter and stomped off, still cursing and swearing. I've known a few rageaholics in my day—been one myself a time or two—and realized this guy was in his own special land.

As soon as he was out-of-sight, I left. The whole incident reminded me of the that scene in Werner Herzog's documentary Grizzly Man in which subject Timothy Treadwell erupted in a fiery rant against absent Fish and Wildlife agents. I'll let Werner Herzog take it from here.

 h/t: Lionsgate at Home

Note: Thu. Feb. 20: I'm not normally so serene in the face of provocation. But after running over an hour and twenty minutes, my body was awash in yummy endorphins. Stretching out provided more. Were I paying my taxes, it might've been me chasing the feral golfer with a club.
      

Orson Welles vs Robert Blake

When a simple pun is not enough.

h/t: Johnny Carson

My Own Private Kanban

Well, not so private. I'm posting on the Web. But given my traffic, it's nearly exclusive. If you skimmed my original kanban post, you'll recall me bemoaning my sloth in not taking a picture. Now I have.  

Note My SEO-Free Heading!

Strange to loath search engine optimization when it attracts viewers. I must have a desire to failure, though it comes wrapped in fantasies of wild success. Still, my board lists the immediate, which consists heavily of updating all my old books, garnering reviews, new artwork, etc. Each day, I strive to write at least one page of a short story and a longer work that may end up a novella. Progress, consistency, and a visual record of achievement. 

In the right of frame, you'll note a section of my running/exercise calendar. Last month on top and current month on the bottom for comparison. As of now, I'm doing better with running than writing, but that's only because writing is more difficult, especially when mixed with the many marketing chores facing the indie author. You can write what you like, but then it's up to you to sell it. 

Lo, a Birds of Prey Pitch Meeting

Loads o' Spoilers

Screen Rant

Did I see the movie? No. But I enjoyed the pitch.

Kanban Boards Organizes Work Flow

Atlassian

Japanese Word for "Stinking Mess"

Little yellow Post-Its proliferate: lining my computer screen, on the desk, on the calendar, reminding me of writing matters and indie author marketing. Also, there are piles of scrap paper suggesting I upload an ebook to Draft2Digital, or buy a new eBook cover and send it to my niece as she builds me a Squarespace web page.  But in a recent quest for organizational help, I came across concept of the kanban board. 

Actually, kanban means "visual signal." An organizing system, it can be as simple as three columns with the headings To-Do, Doing, Done, or broken down further to a more granular level. I like seeing a cohesive lists of tasks. So I used half a piece of foam core and divided it into three sections with duct tape. 

Like Ordering from Pizza Hut

Order a pepperoni and mushroom pizza online and Pizza Hut uses little icons to show your order received, cooked, and en route to your dwelling. Basically, that's the kanban system. My first section I call the Bullpen. Contained within are all my short story drafts, novellas, a finished short story that needs to be sent out, and two novel drafts. Those little yellow Post-Its come in handing for listing projects. In addition, there are marketing tasks such as obtaining reviews, updating back matter, updating cover photos, formatting manuscripts for softcover conversion, etc.

In the second section, Doing, I transfer a small amount of Bullpen material. I further divide Doing into Pending and Ongoing. Pending pertains to projects like sending out a story where I have no control over the time. Ongoing contains stories that I'm currently writing or rewriting. Sell a story and it moves to the third column.

Done is Done. I have two projects up there: a pair of recently purchased new books overs. Like the pizza, the goal is to move a Post-It along to its final destination. Seeing progress where you normally see nothing until a story is sold or a book published helps with focus and moral. Like "Dr. Strangelove," there is a big board and I can see it.

I'm a Poor Bloglord

Cell phone photos depicting all the above would be nice, but I'm writing this while watching John

PI

Walsh on Investigation Discovery guide me through the murder of a South Carolina women by her drunken former live-in boyfriend. I'd need to visit my office with the cell phone, well, you know the rest. Not that I won't. But it won't be this post.  More t/k on the kanban board.

Pasadena 5K Results

As mentioned a few weeks back, my wife Joy and I tackled the Pasadena 5k. A very chilly morning, I  felt cold throughout. Finishing up inside the fabled Rose Bowl, I was passed in the last 40 yards by a woman pushing a double stroller, an 11-year-old boy and his mother, and got picked off at the finish line by a young woman. Nevertheless, it was a successful run. I finished in 33:48, a high ten minutes per mile, my best 5k time in over a decade. 

This week, I travel down to Santa Monica for an all-day workshop with Danny Dryer, the founder of Chi Running. Hopefully, I can straighten out any problems with my form and pick up a few tips for better performance. Should be fun.