Month: May 2016

At long last, welcome to the launching of my logo! I hope you find the wait was worth the delay. This idea floated around inside my head for a couple of months. Here’s the story behind this extremely fun logo.

I attended a craft fair in my hometown and a deck of cards caught my eye. Another passion of mine is collecting playing cards and I have over 1,700 decks. The vendor offered two decks for sale, “American Frontier” and “American Frontier Predator Edition”. The United States Playing Card Company produced both decks. In each deck, the traditional court cards were replaced with images of various animals. Deer, elk, moose, turkey, quail, ducks, rabbits, raccoons and squirrels came to life as Kings, Queens, and Jacks. The images are highly detailed and beautifully done. I purchased two of each deck, one to open and admire the artwork, and one to remain sealed as long as it is in my collection. The vendor was not the artist, but they would get me in contact with him.

Via email, I met Will Pitney, the artist of the “American Frontier” playing cards. I explained to him what I was looking for in a logo. He said he could draw the logo and have it to me in two or three weeks. He sketched out eight different images and asked my opinion of them. I narrowed it down to two. He added details to those two images and I chose the one that I want to represent me as an author. Will did a fabulous job.

As you can see, the alligator is enjoying the book he’s reading. A smile is on his face and he’s swinging his tail in the air. I hope you relish my stories as much as the alligator is. My story takes place in a bordello, but it is not a serious story. It is a very fun romp with over the top characters. His right leg is resting on two mores books to read. I have more books inside of me waiting to come alive on the page. I anticipate you wanting to read these stories as they are published.

The frog in the middle is holding up the book using his back. The expression on his face conveys many meanings. The biggest one I see is that he’s praying he doesn’t get eaten by the alligator when he’s done reading. He also says to me, “What have I gotten myself into?” My story presents to you a bordello, alligators, voodoo, a migrant worker that drinks hard liquor like water, a news reported focused on a single story for twenty years and much more. How do I bring all this together into a cohesive story? I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until I find a publisher. I pray that will be soon.

The frog on the right is holding up the book using his legs. I have more books to write, more characters to bring to the page. This frog is in homage to my first book which takes places in a bordello. The position this frog is in can be interpreted sexually.

As you can see, a lot of thought went into this logo. I’m proud of it. Thank you, Will Pitney, for drawing it. Being able to tie two of my passions into this one logo is the best of both worlds. I hope you enjoy it and look forward to seeing it on my business card and any other printed paraphernalia that I produce.

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What I’m Reading – Many readers I know like to inquire what their favorite author is reading. At the end of each blog post, I’ll let you know what I’m reading. I may not be a published author yet, but I hope my choice of reading material inspires you to read. I finished Don Quixote last night. I posted my review on Good Reads. Today I started The Heart that Gives – Seven Traits of Joyful Stewardship by Fr. Thomas J. Connery. I encourage you to read a variety of topics. This section of my blog will show you I follow this advice. The next book I read will be a fiction book.

Continuing on my theme of researching, it is important to have a wide variety of people in your critique group. Part of my story takes place in a nursing home as my main character is 105. It is where he lives. He has dementia and believes it is the 1980s. In my first draft, I had the nursing staff act a certain way toward him that makes it easier for them to take care of him. A member of my critique group, a registered nurse, told me if the nursing staff acted this way, they would be fired. She also said my character would probably be in a mental facility, not a nursing home. She did provide me a beautiful alternative, which is home care. The rules are different for home nursing care as opposed to institutional care. In my revised draft, I made the change where my main character can receive home care with the nursing staff acting in a certain way.

In another scene, I have my main character, in a flashback, drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. In order to set the mood, I wrote sunlight pierced the bottle and the dark brown liquid swirled as he picked up the bottle. When that scene was reviewed, I learned dark brown whiskey is actually rancid whiskey and undrinkable. This bit of research included purchasing a 1950s style, brown glass whiskey bottle from Etsy and borrowing a co-worker’s current whiskey bottle. I poured his whiskey into my old bottle and set it in the sunlight. Brown whiskey in a brown glass bottle is clear when the sunlight pierces it.

My third scene to research took a while, even though it involves only one question. Part of my story takes place in Amsterdam in the 1940s after World War II. I used Google Maps to zoom in on the city to see where things were. The Mata Hari restaurant popped up very close to a street intersection I use in my story. Earlier in my story, I used Mata Hari as a Halloween costume and believe the restaurant would be a perfect tie-in. I just had to know was it there in the 1940s. To obtain this answer, I went to Facebook and the Mata Hari restaurant page where I posted my question. About four months later I received my response. The restaurant is a recent addition to the Amsterdam. I had to take it out of my story.

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What I’m Reading – Many readers I know like to inquire what their favorite author is reading. At the end of each blog post, I’ll let you know what I’m reading. I may not be a published author yet, but I hope my choice of reading material inspires you to read. I’m still reading Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. According to my Kindle, I’ve made it through 85% of this tome and it is entertaining.

All writers are familiar with the phrase “write what you know”. If you don’t those who do know will let you know that your written words are wrong. Writers don’t know everything and we must do research from time to time. Before I started my manuscript in earnest, research needed to be done. So I visited a bordello.

There are many great things about setting your story in a bordello. One, everybody knows what happens in a house of ill repute, no matter what time frame you choose. Two, you don’t have to spend chapters describing your characters actions so that the reader understands what is going on. Herman Melville’s unabridged Moby Dick is a good example. Don’t get me wrong, it is very helpful to have this information as you read the story. I doubt I’ll ever fully understand the workings of a whaling ship in the nineteenth century, but it did slow down the pace of the story. At least from my perspective. I do encourage you to read Moby Dick. Getting back to my story, it’s downright fun to write about a cat house.

I visited Miss Laura’s Social Club, also known as the Fort Smith (Arkansas) Visitor’s Center, in May 2015. After surviving a flood, a nearby fire and a tornado, Miss Laura’s is the city’s only remaining row house. It is furnished with period furniture and the docents were very helpful in answering my questions. As luck would have it, Carolyn A. Joyce, the Tour and Travel Sales Manager for the city of Fort Smith, plays Miss Laura for special events. She took time out of her busy schedule to talk with me. The impromptu meeting was invaluable.

After gleaning all I could from Miss Laura’s, I made my way to the Fort Smith Historical Site and Judge Isaac Parker’s courtroom. In the gift shop, I noticed book by Michael Rutter titled Upstairs Girls – Prostitution in the American West. Truly, the research gods smiled on me that day. I purchased the book, read it, and obtained his other book, Boudoirs to Brothels. Just by luck, I stumbled onto two great books for researching prostitution.

It is advised to write what you know. But when you have to do research, enjoy it and you may be surprised at how easy the information you are seeking comes to you.

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What I’m Reading – Many readers I know like to inquire what their favorite author is reading. At the end of each blog post, I’ll let you know what I’m reading. I may not be a published author yet, but I hope my choice of reading material inspires you to read. I’m currently reading Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. I’m two-thirds of the way through this tome and it is entertaining.