Updated Cover for The Preparation! Check it Out !!!

So, as per typical my perfectionist tendency is, I have been increasingly disappointed in the cover for The Preparation. It was leaps and bounds better than the first cover I did for it in MS Paint, but I did not like the lettering and font choices, etc. Here is an updated (and I think improved) pre-official/pre-release cover. Hope you like it.

Stalled...Maybe She's a Dead Stick

I haven't been writing for several days. I haven't been editing for just as long. But my mind has been whirling around in my stories, unable to escape. Yesterday I was certain I would never write again and I was kicking myself for buying a domain name. Day before that I was certain I would start writing the next day. Today, who knows what's going to happen. I try not to beat myself up for it; it is what it is. Maybe I will write more sporadically than I thought. Maybe instead of 10 novels a year it will be one or two. Maybe none. Maybe twenty-five. I think what I will do is slate the future books I know I want to write and make sure they get on Amazon. Then I can see what the response is like from the public. I have two novels and one novella completed that I need to do edits on and get listed. I know I want to write Our Daughter, Oblivion, Seeing Through and Writing Tucker. After that - I don't know. I'm really excited to write Seeing Through. Writing Tucker will close the book on an old high school buddy of mine that I can't seem to find anywhere online. Oblivion is still kind of hazy on the details, but it's definitely there. Our Daughter will be the next one I write, I think.

Maybe I won't write any of them and will just spend the rest of my life reading books and exploring different subjects of interest. I think living in the woods in a camper as a fire/equipment watch, writing novels is a better use of my time, though. I guess we'll both have to just wait and see, huh?

Discovered Reality Bites Music Channel on Dish Network

Okay, I have been listening to the Tranquility Channel on the Dish Network in the background ever since it was hooked up several months ago. I don't want television or movies [I hate TV on a regular television, especially when it is commercially enforced], but I do enjoy the music in the background during the day and at night when I'm sleeping. But it is a downer. Tranquility is great when you want to decompress, but it's hell for creativity and focus.

Introducing Reality Bites.

That's right. This is the name of the music channel that I found the other day when flipping through channels. It is absolutely, hands down, the best music channel I've ever listened to. It's like I've stepped into a musical wormhole and have been transported back to my late teens and early twenties again. I think I can count on one hand the number of songs that I didn't know, or didn't like. The rest are absolutely AMAZING! I find myself every time a new song comes on, yelling out loud, "I remember that one! I need to get that album! I totally forgot all about them!"

So much for the miserable attempts to find music recommendations online. I just listen to this channel 24/7 and I get all the best music delivered right to me.

Ah, technology. Yes! Gracias!

10 Best Movies [or Movie Series] of my Lifetime - Movie 2

The second installment of my blog series, THE 10 BEST MOVIES [OR MOVIE SERIES] OF MY LIFETIME, brings me to a marathon I'm currently undertaking: The Terminator Franchise. The first of this legendary movie/tv series is THE TERMINATOR. It introduces us to John and Sarah Connor, Kyle Reece and, of course, Arnold as the Terminator (dun dun dun). It is old, and you can definitely tell it when you watching it, but it is surely a classic.



The second in this series is, of course, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. This is, by far, the best of the whole series. It introduces us to a new liquid metal based terminator that can change its shape into knives and people. Arnold comes back, but as a terminator reprogrammed by John in the future, sent back to protect John from the new terminator. We find out how the machines rose to power, who invented it and the future gets turned up-side-down. A GREAT movie I could watch again and again.



Now we segue into the television arena and pick up John and his mother when John was a teenager. This is none other than Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. This is a tremendous movie and introduces us to yet another type of terminator: the hot, teen model terminator (go figure). It is a great series, though you need to really watch it like a movie or it gets kind of boring, especially near the end of the second season. It was yet another in a long line of TV shows that was cancelled too soon, and all because of money. Figures. Well, not to worry. A few fellas in the fan-fiction world took it upon themselves to finish out the series by writing season 3 and 4 scripts that you can download for free from their websites. There are also the Connors Chronicles, which takes off from where season 4 left off, but it appears to be unfinished and abandoned.



This leads us to Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. I would say, by far, the worst of the bunch. Though it does co-star Claire Danes and that is enough to make it a worth-watching movie. It has John as an 20-something, fighting female terminators and, of course, Arnold is by his side the whole way.  Remember, Claire Danes, so worth watching.



Lastly (so far), we come to Terminator Salvation. This is the latest installment of the series and pretty good. It is a post-JDay world where John (Christian Bale) has to wrestle with the idea that maybe machines can think for themselves and even possibly have a soul. This theme was also visited in The Connor Chronicles on tv as several machines were asked or asked to join sides with the resistance. So, apparently, not all robots are made equal in the future.



Now for the sad news. It appears as if there will not be any more Terminator movies, or, at least, none for a good long while. Lawsuits over copyrights, etc and a production company filing bankruptcy - all has flushed different ideas down the drain for Terminator 5. It's another Bourne situation all over again. Once there's a lot of money involved, I guess people stop thinking clearly. There are two new movies slated before 2018, but whether or not they get made is anyone's guess. I've read that if the rights go back to Cameron he will bury the story for good. But this is the internet after all - who knows what is real. Maybe a terminator came back from the future and wrote that on the blog I was reading so it just looks like there will be no more movies. Another Skynet plan, surely.

At least we have some closure (so I've been told anyway, haven't read the Connor Chronicles Season 3 and 4 yet) in the series scripts. But at this point there are an endless number of futures that can be written about, since they messed with time so much. God, I'm starting to get a headache!

Anyway, this is one of the 10 Best Movies [or Movie Series {and I guess tv and fanfiction scripts}] of my Lifetime. Enjoy watching if you haven't already!

The End of X Factor For Me

That's right. Tonight marked the end of this season of X Factor US simply because they voted off all the good acts I supported [I stopped watching the UK version last week for the same reason]. Tonight, though, was a real travesty. How in the world could you vote off Drew and keep Marcus? Really? Seriously? Are they that inept?

I was surprised to realize that Drew was only fourteen years old. No wonder she took it as hard as she did, beside being blindsided like she was. No one - and I mean NO ONE - expected Drew to be in the bottom three, let alone GET VOTED OUT of the competition! Ludicrous. As our cousins across the pond say, I'm simply Gutted. Just Gutted.

I agree with Simon; it was his fault. And I think there is surely more to the story. Quite possibly Drew wanted to do more up-beat songs and Simon wouldn't let her. Some of her comments tonight truly showed her young age, but I can't imagine what it's like being thrust into the national lime-light like that, only to have it ripped out from under you. And she did so well with her save me song, too. 

Gutted. Simply Gutted. Now I need to brainstorm a little on what I'll write about on my blog. So much for the X Factor this year.

X Factor US - I Just Don't Know Anymore

So, I started this blog off thinking I would comment consistently on each episode of my favorite TV shows, such as the X Factor, both the US and UK versions. Unfortunately, both shows this year have left me feeling quit disappointed mid way through.

But then I watched Drew's performance this week and I'm wowed back into a fervor. Great job, Drew!

And to top it off, finally we get a little glimmer of hope. We find out that Drew does want to actually come out of her proverbial shell. It's not her after all. It's her wacky judge Simon. So, no wonder. I think - absolutely - Drew needs to do a Avril song. Literally ANY Avril song will do. And she needs to get up and move around. Make a spectacle of herself. Unless, of course, she can't actually dance, in which case she should just stay sitting down while she sings.

At any rate, Drew is the last great hope of the X Factor for me. And it will probably be my last year of watching, too. I have better things to do.  PS. The Astro ship has sailed. His last several performances have left me empty. I just don't know what to say. Flash in the pan I guess.

Good luck next week Drew.