A Great Review

Here is another review of RICK FROST & THE ALASKAN ADVENTURE.

New Review and Interview

I had the joy of being interviewed by the website "Have Coffee... Will Write." It was a great experience and I hope it's the first of many! Read it here.

The same site also just put up a review by one of their tremendous writers.

I have other reviews coming out and will let you guys know about them, good or bad.

The Time Is Here

After years of writing, editing, querying, rejections and decisions... the time is here. My first novel is available.

RICK FROST & THE ALASKAN ADVENTURE is officially out and available on Amazon.com and BN.com as an e-book. Here's the synopsis:

It was supposed to be an adventure in the wilds of Alaska, a test of manhood for all the boys signed up on the school trip. Instead it was nothing more than a long hike through some pretty trees. That is until Rick Frost and his friend Ben Nakni see a plane crash into the forest. A real adventure has just found them.

The only survivors of the crash are Robert Blair and his daughter Alexis, who just happens to be the hottest teen actress in Hollywood. She was on her way to make a movie in the Katmai National Forest when the unthinkable happened. Rick and Ben pull them out of the wreckage as a team of assassins arrive to finish the job.

The crash was no accident. Someone wants Alexis Blair dead and that puts Rick Frost in the cross hairs. He wanted an adventure; he got a wild ride through the unforgiving wilderness of America's last frontier.

If you are interested in purchasing a print copy, be patient for me. It will be available in a couple of weeks.

Thanks to everyone for your help, your support and I hope you enjoy RICK FROST & THE ALASKAN ADVENTURE!!

T-minus One Week

If I were an astronaut, you'd have me and my book sequestered at NASA, just going over the mission plan a few hundred more times, completely a few more tests and then getting ready for lift off. If my book and I were a football team, we'd been in the town where the Super Bowl was being held, with two or three more practices scheduled, as well as media day and the last two nights spent away from everyone before the big game.

But I'm just a self-published writer and my book is a simple YA adventure novel. We don't get to be sequestered (thank God, I could be on the Casey Anthony jury!) or go to a media day (which would damn sure help with sales). We only get to work on the edits for the second novel, and start writing the third.

RICK FROST & THE ALASKAN ADVENTURE comes out May 15, exactly one week from today. The print copy will be coming out very soon thereafter. I am still a little shocked that this is happening. But it is, and soon you'll have a new hero in your midst, one who has a lot of adventures to go and hopefully a long time to get there.

I look forward to talking with you guys soon, and I hope you'll pick up a copy (on Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, etc. for e-books; Amazon for the print version) of RICK FROST & THE ALASKAN ADVENTURE!

Happy Mother's Day

To all the mom's out there, who gave birth to us, who nurtured us, who taught us, who coached us, who cared for us, who supported us, who worried about us, who cried with us, who smiled as we walked down the aisle, who stood waiting outside the hospital room door even with the nurse said not to, who spoils our kids, and who is the angel God created especially for us...

THANK YOU!!! We love you, Mom!!!!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!!

I Write Alone

"A writer and nothing else: a man alone in a room with the English language, trying to get human feelings right." ~John K. Hutchens, New York Herald Tribune, 10 September 1961

When Mr. Hutchens wrote that, he might have directed the quote to the enormity of the task set before every writer as he or she sits down at the keyboard to try and create a new world out of thin air. But he touched on something so fundamental, so essential, and so powerfully sad that it might be missed as you read the words. To write is to be alone.

I love The Lord of the Rings trilogy. And yes, I realize it is actually a saga (no, Stephanie Meyer didn't invent that word) because of The Hobbit. I love the books, and I love the movies. The imagery, the drama, the thrills, the characters... I love everything about it. Remember the scene in the movies when Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry are back at the The Green Dragon (the pub in Hobbiton) after their adventure to destroy the Ring of Power. They each have a mug of ale in front of them, and as the party goes on all around them, the four friends simply look at each other with small, almost strained smiles on their faces. They are silent, then clink their mugs together in an unseen salute to the victory only they will fully understand or appreciate.

That's what it's like to be a writer. You and you alone know the immense amount of thought and planning it took to build the story. Only you know understand every little nuance of the character's lives. And even though many have, or will, read the book, only you know what happened between the lines and behind the scenes.

But beyond those things, there is the craft itself. Why the word "but" is better in once instance instead of "however;" when you read through the first draft for the first time months after writing the first words and discover a thread of theme loosely tied in the story arc; or how minor characters from your story are literary descendants of the greats like Gatsby, Othello or Bob Cratchit. No one who isn't a writer cares about these things. They don't want to hear about them. When you even mention writing, if the first few words out of your mouth aren't "royalties" or "advance" or "sales" then people aren't interested. Their eyes glaze over and if they were honest, they'd listen to you ramble forever, then when you ask them for a comment on something, they'd say "I'm sorry I quit listening ten minutes ago; I'm thinking about what I'm having for dinner tonight."

A writer sits at his keyboard, stares at the blinking cursor, and to paraphrase someone a lot smarter than I am, waits for blood to drip from their forehead. We agonize over things, pour over details and sweat each paragraph, sentence and word. Then after each painful battle has been fought, when the climb up the insurmountable mountain has been made and we stand on the peak of our own writing-centered Everest, we have to endure that most horrific and gut-wrenching of blows: to be rejected, however benignly, by those whose interest and praise we want the most.

It is a terrible fall and for some writers, famously it sent them into tailspins. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, they both drank themselves into an early grave. The list of writers who have destroyed themselves through addiction, depression or some combination of both is as long as some of our novels. How to avoid being one of them? I don't have the answer. Only a knowing nod, a small strained smile and a raised mug of Green Dragon ale. Drink hearty, my friends.

Lombardi On Writing

There once was a guy named Vince Lombardi. He was a football coach. He won a lot of games, including the first two Super Bowls as the coach of the Green Bay Packers. He was also known as a supreme motivator and teacher. And he was one of the baddest SOB's to ever roam the sports world. What could he possible have to say about writing? Glad you asked!

Lombardi once said "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." Now before your tender heart, with your precious little 7-year old who picks you the best bouquets of daisies while he's supposed to patrolling right field, and the wonderful league you're a part of that doesn't give trophies out because 'we're all winners here!' start writing me hate mail, understand something: life doesn't give you a break because your feelings get hurt. I am not one of those "wouldn't it be great if everyone was equal and people were nice to each other" guys. I am a "life is unfair, there's always going to be someone better than you, and you are not going to win every time, so you better learn that lesson early on" kind of man. I'm also going to be that kind of parent to my son. He's only two, so winning and losing are foreign concepts to him, however they won't be when he's 32.

How does that "winning isn't everything; it's the only thing" quote apply to writing? Well, what is your writing goal? Is it to be able to hang published author behind your name whenever you introduce yourself at a cocktail party? That's fine. Is it to see your book next to all your heroes in Barnes & Noble? Knock yourself out. Do you want to be the next James Patterson and evolve (or devolve as some would say) from just a writer to a brand? Good luck to you. Whatever your goal is, you need to be clear about it and, this is the really important part, go all out until you reach it! Why quit if that's your goal? As Duke told Rocky when he was in the 15th round against the Russian, "all your strength, all your power, all your love, everything you got!" Now, a caveat if I may: be realistic about your goal. If you can't write a legible paragraph, then your desire to out-King King will probably not happen. But set your goal and win at it; that's all that should matter to you.

Lombardi is also the guy who said "The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work." If you don't write a lot, read a lot and then work hard at your craft, then why keep doing it? I am not perfect (read my book and find out, it comes out May 15... how's that for a plug!), but I am working on it. I am trying my best to get better with every sentence. And if the last sentence sucks, then I make the next one better. If you aren't working, you'll never get to that goal you set earlier.

The coach was asked once why he ran and worked his players so hard at practice. He replied, "Fatigue makes cowards of us all." Ever get the sinking feeling that the only people to read your work will be your spouse and maybe the hacker who cracked your email password? Ever feel like everything you are working toward, everything you have poured your all into is never going to happen? That's writer's fatigue setting in, and it can make you into a coward. You can curl up into the metaphorical fetal position (or literal for that matter) and just give up. Or you can bust your butt, push through and keep working. It's what would make the coach happy.

The last coaching point, as we call it football, I'll share is my favorite all-time sports quote ever: "I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious." Read that one again. Now, picture Karl Marlantes sitting in his home, a Vietnam vet who lived through hellish conditions, saw his buddies killed, was wounded in battle but somehow made it home. He worked on a novel called Matterhorn that told the real story of what he went through, in fictional form, for not years, but decades. Over thirty years after he started putting it on paper, he got to see his book in print. Then it became a best-seller. Amazon.com listed it as one of the best books of the year. People far and wide lauded it as the definitive book of the Vietnam War, telling the story of countless thousands who either didn't make it home or were unable to talk about the horrors they witnessed. Marlantes spent over three decades pouring his heart, his mind, his memories, his love, his strength, his will, everything into that book. And now he sits in that same chair where he wrote the book, probably exhausted in his soul, if not in his body. But he has a smile on his face because he is, to quote the coach, "victorious."

Whatever your goal is, you have to work. You have to want to win above everything else. But you also want the smile. You want to be lying on the field, with mud and sweat and blood pooling around you, as you close your eyes and taste, maybe for the first time, pure and simple victory. And what would Coach Lombardi say to you as he offered his hand and pulled you up?

"Good job. Enjoy it... for now," and with a pat on the butt, the coach turns, then calls over his shoulder to you. "Next season starts tomorrow."