Jim Tench enjoys the challenge of custom building race cars in the Chesapeake harbor town of River Sunday/. When his friend, Captain Bob, is found drowned, he assumes along with everyone else that it was a tragic fishing accident. Bob’s grandson, Smote Rojos, insists that he was murdered and draws Tench into the investigation.
Clues seem to implicate Strake, a wealthy oilman and collector of antique automobiles. Tench knows that family from his past – he is still passionately in love with Strake’s talented daughter Julie.
When a visiting African author begins to agitate for violent change and a bomb explodes in River Sunday because of her testimony before the United Nations, the search for answers becomes more urgent. Tench races against time to prevent the terror from escalating, with only the wisp of a clue, “Black-Eyed Susan”, to guide him through the darkness.
Part of the proceeds from the sale of Thomas Hollyday fiction and non-fiction goes to support drinking water resources for wildlife.
I have been working with keywords both in the # and in the search. I use these for my free ebook offers. It seems to be a way to get to a lot of sites. Essentially I am duplicating the hashtag with an actual entry on the site. More later on results. Tom
Thomas Hollyday grew up with boats, enthusiastically exploring the maze-like waterways of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. As he grew older, powerful experiences with Civil Rights unrest and serving in Vietnam became the backbone for stories he knew should be told.
Life had a different plan for him. He became a successful international businessman. He started a family. Still, writing always called to him. He studied with C. Michael Curtis of Atlantic Monthly. He learned from Elliott Coleman at the John Hopkins Writing Seminars. His stories germinated and developed.
Finally the timing was just right. In 2000, quite early in the self-publishing era, Tom released his very first full length novel, Slave Graves. He set this in the fictional town of River Sunday on the Chesapeake Bay. In his novel Tom addresses the turmoil and power of his life’s experiences. He blends modern-day troubles with historic challenges His characters are veterans and protesters, blacks and whites, from all walks of life. They shine with the power of emotion from all the experiences Tom has lived through.
Readers connected powerfully with this story – it currently has 87 reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4.1. Thomas has written six more books in the River Sunday series, with the latest, Easter Sunday, just released a short while ago.
Tom is perhaps the ideal example of a writer who finds a way to make time for his passion. His schedule is extremely tight and he has to actively carve out even small chunks of time to work on his writing. Day by day, piece by piece, the new story comes to life.
Tom also is a poster boy for starting your writing at whatever stage of life you’re in. It’s never too late. He began this series after a full career in business. He invested the time to hone his craft – and the results speak for themselves.
He also puts effort into marketing. He attends book fairs, posts on his blog, and runs ads to ensure his books are found by new readers. In our modern world, books rarely sell themselves. Tom does what it takes to get his writings discovered by an eager audience.
I was reviewing the other day why I got into the challenge of writing a novel. I suppose the childhood effort to entertain my siblings with stories and drawings was part of it. Then I was entranced by years in the writing seminars at Hopkins. The encouragement was spotty as I never worked in writing jobs. I worked in business and education.
Along came the years after I had returned from the war -Vietnam- and there was this persistent urge to do something about the state of the world. I could not be a politician because I was not a personality type. So I sat back and worked on expressing politics any way I could. I drew cartoons and had them published. I wrote articles about Maryland and had them published.
However, even though I had written stories before, I had not thought of them as political stories. Now I did. I took the region of the Chesapeake much like other authors had taken their own homes. From this I looked at world problems like freedom, homelessness, racism, greed and terror. I engaged my characters in combating the evil that kept these issues form being solved.
As my characters and stories got better I received reviews that suggested I was on the right track. So here I am now, a political storyteller, in some sense fulfilled.
I’ve come to the conclusion that reading books by listening to unabridged audio books has to have more applause from all of us readers. To be exact, it’s got to have fans who think it may be a pretty good replacement for the drudgery and wasted time of eye reading. Think about it. Eye reading requires a quiet spot, stopping all that you are otherwise doing, and owning a book or computer which will have print the right size to see well. These fans would see the value of ear reading or listening, similar to the phenomenon that has propelled music to the point of using an substantial amount of our daily waking attention.
Centuries ago there would not have been such a choice about stories. Stories were told and retold orally at all levels of society. Narrators or storytellers had their due, rated as highly as any other actor for their inflections, voices and humor. The change came with the printed book and the act of possession of a story. The reader now owned the story as property and could read and reread with a personal inflection, good or bad.
Today, we can return to the oral storytelling if we wish. It’s not such a bad choice. Many times the eyes do not read as well as the ears. The mind and ear partnership can provide so much more enjoyment with the voice of a gifted narrator than what the mind and eyes can do alone.
So, its not always a bad choice to go backward to a better way of storytelling.
Let’s assume that we still write the way we were taught in the old days at our writing schools. The word was express yourselves, be true to yourselves, and whatever you do, don’t write for the money. To be absolutely sure you are true to yourself, you write only about what you honestly believe. You write without undue pressure to succeed. Yes, you might even get a real job and write only as a hobby.
Today if you follow that concept here’s what you have. Let’s assume you have come to writing later in your life after you have put away enough money to live on. You start by printing chapters of your book in a blog and gaining readers. Then you send your book to dozens of worthy agents using quick email. If you don’t succeed in these efforts to get a publisher, you publish yourself at a very low cost. Without a publisher footing the bill, you do your own editing. Added to that you hire a consultant to promote your book. Critical reviews can be found to improve your standing in the markets.
So what does this mean for the present day writer? The old saying is still good. Be true to yourself. Write what you feel. If you write well and your book is interesting, you should get attention. Note, I said interesting. Here’s the catch about being true to yourself. Many writers get a mental block that what they are saying is very important to the reading public. Then they spend a lot of time and money trying to convince that public that they are right. They may be wrong and that is why their books don’t sell. Just like in the old days, if it’s boring, better leave your book on your desk.
Let me know what you think from your own experiences.
Let’s assume that we still write the way we were taught in the old days at our writing schools. The word was express yourselves, be true to yourselves, and whatever you do, don’t write for the money. To be absolutely sure you are true to yourself, you write only about what you honestly believe. You write without undue pressure to succeed. Yes, you might even get a real job and write only as a hobby.
Today if you follow that concept here’s what you have. Let’s assume you have come to writing later in your life after you have put away enough money to live on. You start by printing chapters of your book in a blog and gaining readers. Then you send your book to dozens of worthy agents using quick email. If you don’t succeed in these efforts to get a publisher, you publish yourself at a very low cost. Without a publisher footing the bill, you do your own editing. Added to that you hire a consultant to promote your book. Critical reviews can be found to improve your standing in the markets.
So what does this mean for the present day writer? The old saying is still good. Be true to yourself. Write what you feel. If you write well and your book is interesting, you should get attention. Note, I said interesting. Here’s the catch about being true to yourself. Many writers get a mental block that what they are saying is very important to the reading public. Then they spend a lot of time and money trying to convince that public that they are right. They may be wrong and that is why their books don’t sell. Just like in the old days, if it’s boring, better leave your book on your desk.
Let me know what you think from your own experiences.
