The Logging Town, an Excerpt

I'm going to post excerpts from my latest book concerning the Adventures of Curtis, Connie, and Cosmic Cat. If anybody finds them interesting let me know. In any case, have a good day. The book involves the family's visit to the small logging town that Dan, the father, works in.


The bear reared up on its hind legs and growled at them. Curtis told Connie not to move. The bear would chase them if they ran. It continued to stand on his hind legs and roared once in awhile. Connie and Curtis stood where they were and watched the bear. The bear stood and watched them. They didn’t know what to do.
“Connie, hand me the string of fish. Do it slowly,” Curtis whispered.
“Here,” Connie said as she placed the string in Curtis’s left hand that he had stretched back to her. When he got the string of fish, he slowly pulled it up to where he could hold the string just a little ways above the fish with his right hand.
“If this works we’re going to turn around and climb up on top of one of these big rocks. Be ready when I say go,” Curtis said.
Curtis, without making too quick of a motion, flung the fish at the bear. The bear caught them in his mouth. At the very same moment, that the bear caught the fish in his mouth, Cosmic Cat leapt off a tall rock beside the bear and landed on the bear’s head. Before Curtis and Connie could successfully get out of the way, the bear let out a tremendous muffled roar, lowered his front paws to the ground and ran forward over Curtis and Connie with Cosmic Cat still on his head.
“Connie, are you hurt?” Curtis asked her.
“I don’t think so, at least not very much. I don’t seem to have any broken bones and I don’t think I’m bleeding. What about you?”
“I’m not sure. I have to look and see.”
They took turns looking at each other but could only find scrapes and abrasions with what may turn into some big bruises later. It was difficult to tell as they had cuts, abrasions and bruises on top of their old cuts, abrasions and bruises. As they were finishing their examinations, Cosmic Cat showed up. He was dragging the string of fish behind him. Members of his pride caught the fish and he wasn’t going to let the bear keep them if he could help it. He was a proud cat as he dragged the fish up to Curtis and Connie. He had saved the fish and provided food for his pride. He had done good.

Spent part of the day out in the garden getting it ready for a hard freeze tonight. This doesn't have a lot to do with writing but we all have to do odd chores. I'll be going over to a Wounded Warrior's facility tomorrow to help decorate Christmas trees. I did it last year and it was very worthwhile. I'm about half way through editing the third book in The Adventures of Curtis, Connie, and Cosmic Cat. It's going smoother than I expected it to. I put it aside a couple of months ago to give it time to be somewhat forgotten so I could address it afresh. It seems to have helped. I hope that everybody had a good Thanksgiving and are looking forward to a great Christmas.

I've gotten myself into a difficult situation. I'm attempting to correct and revise a full length science fiction book as well as finishing the third book in a pre-teen series. I'm also attempting to complete a teen book about witches and warlocks with a few wizards thrown in for good measure. These last two require about twenty or so line drawings for each of them. I've got to reassess the situation and concentrate on one project at a time. I seem to have at least a half a dozen going at once. Oh, well it will all work out.

Today's thoughts

I worked in my garden today for awhile. I'm getting ready to put some tomato plants out. The heat may kill them but all I can do is try. I'm going over to the local library tomorrow to see if I can convince anybody to read my science fiction manuscript, "Triad." I'd like to get a few none family members to read it to see if it is any good. Hopefully, they will support me in their enthusiasm for it. I've also returned to the witch manuscirpt I'm working on. It's going to require a number of drawings of older witches. It should be both interesting and challenging.

Science Fiction Work Triad

I've been printing a copy of my recent science fiction manuscript - Triad. I'm going to make a run on getting about a-half-a-dozen persons interested in reading it for me. Wish me luck. This seems to be one of the hardest things to do-find readers for our work. Especially since we're advised to not have relatives read for us. I'm going to visit a local library and see what I can do. Visit with the librarian and, hopefully, she's friendly and will help me. I've also decided to return to the third Adventure of Curtis, Connie, and Cosmic Cat and see if I can get it finished--at least as far as the writing goes. The drawings are something else.

Anybody figure out had the "new" immigration law of Arizona is based on racial profiling. The vast majority of the people coming across the boarder are "white." How can a white racially profile another white? What's our country coming to.

It seems like I have good intentions but that's about all. I plan on keeping up a blog at least every-other day but it doesn't seem to work out. Has anybody been watching Glen Beck's Founding Father's Fridays? Every American should as it's one of the few places that the actual history of the founding of our country is being taught. I don't wish to demean those who are actually exposing others to the actual history but most of our educators don't know it themselves so they can't teach it.

I sent in the completed manuscript for my recent book, Triad, to a publisher. Anybody read any of my previous work? I hope to get back to doing the illustrations for my writing about an elderly family of witches, warlocks, and wizards. Everybody have a good day.

Writing

I've not written much lately, as I've been busy. My daughter visited for a week and we did a lot of other things--such as cleaning out the garage. I had to break down and mow the yard too. If I hadn't I would have had to get a bailer attachment for my mower. I've been working on completing the adolescent novel, "The Logging Camp." I took a wrong direction and need to redo the last section. We can't be perfect all of the time. I think I'll redo a previously written novel and see if it can be improved. My work seems to get better if I set it aside for a while and come back to it. Let you know how it's going later.

Science Fiction book, "Gods?"

I'm still working on making some minor corrections to the science fiction book, "Gods?". I should be submitting it to a publisher this weekend. I've also started back to work on the third book in the Adventures of Curtis, Connie, and Cosmic Cat series. I'm more comfortable calling it a collection than a series as one story doesn't necessarily follow directly behind the other. Still a lot of work to do on it as it will contain around twenty drawings.

Science Fiction book, "Gods?"

I've rewritten the beginning of the book and had to rewrite the detailed outline. Making changes seem to entail a lot of work at times. Oh, well that's the way it is. Anybody else doing any writing? Does anybody want to read sections of my book? I could paste a reasonable amount of it on my web page.

Update on writing

Doing a final review the science fiction book, "Gods?". I hope to send it to a publisher next week. My everyday life has been very hectic lately and I've not been able to dedicate myself to my work as much as I would like. It may settle down shortly. I've got my two books about The Adventures of Curtis, Connie, and Cosmic Cat being sold--slowly.

For anybody that's interested I'm starting to post excerpts from the book, Gods?. The first one is below:

Most couples only had one child, rarely did they have a second one, or if it they did, it usually didn’t live. They had learned that if a couple didn’t have a child in the first few years of their forming a union there probably would be no children from this couple. One of their customs encouraged wives to mate with males they knew to be fertile. This developed in an effort to increase the fertility rate.
“What’s so funny Mary?” Jason asked his wife the next morning.
“Two of the women have sent their husbands off on hunting trips and told them to be gone for at least two days. The two women have been making eyes at the traveler staying with us. It may be that they want to increase their chance of having a child. The subterfuge we go through is so obvious. Why don’t they just invite the stranger to their beds? Where do you think these lone travelers come from? One seems to pass through every few years. They don’t usually say much but are welcomed by us all.”
“I don’t know, I’ve asked them but I’ve never gotten a good answer. They just point in a general direction and say something like from over there. I expect our hunters will go a little ways away from camp and fish or something. They too want offspring and don’t have any. We must take any reasonable opportunity to have more children. If our doing it brings some pleasure to a few of the women it can’t be all bad can it?”
“No, it’s not all bad. Why don’t you go hunting sometime? It might be enjoyable to take advantage of one of these males as they pass through.”

Writing, Charlet, Cosmic Cat, Science Fiction

I've set my third book about the Adventures of Curtis, Connie, and Cosmic Cat aside for the moment. I'm attempting to reread my full length science fiction novel, "Charlet." It's basically complete and has been edited. I'm just checked for passive sentences and phrases. It should be complete in the next few days. I'll start posting excerpts from it. I need to decide if I'll take scattered paragraphs or post a complete chapter a few paragraphs or page at a time. Anybody have a preference? Let me know. I'll be back on the Adventures book by the end of the week--if everything goes right.

Writing update.

I'm still working on rewriting a novel. It'll be done this week, hopefully. I'll then be able to get back to my Cosmic Cat series of books for adolescents. It needs the last chapter and about twenty illustrations. Anybody have a good book agent out there that would like a new client? I made the mistake of watching the Dallas football game today. I should have worked on my novel. The Vikings showed up and a group of other people wearing Dallas uniforms were there. It's about all that can be said about them--they were there. In any case everybody have a good day.

Update on writing

I've got to get to this more often. It's been almost a month since I've been on this. I've spent some time recently rereading a previously written science fiction novels. I probably shouldn't have. It's sort of like writing a poem. When is a poem done? It's done when you get tired of working on it. I think a book is very similar. I did find a few errors and some sections that needed to be restructured but it wasn't bad. Out of 120,000 words I probably changed less than a 1,000. I'll start putting short sections of it up for people to read. I'm tired and have a head ache I think I'll shut this thing down and rest. Have a good day.