Go check it out, true believers!

Indie Books Blog has a feature up this morning of Transfigured!  But before we even arose from bed this morning at the Casa del Pino Blanco, the wife was greeted with a phone call from a superintendent offering her a new teaching position for the fall!

I'm so happy and excited for her! I can't type anything without exclamation points this morning I'm so excited!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, that out of my system, hopefully we can return to periods. I have to give thanks to the Lord for His blessings here. We, along with countless family and friends have prayed without ceasing that God would place Misty where He wanted her, and I believe with the countless applications, interviews, and now with this morning's phone call, God has heard and answered our prayers.

So, in celebration for Misty and her new teaching position, everyone go out and buy Transfigured and Injected. Get it at Amazon (get the eBook and paperback both!), Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords...the more copies you purchase means you're more excited for her, right?  I kid, I kid...

Thank you to everyone out there again for your love, support, and prayers.

All the time, God is good....and God is good all the time! :)

Enjoy the ride!

Transfigured = Featured! :)

Hola, true believers! The Casa del Pino Blanco has been a beehive of activity...just not writing as of late...

I've taken a bit of a work-cation from writing to apply my not-so-know-how to some home repair projects. So far, my wife and I have sanded our front and back decks, stained the back deck, filled in dents and dings in drywall throughout the house, sanded and touch-up painted those, painted her bathroom, and painted a prominent wall in our living room (bright RED! It looks awesome!).

We still have a couple of things to do on the list (staining the front deck when we get enough days without rain, painting my bathroom, painting and replacing moulding, and some caulking), but I thought I'd come out of hiding for a second to let everyone know about a bit of fantastic news regarding Transfigured.

Tomorrow morning, Transfigured will be featured on the Indie Books Blog! This is my first featured blog post, and I am very excited to have the good readers of the Indie Books Blog (which I frequent daily) be exposed to my work. You can check it out at http://indiebooksblog.blogspot.com.

For those who might not know, Transfigured is available at Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, Smashwords.com, and in paperback through CreateSpace (purchase from Amazon or CreateSpace). Injected, the prequel to Transfigured, is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the iBookstore through iTunes. Transfigured will be coming to Apple's iTunes iBookstore very soon!

Thanks to all of you out there for all your support, love, and well-wishes. Writing has always been a passion of mine, and I've been writing in various forms (short stories, poetry, newspaper articles, etc.) since middle school. It gives me much joy to finally be able to share my work with the world, and not just as Christmas and birthday presents (ask my wife and mother, both of whom have multiple framed poems displayed!)...

Much love to you all, and keep believing!

Enjoy the ride!

The Great Canine Solstice Adventure!

What were you doing at 1:00 A.M. last night?

Were you nestled snugly in your bed, fast asleep?  My wife and I, after performing the Solstice Egg Trick, were about to go to bed.

On the Summer (and Winter) Solstice, you can stand an egg on its end easily.

Anyway...I was attempting to play a joke on my wife, who went out on the back deck to retrieve a mat we put outside to dry (little Dixie was scared of the vacuum and peed on it). I locked the backdoor behind her, and when she tried to get back in, well, she couldn't. I laughed, opened the door, and in the excitement, Dixie ran right out the door and into the freedom of the backyard.

Dixie is an indoor dog. She lives in the house with us, and when she goes outside, its always on a leash because our county has leash laws, and we try to be nice, responsible citizens. Since Dixie is leash-trained, when she gets out of the house and 'escapes,' she runs all over the neighborhood, which is about a mile long because we live in the country.

At 1:00 in the morning, Dixie, our BLACK LAB, ran off into the darkness, making her way straight to her boyfriend Ranger's house to look for her playmate. (Our neighbors have a chocolate lab named Ranger that Dixie likes to play with, whenever the dogs are both outside, they always look at one another longingly...) Ranger wasn't outside, so she ran to the next house that has dogs, but they weren't out either.

This led her about a half a mile down the road towards the next house with dogs, and after returning to our property whistling and calling for her, I finally couldn't hear her little tags tinkling in the darkness anymore, so I grabbed a flashlight to go looking for her. Misty had already taken the car and driven down to try and corral her, but she wouldn't get in, so off I went for the night hike.

I finally encountered Dixie about a half-mile down the road, trying to play with neighbor dogs she didn't know, which were running her off the property again and again. I shined the flashlight on her (a Mag-lite, with a powerful beam, like the ones police and military use), and she bolted towards our house, scared of the light.

Thankfully, Misty was out on the back deck, called for Dixie once she neared the house, and the scared, exhausted pup ran right into her arms.

My wife is a fantastic woman. She showed me much in the way of grace last night. When Dixie returned, finally, she praised her, loved on the puppy, gave her food and water, and acted happy and overjoyed to see her again (which we both were), instead of beating the devil out of her, which we also both wanted to do. I love Misty very much...she continues to make me a better man each day. :)

(AWWWW...that's so sweet!)

At 2:00 A.M., we finally got into bed. That was the end of the Great Canine Solstice Adventure, and now, this morning our puppy lies sleeping hard, still exhausted from her hour-long night run through the neighborhood.

Lesson to be learned? I'll leave the philosophy to you.

Until then, enjoy the ride! :)

NOW is the time, HERE is the place!

First off: my apologies for Friday, as the Casa del Pino Blanco took a break from the writing game, a brief pause in the world of spilling my mind's contents.

I attempted to search all over Internet-dom for the past hour, trying to discover that one fantastic thing to write about, to interest readers, to spark creativity, and alas, here's what I found:

• Video game programmers creating micro-games (one was 16X16 pixels, another, tinier one was a version of Defender played in the 8X8 pixel icon that appears in web browser URL windows, called a favricon. Which I also didn't know- the icon that appears next to your web addresses, it's called a 'favricon.')
• A performance artist hugged his father for 24 hours inside a boxing ring for Father's Day.
• A blogger thinks Star Wars' original appeal was that the universe originally felt 'dirty and lived in for a millennium,' therefore we were fascinated.
• An Australian comic has created a new alternative to the YouTube phenomenon of planking, called 'cone-ing,' which people can perform by driving up to a drive-thru window, and upon ordering an ice cream cone, attempting to take the cone from the employee in the most awkward way possible. (*I must admit, I watched the video, and while the third, fourth, and fifth cone-ings weren't AS hilarious, the first was a tremendous win...I LOLed, for realz, but wasn't moved to ROFL, or LMAO, or any other types of internet acronym inspired laughter. Therefore: look it up on YouTube, as it wasn't THAT funny as to post a link.)

So, that brings us to this point, when I follow Hemingway, King, and countless others' writing advice: put your butt in the seat and write.

Two things are circling my mind:

ONE: Books are not selling, period. I believe we've sold a grand total of 32 eBooks, and about 20 or so paperbacks. After a great conversation with a friend of my PR whiz cousin, a fellow author named Dick, who inspired me to keep moving forward, I found quickly that social media kind of...petered out. (Like Weiner-gate news after his resignation! Hoo-ray! No more mainstream media penis jokes!)

My aforementioned PR whiz cuz spoke with me last night, and gave me some tips about 'tagging' and such, but me and Facebook haven't always been the best of friends, nor Twitter, as most of the time I can't find the point of knowing what someone had for lunch, or when they woke up or went to bed, or whatever other nonsense people post...which probably speaks more about me than about social media.

WAR, by Sebastian Junger.

TWO: This weekend, the wifey and I finished watching Restrepo (a film by Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington, recently killed covering events in Libya) finally, after having it on the DVR for months. As soon as Sebastian Junger's WONDERFUL book, WAR, came out, I bought in hardcover and read it frantically.


Junger was imbedded with Battle Company in Afghanistan at Outpost Restrepo for a year, and his book chronicles the building and fortification of the outpost. Restrepo was named for 'Doc' Juan Restrepo, Battle Company's beloved charismatic medic, who died in battle upon Battle Company's taking of the much-contested hill.

One platoon, one valley, one year. Do yourself a favor: check this movie out.

Seeing the battles and strife unfold on screen after having read the first-hand account gave me a renewed sense of love and appreciation for the mission of our military. It also made me realize this caveat, 'They're out there busting their tails so I can wake up at ten, watch some movies, fart around all day, and post "Going to bed" on Facebook.'



I decided Saturday night to get back on track, back on schedule, stop whining and bemoaning myself and put my butt in the seat. If for no other reason than I have lots of stories in my head, which people cannot read until I type them all out, since the might of the entire U.S. military force has my back, at home and abroad. God bless them all, always and forever.

So...off I go to continue the chronicles of Carter Jones, the number four gunslinger in the Official Duelist Series, though the wifey REALLY wants me to write the second and third books of the Oathtaker Series...So we'll see which one wins out! :)

Until that fantastic day when I can write for a living rather than teach, my butt is planted back in the seat, raring to go! Oo-rah!

Enjoy the ride!