My short Story Float, that was originally published in Tales from the Canyons of the Damned #3 is free for one more day. Don't miss out and get this title free.
Friday, December 9, 2016
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Monday, October 17, 2016
Make Money with this Real Survey Site
I know what you're already saying. That is if you took the time to actually click this blog link. You are thinking like I did. You're saying "Ya right, one more crap title saying I can make money online." Well you have come to a blog post that is actually telling you where to go if you would like to make a little money from doing surveys. I do use this site myself, and lately I have had people ask me how I make money online. Well here is one of the ways.
The site is paidviewpoint.com. This is one of the only legit survey sites that actually pays you money for your opinion on things. It costs nothing to participate in, and they pay you for every survey you complete. Yup, no bull. They send you the money right to your Paypal account after you have hit a 15 dollar threshold. I have made over fifty bucks in the last month pressing buttons on my phone. I get an email that says I got a survey waiting for me. I complete it. I get my money.
So if you would like to make a few bucks here and there for doing pretty much playing on your phone. Which you are going to do anyway. Get started with paid viewpoint.
Get started here
Monday, October 10, 2016
Ernie Writes Books: Hey! Those X-Ray glasses were legit!
Ernie Writes Books: Hey! Those X-Ray glasses were legit!: When I was a kid, I loved comic books. I loved the stories filled with action and accompanied by drawings that seemed to jump off the page...
Hey! Those X-Ray glasses were legit!
When I was a kid, I loved comic books. I loved the stories filled with action and accompanied by drawings that seemed to jump off the page into my wide excited eyes. As I got older, I read books without the pictures. Instead, the writing drew the pictures in my head. The stories were the same though. These stories called Pulp fiction. I read writers like Richard Matheson, and Phillip K. Dick. I read Sci-Fi Anthologies, and collections of stories by Stephen King. These writers wrote the stories I liked. They came complete with dark stairs that lead to the basement where you knew the monster lived, but still you read.
They were stories about regular people who got taught lessons in life by supernatural characters. Some of the stories were funny, and always entertaining, and some were dark and scary. These made you think about all of those weird noises you heard late at night. "What was that..." Just the wind I guess.
These "Pulp" stories were the ones that made me want to become a writer. I would read these and try to weave my own ending, trying to figure out the conclusion before I got to the end of the story. Most times I was wrong, but I got better as I got older and read more.
Pulp fiction gets the least amount of credit these days. People look at it as not serious writing. They call these stories "Twilight Zoners" A term I have never understood because the twilight zone always told the best and most entertaining stories! I don’t think you would have the smash hit Stranger Things, or the oldie but goodie Lost, if it wasn’t for the Twilight Zone.
Why do people read if they don't want to be entertained? If you are reading a book so you can give it a review, or tell your friends you read it. Just so you can sound smart in certain circles... You have missed the point of reading fiction! You will never get that time back. The time you spent reading that boring book that some critic called a tour de force!
You get older and almost feel you will be shunned by the “serious readers” if you say your favorite writer is Stephen King. Hey, I've read Infinite Jest. David Foster Wallace was a great writer, and I loved that book. But as far as storytelling goes, he couldn't hold a candle to Richard Matheson's Bid Time Return. You may know it as a movie called Somewhere in Time, starring a young Christopher Reeve, and Jane Seymour. Yes, Matheson wrote that. And he wrote many Twilight Zone episodes.
So before I get long winded, let me tell you why I wrote this. I wrote this because I have seen reviews that seemed to have missed the point. Reviews that called stories I loved, or wrote for that matter, "Twilight Zoners." To which I have to say Thank you! I'll take your three star "Twilight Zoner" Review. But what I want to know is, were you entertained? Did the story help you leave your hassle filled life just for a moment? Did you get to escape? Because that is all that matters.
Don't be the person who doesn't want to know if that Submarine in the back of the comic book really worked. You remember, the one for $6.98 plus postage.
Don't be the person who is too smart to believe those X-Ray glasses were just worthless pieces of plastic.
Be a kid! You don't have to grow up if you will simply let yourself enjoy the story you are reading without critiquing it as you go. Not everything has to be Shakespeare. Who was a great Pulp fiction writer I might add. Yes, feed your brain, but don’t forget to have fun.
I write Pulp Fiction in these Anthologies. With other “Twilight Zoner” writers, of “Twilight Zoner” stories. If you would like to read and be entertained, you can pick up the latest Tales from the Canyons of the Damned.
Maybe it will remind you what it was like to read under covers with a flashlight late at night. You remember. Your mom told you to go to bed. You dutifully laid down. She kissed you on the cheek and said good night. She closed the door, leaving just a crack, so some light would come through. You waited for her footsteps to get down the hall. Reaching under your pillow, (never under the bed), and grabbed your flash light and latest edition of Tales from the Crypt. You read for hours, getting to the part where the Mummies hand is pushing back the large stone of his dusty grave.
.
You hear a noise in your silent house… “What was that…?” Probably just the wind…
Friday, August 26, 2016
Confessions of a spoiled Indie Writer
Confessions of a Spoiled Indie Writer
My mother was a writer. She wrote a couple of books, and many screenplays. All of them she submitted to publishers who turned her down usually with a very impersonal rejection letter. She would get the “it’s not what we are looking for,” or “you need to put this together the right way. Meaning she didn’t send her manuscript in a box, with the pages loose leafed. Back in those days you had to jump through many hoops just get your book read.
Later in her life she actually did sell a screenplay. It was a story about two couples who are opposites, end up getting the same hotel room by mistake, and have to stay in it together. Kind of like the Odd Couple on vacation. A few years later my mom succumbed to lung Cancer.
Where am I going with this…?
I guess my point would be how spoiled I am as an indie writer. I have published many short stories, a couple books, and I have been in an anthology. Tales from the Canyons of the Damned, maybe you’ve heard of it. If you haven’t you can get it here.
I guess the whole spoiled notion came to me while I was browsing Facebook. I’m friends with many authors on there, so I get to see lots of different insights through other authors eyes. Some are doing very well for themselves, while others… not so much. And it is the later few I want to talk about, and say this. Just the sole fact that your stories are being read is a miracle by past standards. Back in the day independent writers were looked at as the ones who couldn’t cut it. They were the weirdos with weird-looking books, and they were not taken seriously. They were the old history teacher that would sit outside of bookstores and sell half assed copies of their books out of a trunk. They were your friend that would hound you to read their book.
We are spoiled now.
There are tools to make your book look professional. There is social media to get the word out. And there is ways to connect with fellow authors to get insight, and encouragement. So… Quit whining. We live in a time when the gatekeepers have been burned at the stake! You can write what ever you want. And even if it’s not that good someone will read it. It is the greatest time to be an author. Quit feeling sorry for yourself, and get writing.
My mother never had this chance. She died just a bit to soon. But she would have taken advantage of indie publishing, and she wouldn’t have complained once. She would have loved it. Because she would have been doing something she loved anyway… Writing.
Later in her life she actually did sell a screenplay. It was a story about two couples who are opposites, end up getting the same hotel room by mistake, and have to stay in it together. Kind of like the Odd Couple on vacation. A few years later my mom succumbed to lung Cancer.
Where am I going with this…?
I guess my point would be how spoiled I am as an indie writer. I have published many short stories, a couple books, and I have been in an anthology. Tales from the Canyons of the Damned, maybe you’ve heard of it. If you haven’t you can get it here.
I guess the whole spoiled notion came to me while I was browsing Facebook. I’m friends with many authors on there, so I get to see lots of different insights through other authors eyes. Some are doing very well for themselves, while others… not so much. And it is the later few I want to talk about, and say this. Just the sole fact that your stories are being read is a miracle by past standards. Back in the day independent writers were looked at as the ones who couldn’t cut it. They were the weirdos with weird-looking books, and they were not taken seriously. They were the old history teacher that would sit outside of bookstores and sell half assed copies of their books out of a trunk. They were your friend that would hound you to read their book.
We are spoiled now.
There are tools to make your book look professional. There is social media to get the word out. And there is ways to connect with fellow authors to get insight, and encouragement. So… Quit whining. We live in a time when the gatekeepers have been burned at the stake! You can write what ever you want. And even if it’s not that good someone will read it. It is the greatest time to be an author. Quit feeling sorry for yourself, and get writing.
My mother never had this chance. She died just a bit to soon. But she would have taken advantage of indie publishing, and she wouldn’t have complained once. She would have loved it. Because she would have been doing something she loved anyway… Writing.
Friday, June 10, 2016
Banana Phone, not a podcast. Unboxing
Got some paperbacks in the mail the other day of my new book The Pool.
Excerpt from THE POOL
"Shawn walked up to the door of the bar. The familiar smell was comforting; stale beer and cigarette smoke that seemed to be embedded into these types of bars as if the wood soaked it up just like the patrons who sought refuge in their pint glasses.
It was fitting. If he was going to break his sobriety, he might as well break his prohibition on cigarettes. He hadn’t had a cigarette for longer than he’d had a drink.
He paused with his hand resting on the handle of the door. The last bit of better angels pleaded with Shawn to turn around and go back to the room. Back to sobriety and back to his family. He almost did, but the clinking of glasses rang in his ears like a siren’s song. Shawn opened the door and walked through. He wasn’t listening to those angels tonight, even if they were right.
The bar was so familiar. There were four people sitting at the bar, regulars who were more than likely permanently rooted in the stools they sat on. Shawn spied the bartender talking with one of the regulars. Her home dye job screamed white trash and her sunken eyes screamed something else. She had the look of being rooted in this place just like her patrons."
It was fitting. If he was going to break his sobriety, he might as well break his prohibition on cigarettes. He hadn’t had a cigarette for longer than he’d had a drink.
He paused with his hand resting on the handle of the door. The last bit of better angels pleaded with Shawn to turn around and go back to the room. Back to sobriety and back to his family. He almost did, but the clinking of glasses rang in his ears like a siren’s song. Shawn opened the door and walked through. He wasn’t listening to those angels tonight, even if they were right.
The bar was so familiar. There were four people sitting at the bar, regulars who were more than likely permanently rooted in the stools they sat on. Shawn spied the bartender talking with one of the regulars. Her home dye job screamed white trash and her sunken eyes screamed something else. She had the look of being rooted in this place just like her patrons."
Get it here>>>> http://amzn.to/1Uo9GgN
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