Un-Friended

How many of you have been un-friended by a friend on Facebook--not just someone you met on facebook, but someone you actually know in your life, have either worked with them, or you simply have a friendship with them?
Well, I've known this person for years, he worked with me at one point, and then rode my bus, and we enjoyed conversations on any topic. If nothing else we merely agreed we weren't ready for our day.

Then, one day I discovered he un-friended me on face book.

I figured out it's because of having "Liked" someone--a political figure--on facebook. Not that it matters to anyone, but the reason I did is because he made things just so interesting, volatile, controversial and he wasn't afraid to say what was on his mind. Sort of the opposite of all the other candidates who candy coat everything. I figured he would make this election year something to look forward to. Like 4th of July fireworks. It doesn't mean I like everything he stands for, or that I'd vote for him.

But I digress...

You see this friend--or I should say ex-friend--has a bugaboo about his politics. He takes them very seriously. He won't so much as step into a store it he feels their political backing is in question (such as either not supporting abortion, etc). So, I knew how dangerous it was as my finger hovered over the mouse and I clicked LIKE.



But I have to say I didn't know that he had un-friended me. Not until I noticed he wasn't waving to me or especially when he got on my bus for the first time this year after a long break and I said "Happy New Year" to him, and he just said "Yes" and instead of standing near me on the bus as I drove to speak with me, he went and sat down.

Well, I wasn't sure what was going on until I got home and checked to see if he was still on my friend list. I couldn't find him, and when I typed in his name to find him, there it was, I could send him a "friend request". Which I didn't, of course.

And there was no explanations. Just BOOM! I'm unfriended.

That's how seriously he takes his politics.

I'm doo-doo to him, now.

So, this week, it was super obvious when I see this ex-friend walking all the way to work, and believe me when I saw him across the street while waiting for the light, I didn't wave. I ignored him.

After discovering this bit of quiet, or behind-the-back, chicken-shit sort of behavior. I guess I'm not getting any sort of explanation why. I get it. I do.

Well, I got over it. 

Someone gets that cranked off because of my "liking" something or someone they don't like...

The Photo Shoot for Cover

It was a beautiful day to get some shots of Paul Cummings' awesome tattoo. It's called, "Dracula's cross". What do you think?

My friends where I work agreed to do this for me. Mark Wojcicki is the photographer. Paul Cummings was my arm model. I needed Paul to hold a "dagger" for this, and I chose his arm because of the cool tat. This is for the cover of my stand-alone book, Dhampir Legacy, which I'm still working on.

Paul's grandparents are from Romania and he decided to get this tat called "Dracula's cross". The writing above it says "Live your life in Romania".

If I figure out how to take the arm holding the stake and paste it onto a background picture, I'll be ecstatic! That'll be great!

But the book isn't finished yet, so I've got a while before I have to worry about it. 

Spell of the Black Unicorn & A Little Help from Friends

Back in the day, as a writer I had very little help, absolutely no feedback, except for when I was in a writer's critique circle-which was way long ago. Now, with the Internet, I'm connecting with other writers all over, and other people who can do things I simply cannot. You've got your beta readers, people who can do covers, and also someone to format the manuscript.

There's no way I could have gotten Spell of the Black Unicorn ready to put out as an ebook without my friends, and I'll name them here and give them all a shout out and have some links where you can find them.

Shelly Arkon is my awesome beta reader. I don't know how I could get a better one. I don't believe I could. I'm not sure if she rolled her eyes at my use of the word "peer" so many times in the manuscript, but yeah, it was one of my "crush" words. She often said something encouraging, telling me I was an awesome story teller. You can find this talented author here at Secondhand Shoes (also the name of her own book)

Since my novel was origninally published as a paperback in 2008, it sort of went by the wayside. I wanted to allow the story to see new light, because a lot of people bought and said nice things about it. It also needed a new cover. Something that looked interesting and that might give it the look of something trendy, with the fantasy undertones it needed, without looking too much like a children's book (or YA), which it is not. Well, answering the call for creating a great cover was my good friend Jeremy Hawkins. You can find Mr. Retro-Zombie at this site. Here is the cover, in case you've missed it.


Isn't that a nice cover? It really caught me by surprise. I didn't know what Jeremy would have in mind when he said he could do this for me. We had to work on the lettering, a little to make it brigher, but it's perfect!

Now I don't know how many of you out there can format, or know what you're doing, but I've got no idea about it. Although I did format the original book for the publishers to put it out as a paperback, I had very good instructions (and still had to pay $400 for them to get it printed). So, I needed a formatter. I have a friend in Carole Gill, and she offered her husband, John's help in this area. His services are called White Rose Ebook Formatting. His service is straight forward and he's excellent. I highly recommend him. He also does book covers, and has helped me with a few of my short story covers. I had pictures, and he put in the lettering, got the correct size of the cover/picture and so forth. He was also able to up-load one for me, as I had trouble doing it. So, he's very reliable and flexible in what he can do for anyone in need of formatting and covers and so forth.
This weekend I will be getting the ebook to Amazon. Wish me luck. I was unable to get the high speed Internet service. It's too complicated to explain here. Suffice it to say I'm still on dial up. Yes. I'm as patient as a fool, I guess. I had a feeling I this was not going to work for me.

Hopefully the next post I will write will be where you can get your hands on the ebook copy of Spell of the Black Unicorn. Untill then, my friends!