Best Review Yet

So, this could be the best review yet.

One of the things that is difficult when writing a mystery is giving the main character a reason to pursue the mystery themselves rather than just turn it over to the police. In the case of Vapor Trail I channeled my little brother. My little brother HATES police officers. I'm sure there's some reason for it, a bad experience or two, friends from high school he didn't like who became police, I don't know the specifics, but in the case of that mystery, I took his approach and had the main character despise the police. Well, that got under the skin of one of my readers.

I do wish I could write to Stephen and let him know that I, personally, love police. I'm very much a Blue Lives Matter guy in today's day and age. Truth is that I have several close friends who have all become police and I like and value the work they do. For several years I worked with a company that provided dash mounted video cameras and I got to see behind the scenes what police have to deal with day in and day out. I even have a concept for a novel about what of the more grizzly scenes I saw. So, I get it, Stephen. I understand the world of police and I support you all.

That being said, thanks for the best review ever. The fact that I had him hating my character but liking my writing says alot. I hope he does read this. Glad he liked the writing.

Bubbles

"Thin line between heaven and here."

Because of work, life, and school demands I have not had enough time to read for fun. I have still been writing for fun. In fact, I'm hoping to release a book of short stories soon, so my writing life is still going full bore. And I've started writing this blog again, so if anything, my life has changed positively for writing, but not as much for reading.

Great Reviews

I hope you won't mind a bit of egotism. I've been getting some wonderful reviews (here) and would love to share them with someone. These are all for Vapor Trail (here).

5.0 out of 5 stars Conspiracy theories and murder
Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2020
A former soldier finds himself dealing with conspiracies while investigating his boss's death. This is another Jack Reacher style thriller and it's done very well! I like a good thriller and this one is very well-written. The pacing is consistent and the characters are great. Hannah has a great writing style that's easy to follow and he wastes no time in throwing readers into the action. It's definitely a book that I'd recommend checking out if you're into this type of story. I'd also recommend it to those who are curious or looking for something different.

I don't mind hearing "Jack Reacher style thriller." I'll take that all day.

5.0 out of 5 stars Military thriller
Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2020
A well written military thriller with interesting characters (the protagonist took a little while for me to wrap my mind around, truth be told), and a good dose of real-world conspiracy for good measure.  Death, murder, and conspiracy are intertwined and complicated by family ties and friends past and present that keep you guessing and on the edge of your seat.

I enjoyed the intensity of this story and would recommend this book to anyone who tends to read in this genre!  

"Interesting characters" and "good dose of real world conspiracy" . . . those are things I can accept.

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice page turner
Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2020
This military thriller was quite a page turner. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The book was laced with conspiracy theories yet the plot was well done and easy for me to follow.

"Page turner". . . . thanks! Glad to hear it.

5.0 out of 5 stars Different in a really great way
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2020
I have a love/hate relationship with this book. The writing's impeccable while the story just kept on growing and growing on me until I couldn't put it down. It just took me some time to get into the character's head but that's probably me. All in all, I love this story and highly recommend it.

WOW! Impeccable writing! I'll take that all day every day!

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll love this mystery that must be solved.
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2020
Vapor Trail by Dick Hannah has well-developed characters and is full of unexpected twists. It provides a unique look into security and military and fitness buffs will enjoy the exercise and running. If you're into Dick Francis or Lawrence Sanders then this is the book for you.

And I'll take "unexpected twists" . . . this is a review I love.

5.0 out of 5 stars A mystery to follow
Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2020
Very intense with interesting plots. it took a while for me to guess around but very engaging. Great dose for my sunday coffee!

How did they know that I like coffee, and especially sunday coffee so much!

Does an ego good to hear so many good reviews in the past month or so.

Strangest Thing She's Ever Read

I follow a tweet called "@men_write_women." It's a series of samples from authors and readers who have read books about women or that include women written by male authors. Usually the posts are ridiculous writing of women by men.

Last nights post was especially strange. in face when I showed it to my wife she said "That's the strangest thing I've ever read."

The passage from last night was:

Standing in the middle of the bedroom, we take off each other's clothes.

He has a light, fumbling brutality, which several times makes me think that this time it'll cost me my sanity. In our dawning, mutual intimacy, I induce him to open the little slit in the head of his penis so I can put my clitoris inside and fuck him.

Not sure what a "light, fumbling brutality" is. Sounds to me like a contradiction. A "heavy, fumbling brutality," sure I can see that. "A thick, fumbling brutality," also sounds plausible. but a "light" one I don't get.

Then there's the "It'll cost me my sanity" line. Why? In what way does a "light fumbling brutality" lead to a loss of sanity?

Finally there's the absurd idea of being able to open the slit of a penis to allow a clitoris in to fuck it. Ludicrous. I don't even think it's possible and I can't imagine it would be enjoyable in the least.

I think my wife had it right . . . strangest thing I've ever read.

Character, Character, Character

In writing classes we are always taught that it is character that moves a reader to continue with a book or story. The plot can be wonderful and intriguing and engrossing but without a compelling character the reader will probably put the book down.

I think it's very interesting when I read a book about character(s) and the author has slammed so many at the reader, the reader can't help but be compelled by at least one.

When I was in high school I read The Fountainhead and loved it. I thought it was the best book I had ever read. I loved the struggle that Howard Roark went through and how he fell for Dominique. Then I saw a tweet last year that basically said that Ayn Rand novels were perfect for teens but that adults should see through them. I put that theory to the test.

The theory (at least in my case) was correct.

I didn't care about Howard or Peter or Dominique or any of them. Their motivations were insane to me, their caring was silly, their struggles seemed false.

Now I'm reading WEB Griffin's, The Lieutenants. I would have sworn I had already read this book, but now, reading it, I don't know if I have. But what's funny is that there may be one central character (Sandy Felter I'm guessing), but there are twenty or more characters just as central to the plot as Sandy. So even if the reader doesn't like Sandy, there's bound to be one of the other twenty that the reader will like.

This is the type of book I might write next. This National Novel Writing Month I may finish out Sunset Perfect, but somewhere on the horizon there is a multi-character novel just waiting to be released.

Things Have Slowed . . .

Things may have slowed, but it's still trickling . . .just in the wrong way.

What's that mean?

I'm writing . . . in fact I'm writing alot. But I'm writing for work not for fun. I'm writing a white paper about my new company and our newer tools and solutions. This is absurd for many reasons.

I am the newest member of the company and yet I'm the one who is tasked with writing about it. That doesn't say much about my colleagues I suppose, but I like to think it says volumes about my abilities and the confidence my boss/bosses have in me.

I say, "in me" and not "in my writing" because they haven't seen any of my writing. So it must just be confidence in me.

I just wrote:

How can this ability affect a single contractor? The Houston Area Safety Council has trained 1,043 people for one of our Houston Area Contractor Members in the past 365 days. For the past year this contractor benefited from 6,735 courses in which a Basic Plus or Basic Plus Refresher course was already taken for other sites. Assuming the $25 dollars per unit price and the same $28/hour average from before, this contractor would have paid $168,375.00 on the Basic Plus and Basic Plus Refresher courses and would have had to pay $565,740.00 which translates to a total savings over the year of $734,115.00.

Not my most compelling writing.

Here's the next most silly part . . .

I've never written a white paper. Nope . . . never written a white paper. I've written oodles of term papers, and tons of marketing material, but never blended the two into one to make a white paper. It's taken a bit so far, but I'm making progress. The sad part of all of this is that its taking away from my daily ration of writing that I might put toward writing Sunset Perfect.

I'll get back to it though . . . National Novel Writing Month is closing in.

Good to be Back

I've posted it before (see here), but persistence is more important to writing than any other factor. I've been writing this past weekend and it feels good to get back into writing.

Coolidge said it best when he talked about persistentness and pressing on.

At the moment I'm outlining things. I found a terrific outline coaching webpage based on the snowflake method. It's here.

It's nothing miraculous, but it's a nice format, detailed, and should help when the serious writing begins. One of the things I like most about it is that the author writes, "take and hour and write a character page for your main character."

This is a small thing but it hit me quite perfectly. No one has said, "take an hour" like that. It won't take me an hour, but having the order to "take an hour" some how helps. I've gotten through steps 1 and 2 and have completed two character pages on step 3. Already I can tell this work before the novel will have positive affects on the writing of the novel later.

Who knew someone telling me to "take an hour" could be so powerful.

Sailing with My Dad

I sailed when I was at camp as a kiddo. I remember sun fish at Camp Longhorn and little dinghies with Falling Creek in North Carolina. So when I got a little sailing boat, a 14 foot Laser with a trailer from my neighbor (for free!), and people asked me, do you know how to sail . . . I said "Sure, I know how to sail."

I wonder if my father said the same thing when he was asked to go sail a sailboat with Nicole, and Mrs. Wilkins and me in the bay in Galveston. That is the one instance of my father sailing that I remember in my life. It did not go well. It was fun for a moment, but we came about, the boom swung from port to starboard, and my father's forehead made contact hard enough to draw blood. The trip back to the Wilkins' bay house included lots of blood and towels pressed to his head. Fiasco sail to say the least.

Today's boating experience was close to but not quite as bad as that. And this seems apropos considering 9/3 is my father's birthday.

A few weeks ago, we took the boat into one of the little lakes around here and got it set up and put into the water and tried her out to see if she was lake worthy. She was.

Today we tried Lake Houston. Much larger. Much more to deal with. Overall we did well. Price deemed it Operation Kickass (if it went well) . . . Operation Dumbass (if it didn't).

We landed somewhere in the middle.

Alone I would have done quite fine I think. Throw in two little boys and you have six legs instead of two, six arms instead of two, three butts instead of one. I told the boys the story of my father before we set off and told them to watch the boom. But Charlie is not the best helmsman, and way out in the middle of the lake when Dad was executing "coming about" Charlie decided to "jib" without telling anyone.

The boom swung. Dad saw it coming and caught it just in time to soften the blow to the head. I tumbled backward into the water.

I saved my glasses, my hat, and my dignity by immediately grabbing the boat before the boys kept sailing by without me.

After I got back in Price said, "You seem awfully calm for almost dying." A statement I thought was a tad overblown. He later told his mom that it was the most terrifying experience of his life.

Charlie never did get better with the helm, but it was fun nonetheless, and probably it was as memorable to them as my sailing with my father and the Wilkins was to me. Already we are looking forward to the next voyage. We are thinking maybe Galveston Bay!

Flowing Again

As i said the other day (here) step one in a successful National Novel Writing Month campaign is to have a great idea that you can explore and write about for a month and hope it lasts 50,000 words. Already the ideas are coming, mostly thanks to a call with my big brother.

Just like a few years back I'm going to write a post about my ideas for this year and probably re-hash my old ideas as well. But here's a quick bullet list of ideas:

• A novel about a widower who is only able to find housing for himself and his kids in a geriatric retirement community. 
• A novel about socialism and capitalism that plays out post trump and shows a red dawn style war that ensues from this next election.
• A novel about living off the grid to avoid a spurious charge, just a regular guy who needs to disappear and clear his name.
• A noah's ark type novel that takes place in the future, where a ship custodian is awakened on a colonists supply ship filled with animals where all the animals are let out of their cages in zero-g."

There are others, but I'll run them all down in detail in the next few days, but I think I've already settled on the one I want, but it's good to list em out for posterity.

Back (Again)

I seem to be back, but I have no idea for how long. I hope it's a good long time.

I know what's driven me back. It's several things really. There have been some major changes in my life and I'm hoping to add this to the pot.

• After fifteen years with a company, it gets hard to leave. There had been some huge changes there as well, but I still had my boss, and I liked his leadership style and his coaching. Hard to leave that. But I did. I was offered an opportunity I just couldn't pass up. It resulted in a huge promotion, a very sizable raise, and a chance to focus on training innovation for the refining industry workforce unlike I've done it before. So all in all it's a good change.

• In the matter of not good changes, I've taken stock of several of aspects of my life and let some things go that weren't overly healthy. I decided to resign from my part time gig that I've had for almost twenty years. The job was becoming stagnant, and it just didn't align with my lifestyle, certainly not after I took the new job. I let some friendship wane, some that were significant and long. Having looked at them I realized they were no longer a healthy part of my life and I was trying too hard to keep them afloat. I figure those that were meant to be will prove to be resilient, and those friends will work to keep me in their lives. Those that aren't meant to be will drift away into memories. It's feels right to let those things go and let them work themselves out. 

• I'm working through my mid-life crises by taking up piano lessons again, and reviving my Spanish lessons. Those are both daily exercises that are equivalent to this daily exercise of writing. I don't think I'll mind adding this to the list. 

There are a couple of other reasons . . . but I need something to write about tomorrow so I'll hold off on writing those . . . give you a reason to check back!