The PERILS of Being A Blood Courier During Covid

 

Just 3 days ago I was confronted with this on the bridge.

I am on call all this weekend.

Say a Prayer or Think Good thoughts for Me.

Stay well and Find Peace

This Weekend

JUST MY STRANGE LUCK!

 

Asteroid 3 times taller than Niagara Falls to zip past Earth on 1st day of fall.

The media assures us it will only come within 4 times the 

distance of the moon from earth.

Remember when you still trusted the headlines?

The media assures us the Yellowstone Super-Volcano will not erupt in our lifetime,

the La Palma volcano will not send a super Tsunami our way,

the Wuhan Lab did not originate Covid-19.

Dr. Fauci said so.

Oh, wait ....

He later told CNN the U.S.

funding Wuhan's Lab was necessary.

I used to trust the headlines.

But that was in a different America.

Now, I trust in The Father.

How about you?

How has your world changed?

“I held an atlas in my lap

ran my fingers across the whole world

and whispered

‘Where does it hurt?’

 

It answered

‘Everywhere

everywhere

everywhere.”

― Warsan Shire

A QUESTION

 

Every time I walk through my apartment door facing those 21 steps that after a long day at work seem to have grown into 44,

I intone:

"The force is with you, young Midnight, but you are not a Jedi yet!"

At One, Three, and Five A.M. he becomes Darth Midnight 

as he stares up at me at the side of my bed and meows for me to play with him!

I received a note slipped in my door yesterday, 

informing me my apartment complex had been taken over by Hawthorne Residential Partners.

So fast has been the takeover that the main office does not yet have the App for me to register to pay the rent 

... maybe in 7 to 10 business days I am told.

Look at the date.

The trash vendor was let go last week. 

Still no trash pickup.

I looked up Hawthorne Residential Partners on Facebook. 

After the second picture of rats in their apartments, I stopped looking.

At least Midnight will have someone 

to play with at night!

So, a question:

Do any of you know anything about 

Hawthorne Residential Partners?

Facebook is all well and good ... 

but angry tenants tend not to be the most objective of people, right?

Can any of you help me out here?

To End in Beauty:

ON THE BULLSEYE AGAIN

 

This threatens to be a rainy week with Nicholas (the name of my co-worker by the way)

 having a good chance to become a hurricane. 

Super.

Sometimes it feels as if Mother Nature has declared war on Louisiana!

Speaking of war ...

No American writer is more associated with writing about war in the early 20th century than Ernest Hemingway. 

He experienced it firsthand, wrote dispatches from innumerable frontlines, 

and used war as a backdrop for many of his most memorable works.

How Hemingway coped:

"After being severely wounded two weeks before my nineteenth birthday 

I had a bad time until I figured out that nothing could happen to me that had not happened to all men before me. 

Whatever I had to do men had always done. If they had done it then I could do it too and the best thing was not to worry about it."

Have you used personal hardships and trials in any of your novels?

TO SURVIVE AS A WRITER

 

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”

– Winston Churchill

MOVING ON_ A LABOR DAY Post

 

"It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things." 

— Theodore Roosevelt

Moving on to better things

We in Southern Louisiana after Hurricanes Laura, Delta, and now Ida

are finding moving on quite a chore.

Those of us who have jobs are lucky to escape the lockdowns.

As a frontliner, I see the heroes all around me working long hours, braving infection to help those in need.

Workers are laboring in terrible heat to restore roofs over the heads of those in need of livable homes.

Teachers are bringing order and focus to young people struggling to resume some sort of normalcy.

I was a janitor for a time while waiting for a slot to open in an operator school at a local plant.

I got looked through by passing office workers. I was beneath their notice.

My memories of the humble, wise Kwai Chang Caine reminded me that there was worth in even the humblest of tasks and in its laborers.

"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity."

 — Martin Luther King, Jr.

What do you think?

ESSENTIAL KEYWORDS YOU NEED TO KNOW_IWSG post

 

"Evil does not sleep. 

It waits."

 - Hippolyta

The same is true for another Amazon ...

The One in whose ranks 

we all want to stand out.

There are Keywords that will draw attention

like SEX

But it may not result in SALES

Photo 122117329 / Bare Chest Lover © Volodymyr Tverdokhlib | Dreamstime.com

The above image represents

poorly your novel

of two shy retired teachers

finding love unexpectedly.

We must narrow the focus of

our keywords

from broad to narrow

to catch the eye 

of the reader who is

searching for something

different than bare chests

and heaving bosums.

SO HOW TO PLUG INTO

THOSE READERS'

INTERESTS?

ASK YOURSELF

ABOUT YOUR NOVEL

What is the time period?

What stands out about its setting?

What are its interesting

character types or roles?

What themes or events

interweave in your novel?

From whose perspective is it told?

Is it a children's fantasy?

Is it a Noir supernatural mystery?

What is your novel's style and tone?

Remember:

Some Keywords will draw attention 

but few sales

Others will draw less looks 

but result in more sales.

Once you give a new reader

a great story she loves, 

she will return again and again

for more of your books.

Keep an eye out for my new book.

Coming Soon.

Nothing can bring so much death

as a debt unpaid ...

especially for spies.