Patrick Alan

Today, I’m on the horse. I showered with Old Spice and I lost twenty pounds — of fru-fru smelling girly soaps — immediately.

All of my writer friends, think of your Hero, then think of me. If you want to make your book better, make your hero more like me. It is fantasy after all.

Now, think of your book cover. Wouldn’t your cover be better if I was on it? I am renewing my quest to be a Romance Novel Cover Model, but now — I want to be on a horse.

Think of how many books you would sell if I was riding a horse on the cover of your book.

You may think the hero doesn’t look like me and never rides a horse.

Irrelevant — though you should consider making him look like me. The horse wouldn’t hurt either.

When they see me on the cover riding a horse, they will hear music and Rock God Chris Cornell singing about how awesome I am and that will compell them to buy your novel.

And that is why you should put me on the cover of your book.

Call your editors.

You might refer them to some samples here.

Let’s talk about my pool! (Not my writing)

Here’s the way it looks right now.

Which is a big difference from how it started -

But we’re in a holding pattern. They don’t have much left and it is too cold to swim anyway, but I want to have this done.

Write Your Book Or I Will Continue To Beat You!

Write it! Write it!

You are HEELED!

Hi, I realize I am very late in posting anything. I have lots going on. It’s always the way. Some of it is interesting, some of it not. It’s all stuff that I have to do, so I live with it.

An update on the writing front. I planned on finishing my novel in February. That did not happen. There are reasons or excuses, depending on how you look at it. I’ll say that I am not stuck at writing. In fact, my desire and ideas of what to write are overflowing at the moment. I have writing that is itching to get out of me. I’ll get there. This has nothing to do with me not being able to finish or hit a deadline. I don’t miss real deadlines.

The kittens are still adorable. The pool is still not done. It’s still ridiculously cold in Florida. I hate homeowners’ associations. Baseball season has started. At my dayjob, I have been engaged with a large publisher’s IT staff to help them manage the EBook repository. Sounds exciting, but it’s sort of what I do. It’s only a one week project. I’m rooting for Siobahn Magnus on American Idol and Boston Rob on Survivor. Uh, that’s about it.

Maybe I will post some photos of something soon. Maybe pictures of the holes in my ceilings where there’s a guy traipsing around my house putting in overhead light fixtures instead of wall lamps. That would be exciting wouldn’t it?

I do not like you, the kittens, or that stupid jingly collar you keep putting on me!

You look yummy. I will eat you if you don’t pet me.

Need some good LOLCat comments for these.

Here’s a link to some good writing advice from a bunch of talented writers. I happened to like this one by Margaret Atwood.

Writing is work. It’s also gambling. You don’t get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you’re on your own. ­Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine.

You chose it, so don’t whine. That pretty much says it all.