If you hadn’t noticed I’ve been silent for a little while. Unfortunately, I have been dealing with some things at work, and I have been left with little time for my campaign. As it stands, I’m nowhere near where I need to be. Even for Quill. If you have been waiting to order, now would be a good time. There are less than 30 days remaining.
Thank you to those who’ve already ordered. I really appreciate your support.
I’m going to begin sharing more of A Bird’s Prey. I’ve gone back and forth with this decision, but feel it’s the right call. After all, the story is only just beginning.
Chapters 1-5 are still available.
Chapter 6
Travis’s faithful cat, Kitty, attempted to wake him up for about fifteen minutes. He ignored her by covering his head with the blanket. The alarm buzzed. He pulled the blanket off of his head and looked up at the time. Eight AM. It’s too early. He reached over and pressed the snooze button on the clock. Kitty saw an opportunity, raced under the covers, and began to meow. “You’re so annoying sometimes,” he said as he tried to push her away. She ignored him and continued to paw at his ear to wake him up. “Alright, fine. You win,” he said. He tossed his cover off and sat up on the side of his bed.
He blinked a few times and wondered why his eyes were so dry. He blinked, again and realized he forgot to remove his contacts before going to sleep. He looked down at the calendar on his nightstand and a wave of sadness washed over him. “It’s been five years, Kitty. I wish you could have met them.” He sat for a moment in silence. The moment was interrupted when he felt an itch in his left eye. He instinctively rubbed his eye causing his contact lens to pop out and fall to the floor. “Shit!” He dropped to his knees beside the bed and frantically searched for the lens. He found it and breathed a sigh of relief. As he picked it up to examine it, he realized it was folded in half. With great care, he attempted to pull the two sides apart. The lens tore in two in the process. “Dammit, dammit, dammit! God fucking dammit!”he complained and pounded the side of his bed with his fist. “This is my last fucking pair.” Concerned for her own wellbeing, as cats usually are, Kitty ran away in fear. Travis felt guilty for scaring her and turned to look for her. She was hiding under the dresser, in the far corner of the room. “I’m sorry, Kitty. Come back,” he said. She didn’t move. He crawled on his hands and knees to the dresser and looked underneath. “Why won’t you come out? I wasn’t yelling at you. I’ll give you a yummy kitty treat if you forgive me.” Travis reached underneath the dresser to pet Kitty and coax her out. She hissed, growled, and bit at his hand. “What the hell!? What’s gotten into you?”
Kitty stared at Travis with her vibrant yellow eyes. She blinked and the vibrant yellow was gone. It was as if her eyes were replaced by two, solid black, marbles. Travis panicked and shot backwards, away from the dresser. “Fuck!” he shouted as his left hand jammed into something under his bed. A few seconds later, Kitty poked her head out from under the dresser. She gave Travis a pathetic look, let out a soft meow, and pranced up to him. After purring and rubbing her head on his leg, she dashed under the bed. “Brat.” Travis said with a sigh.
Travis shook his hand in an effort to make his hand feel better. It didn’t work. He was about to stand when an unexplainable feeling told him to look underneath his bed. He leaned over, took a deep breath, and lifted the bed skirt. Kitty was there and her eyes were back to normal. She was rubbing her face all over a box. “I jammed my finger on that because of you.” She meowed again and acted as if she had no idea what he was saying…because she didn’t. “I’m glad you feel better,” Travis said. After a moment of consideration, he thought, it was dark under the dresser, and I am missing a contact lens. He shrugged his shoulders. “You’re just a regular cat. Right, Kitty?”
“Meow.”
“Of course you are. You just did what any frightened cat would have done.”
Travis dropped the bed skirt and picked himself off of the floor. He walked to his nightstand, and picked up his phone. “I need to call the eye doctor,”he said. He dialed the number and a pleasant female voice answered the phone.
“Thank you for calling Doctor Lenso’s office. Jane speaking, how may I help you?”
“Hi, Jane. I kind of ruined one of my last contact lenses. I was wondering if I could get an appointment for today? My name is Travis, by the way.”
“Hmm?” Jane says. “let me check on that.”
“Thank you.” Travis replied and covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “She must be new, Kitty. I don’t remember anyone named Jane.”
Jane returned to the line, “You’re in luck. We just had a cancellation. Can you be here at 11:30?”
“Yes. That’s great!”
“Okay. I’ve got you down for 11:30, this morning. See you soon, Mr. Singelmore.” Travis hung up, scratched his head, and wondered how the woman knew his last name. He shrugged and walked into the kitchen with Kitty at his feet.
Travis prepared each of them their usual morning meal. He fed Kitty a bowl of wet food because she was spoiled and refused to eat dry. He had a bowl of his favorite cereal from childhood, Chocolate Birdie Crunch.
Kitty jumped up on the table. Travis looked up from his cereal and said, “I really don’t know why I let you eat on the table. You lick your butt.” She purred and continued to eat without acknowledging him. She devoured her meal like she’d never eaten and jumped off of the table.
Travis finished up and prepared for the day while Kitty took her morning nap on the bed. She loved basking in the rays of sunlight that shone through the window and warmed the covers.
Travis was ready to go with plenty of time to spare. Unfortunately, he was unable to find his house key. He checked the time and said, “10:17! I’m never going to make it!” He sighed, groaned, and cursed to himself. He sat down at the foot of the bed and closed his eyes. He took a few deep breaths, counted to ten, and exhaled. The breathing technique was something his psychiatrist, Dr. Esslinger, taught him. The breathing kept his anger from evolving into a constant state of rage.
Travis opened his eyes, looked down, and saw his keys sticking out from under the dresser. Kitty still rested on the bed. He turned to her and said, “I blame you for all of this. My keys must have fallen off the dresser when you ran and hid under it.” She opened and closed her eyes, curled her head into her paws, and went back to sleep. “Screw you, too,” he said. He then picked up his keys and headed out the door.
Travis jogged all the way to the bus stop. By the time he arrived, the driver was closing the door of the bus he needed to be on. With surprising speed, he sprinted the last two blocks. I’m going to make it, he thought as the bus pulled away. The driver looked back at him in the side view mirror and smiled with a grin so familiar and so terrible, Travis froze in his tracks. It was a grin he’d never forgotten. He had nightmares about it.
The bus lurched and hissed to a stop. The door slammed open with a clank. People waiting on their busses took notice. Travis looked back at the crowd and saw a woman with a cigarette hanging from her mouth. She gave him an angry look and shouted, “Get on the bus, asshole!” Another voice shouted, “Come on, buddy. We all got things to do!”
Travis turned back to the bus. The driver, a large portly man standing at least six feet tall, stepped off. “You gettin’ on?” the driver asked. “I’d like to finish my route today, and times a’ wastin’.” Travis trembled with fear at the sound of the phrase. It was phrase he’d only heard from one other person. It was engrained in his memory, forever.
“What did you say?” Travis asked.
The driver answered and annunciated each word, as if Travis were an idiot. “Are-you-get-tin-on-the-bus?”
“No. after that? You said something else.”
“Look kid, I don’t know what’s wrong wit’ you, but I gotta’ get goin’. Are you gettin on or not?”
Up until that moment, Travis thought his life was more or less under control. His Thorazine prescription was enough to prevent him from seeing things that weren’t supposed to exist, and weekly counseling sessions with Dr. Esslinger helped him accept the idea of a chemical imbalance in his brain. An imbalance, he was told, had always existed. It took a few years of therapy, but Travis was convinced the imbalance is what led to his visions. Dr. Esslinger even told Travis accepting the imbalance as reality was a breakthrough. A breakthrough which opened the doorway to his recovery. Ever since his realization and acceptance, the visions stopped. He knew he’d never be cured, but he was beginning to think he could live a semi-normal life, free of visions and free of Jacob Conley.
I don’t have much of an update. I just wanted to let you know I’ve been working on the revision for A Bird’s Prey. It’s going pretty well, considering the amount of time I can actually work on it (usually during lunch breaks). It should be completed in the next few weeks. I will have to have my lovely wife...ahem...editor look it over before I share any more.
I also noticed there is a Geek and Sundry Contest badge on the main page of my book. Oooh! aaah! I realize others have the badge. I just think it looks pretty cool.
***From now until 12PM EST on Monday 10/24, anyone who orders A Bird’s Prey will be entered into a drawing. If I reach at least 40 pre-orders, 1 person will win a new (Black) Kindle Fire 7. You will earn 1 entry for Peafowl, and 2 entries for Wormfowl. For those willing to become Bird’s of Prey, you will earn 6 entries in the drawing for your awesome support.***
Beautiful 7" IPS display (171 ppi / 1024 x 600) and fast 1.3 GHz quad-core processor. Rear and front-facing cameras. Available in four colors.
Coming soon: Alexa, a cloud-based voice service that provides quick access to the entertainment you want, including music, games, audiobooks, and more. Alexa also allows you to ask questions, shop, find news, weather, and more - just press the home button and ask.
Amazon Underground, a one-of-a-kind app store experience where thousands of apps, games and even in-app items are 100% free - including extra lives, unlocked levels, unlimited add-on packs and more
Enjoy millions of movies, TV shows, songs, Kindle e-books, apps and games -- including Netflix, Facebook, HBO, Pandora and more
8 or 16 GB of internal storage. Free unlimited cloud storage for all Amazon content and photos taken with Fire devices. Add a microSD card for up to 200 GB of additional storage.
Prime members get unlimited access to over a thousand books and magazines, more than a million songs, and thousands of movies and TV episodes - at no additional cost.
Up to 7 hours of reading, surfing the web, watching videos, and listening to music
My campaign is almost a 1/3 of the way through, and it’s not looking good. There is no way I will ever give up, but I am stuck at only 10 pre-orders. Maybe I made a mistake by choosing the hardcover option, but I don’t think so. When I first envisioned my book, that is what I saw. It’s what I still see. I’m confident the book I’ve written is something people will want to read. I’ll admit it’s not for everyone, but neither is any other book that’s ever been written.
I know we are all here for the same thing. We have all written something we feel is worthy of publication. Most of us have the rejection letters from agents or publishers, and each one stings, but we don’t give up. We know our stories are stories people need to read. They allow readers to escape the monotony of everyday life. There are stories of pirates. There are stories of those that stop time. There are stories which give us a glimpse into the minds of those we all fear. There are stories that break break down societal barriers with strong female leads. This list goes on an on, and all of our stories have one thing in common. They were all written by people who refuse to give up.We won’t take no for an answer. If we get knocked down, we get right back up and keep fighting. I know I do.
I don’t have much of an update. I just wanted to let everyone know I am in the Geek & Sundry contest. I realized it only a day or two ago. I would have seen it sooner, but I’d assumed I missed my window of opportunity. Either way, at 92, I’m much closer to the top than the bottom. I know my story is worth reading. So, I’m going to ask for your help to try and make it. I’m aware it’s a long shot in such a short amount of time. Fortunately, I procrastinate often. Being a long is sort of my thing. In the immortal words of Walt Disney, “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible”
I hope you are all having a great weekend. I have a few updates to share with you. I finally have a book trailer for A Bird’s Prey. I spent most of the day, yesterday, working on it. I think it turned out really well. Feel free to give me feedback.
I’ve also uploaded chapters 4 and 5. I’m not sure how many more I want to share, but we’ll see as my campaign progresses. Chapter 4 finishes up the night before the family’s trip and chapter 5 introduces the protagonist, Jacob Conley. It was a lot of fun to write him. I hope you love to hate him as much as I do. That’s all I have for now.
I have a question to ask. Who wants to die...in my book? Beginning now, the next 51 people to pre-order, A Bird’s Prey, will be entered into a drawing. As soon as I hit 55 pre-orders, I will pick one winner, from those 51, to die in my book. This won’t be a simple character name change. I will have to go back and write an entirely new scene. Its sole purpose for the winner’s untimely demise. Good luck...
First off, thank you for following A Bird’s Prey. I have a couple of updates to share. The first is I have uploaded chapter 3. This chapter takes place the night before the family’s trip. Give it a read. I’d love to know your thoughts.
I’m pretty excited about the next bit of information. I have found an artist to do the cover of the book! I’m not ready to share her info, yet, but she’s amazing. I should have some concept art soon. I will share with everyone as soon as I can. That’s all I have for now. Thanks for reading.
Hi everyone,
If you hadn’t noticed I’ve been silent for a little while. Unfortunately, I have been dealing with some things at work, and I have been left with little time for my campaign. As it stands, I’m nowhere near where I need to be. Even for Quill. If you have been waiting to order, now would be a good time. There are less than 30 days remaining.
Thank you to those who’ve already ordered. I really appreciate your support.
I’m going to begin sharing more of A Bird’s Prey. I’ve gone back and forth with this decision, but feel it’s the right call. After all, the story is only just beginning.
Chapters 1-5 are still available.
Chapter 6
Travis’s faithful cat, Kitty, attempted to wake him up for about fifteen minutes. He ignored her by covering his head with the blanket. The alarm buzzed. He pulled the blanket off of his head and looked up at the time. Eight AM. It’s too early. He reached over and pressed the snooze button on the clock. Kitty saw an opportunity, raced under the covers, and began to meow. “You’re so annoying sometimes,” he said as he tried to push her away. She ignored him and continued to paw at his ear to wake him up. “Alright, fine. You win,” he said. He tossed his cover off and sat up on the side of his bed.
He blinked a few times and wondered why his eyes were so dry. He blinked, again and realized he forgot to remove his contacts before going to sleep. He looked down at the calendar on his nightstand and a wave of sadness washed over him. “It’s been five years, Kitty. I wish you could have met them.” He sat for a moment in silence. The moment was interrupted when he felt an itch in his left eye. He instinctively rubbed his eye causing his contact lens to pop out and fall to the floor. “Shit!” He dropped to his knees beside the bed and frantically searched for the lens. He found it and breathed a sigh of relief. As he picked it up to examine it, he realized it was folded in half. With great care, he attempted to pull the two sides apart. The lens tore in two in the process. “Dammit, dammit, dammit! God fucking dammit!” he complained and pounded the side of his bed with his fist. “This is my last fucking pair.” Concerned for her own wellbeing, as cats usually are, Kitty ran away in fear. Travis felt guilty for scaring her and turned to look for her. She was hiding under the dresser, in the far corner of the room. “I’m sorry, Kitty. Come back,” he said. She didn’t move. He crawled on his hands and knees to the dresser and looked underneath. “Why won’t you come out? I wasn’t yelling at you. I’ll give you a yummy kitty treat if you forgive me.” Travis reached underneath the dresser to pet Kitty and coax her out. She hissed, growled, and bit at his hand. “What the hell!? What’s gotten into you?”
Kitty stared at Travis with her vibrant yellow eyes. She blinked and the vibrant yellow was gone. It was as if her eyes were replaced by two, solid black, marbles. Travis panicked and shot backwards, away from the dresser. “Fuck!” he shouted as his left hand jammed into something under his bed. A few seconds later, Kitty poked her head out from under the dresser. She gave Travis a pathetic look, let out a soft meow, and pranced up to him. After purring and rubbing her head on his leg, she dashed under the bed. “Brat.” Travis said with a sigh.
Travis shook his hand in an effort to make his hand feel better. It didn’t work. He was about to stand when an unexplainable feeling told him to look underneath his bed. He leaned over, took a deep breath, and lifted the bed skirt. Kitty was there and her eyes were back to normal. She was rubbing her face all over a box. “I jammed my finger on that because of you.” She meowed again and acted as if she had no idea what he was saying…because she didn’t. “I’m glad you feel better,” Travis said. After a moment of consideration, he thought, it was dark under the dresser, and I am missing a contact lens. He shrugged his shoulders. “You’re just a regular cat. Right, Kitty?”
“Meow.”
“Of course you are. You just did what any frightened cat would have done.”
Travis dropped the bed skirt and picked himself off of the floor. He walked to his nightstand, and picked up his phone. “I need to call the eye doctor,” he said. He dialed the number and a pleasant female voice answered the phone.
“Thank you for calling Doctor Lenso’s office. Jane speaking, how may I help you?”
“Hi, Jane. I kind of ruined one of my last contact lenses. I was wondering if I could get an appointment for today? My name is Travis, by the way.”
“Hmm?” Jane says. “let me check on that.”
“Thank you.” Travis replied and covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “She must be new, Kitty. I don’t remember anyone named Jane.”
Jane returned to the line, “You’re in luck. We just had a cancellation. Can you be here at 11:30?”
“Yes. That’s great!”
“Okay. I’ve got you down for 11:30, this morning. See you soon, Mr. Singelmore.” Travis hung up, scratched his head, and wondered how the woman knew his last name. He shrugged and walked into the kitchen with Kitty at his feet.
Travis prepared each of them their usual morning meal. He fed Kitty a bowl of wet food because she was spoiled and refused to eat dry. He had a bowl of his favorite cereal from childhood, Chocolate Birdie Crunch.
Kitty jumped up on the table. Travis looked up from his cereal and said, “I really don’t know why I let you eat on the table. You lick your butt.” She purred and continued to eat without acknowledging him. She devoured her meal like she’d never eaten and jumped off of the table.
Travis finished up and prepared for the day while Kitty took her morning nap on the bed. She loved basking in the rays of sunlight that shone through the window and warmed the covers.
Travis was ready to go with plenty of time to spare. Unfortunately, he was unable to find his house key. He checked the time and said, “10:17! I’m never going to make it!” He sighed, groaned, and cursed to himself. He sat down at the foot of the bed and closed his eyes. He took a few deep breaths, counted to ten, and exhaled. The breathing technique was something his psychiatrist, Dr. Esslinger, taught him. The breathing kept his anger from evolving into a constant state of rage.
Travis opened his eyes, looked down, and saw his keys sticking out from under the dresser. Kitty still rested on the bed. He turned to her and said, “I blame you for all of this. My keys must have fallen off the dresser when you ran and hid under it.” She opened and closed her eyes, curled her head into her paws, and went back to sleep. “Screw you, too,” he said. He then picked up his keys and headed out the door.
Travis jogged all the way to the bus stop. By the time he arrived, the driver was closing the door of the bus he needed to be on. With surprising speed, he sprinted the last two blocks. I’m going to make it, he thought as the bus pulled away. The driver looked back at him in the side view mirror and smiled with a grin so familiar and so terrible, Travis froze in his tracks. It was a grin he’d never forgotten. He had nightmares about it.
The bus lurched and hissed to a stop. The door slammed open with a clank. People waiting on their busses took notice. Travis looked back at the crowd and saw a woman with a cigarette hanging from her mouth. She gave him an angry look and shouted, “Get on the bus, asshole!” Another voice shouted, “Come on, buddy. We all got things to do!”
Travis turned back to the bus. The driver, a large portly man standing at least six feet tall, stepped off. “You gettin’ on?” the driver asked. “I’d like to finish my route today, and times a’ wastin’.” Travis trembled with fear at the sound of the phrase. It was phrase he’d only heard from one other person. It was engrained in his memory, forever.
“What did you say?” Travis asked.
The driver answered and annunciated each word, as if Travis were an idiot. “Are-you-get-tin-on-the-bus?”
“No. after that? You said something else.”
“Look kid, I don’t know what’s wrong wit’ you, but I gotta’ get goin’. Are you gettin on or not?”
Up until that moment, Travis thought his life was more or less under control. His Thorazine prescription was enough to prevent him from seeing things that weren’t supposed to exist, and weekly counseling sessions with Dr. Esslinger helped him accept the idea of a chemical imbalance in his brain. An imbalance, he was told, had always existed. It took a few years of therapy, but Travis was convinced the imbalance is what led to his visions. Dr. Esslinger even told Travis accepting the imbalance as reality was a breakthrough. A breakthrough which opened the doorway to his recovery. Ever since his realization and acceptance, the visions stopped. He knew he’d never be cured, but he was beginning to think he could live a semi-normal life, free of visions and free of Jacob Conley.
Hi everyone,
I don’t have much of an update. I just wanted to let you know I’ve been working on the revision for A Bird’s Prey. It’s going pretty well, considering the amount of time I can actually work on it (usually during lunch breaks). It should be completed in the next few weeks. I will have to have my lovely wife...ahem...editor look it over before I share any more.
I also noticed there is a Geek and Sundry Contest badge on the main page of my book. Oooh! aaah! I realize others have the badge. I just think it looks pretty cool.
Hi everyone,
Contest announcement!
Hi everyone,
My campaign is almost a 1/3 of the way through, and it’s not looking good. There is no way I will ever give up, but I am stuck at only 10 pre-orders. Maybe I made a mistake by choosing the hardcover option, but I don’t think so. When I first envisioned my book, that is what I saw. It’s what I still see. I’m confident the book I’ve written is something people will want to read. I’ll admit it’s not for everyone, but neither is any other book that’s ever been written.
I know we are all here for the same thing. We have all written something we feel is worthy of publication. Most of us have the rejection letters from agents or publishers, and each one stings, but we don’t give up. We know our stories are stories people need to read. They allow readers to escape the monotony of everyday life. There are stories of pirates. There are stories of those that stop time. There are stories which give us a glimpse into the minds of those we all fear. There are stories that break break down societal barriers with strong female leads. This list goes on an on, and all of our stories have one thing in common. They were all written by people who refuse to give up.We won’t take no for an answer. If we get knocked down, we get right back up and keep fighting. I know I do.
I won’t give up. I can’t.
I hope everyone had a great weekend!
I still have an artist working on a proper cover for A Bird’s Prey. Until it’s finished, I have uploaded what I feel is a better temporary substitute.
That’s all for now.
Hi everyone,
I don’t have much of an update. I just wanted to let everyone know I am in the Geek & Sundry contest. I realized it only a day or two ago. I would have seen it sooner, but I’d assumed I missed my window of opportunity. Either way, at 92, I’m much closer to the top than the bottom. I know my story is worth reading. So, I’m going to ask for your help to try and make it. I’m aware it’s a long shot in such a short amount of time. Fortunately, I procrastinate often. Being a long is sort of my thing. In the immortal words of Walt Disney, “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible”
Thanks for reading.
Hi Everyone,
I hope you are all having a great weekend. I have a few updates to share with you. I finally have a book trailer for A Bird’s Prey. I spent most of the day, yesterday, working on it. I think it turned out really well. Feel free to give me feedback.
I’ve also uploaded chapters 4 and 5. I’m not sure how many more I want to share, but we’ll see as my campaign progresses. Chapter 4 finishes up the night before the family’s trip and chapter 5 introduces the protagonist, Jacob Conley. It was a lot of fun to write him. I hope you love to hate him as much as I do. That’s all I have for now.
Thank’s for reading
Good evening readers,
Hi everyone,
First off, thank you for following A Bird’s Prey. I have a couple of updates to share. The first is I have uploaded chapter 3. This chapter takes place the night before the family’s trip. Give it a read. I’d love to know your thoughts.
I’m pretty excited about the next bit of information. I have found an artist to do the cover of the book! I’m not ready to share her info, yet, but she’s amazing. I should have some concept art soon. I will share with everyone as soon as I can. That’s all I have for now. Thanks for reading.
Goodnight