Childhood Monsters

Some days I wish I had a normal monster in the closet.  I had two.  Not your typical monsters in the closet, but childhood fears.

#1 Bad Weather - this can all be explained by my other website:  www.ruminationofthunder.com.  Conquered this one, no problem.  How you ask?  Face to face with a monster tornado while at a lake in a camper.  I did an article about it a couple years ago for a local magazine: http://www.verbict.com/2010/03/08/chase-storm-chasing-why-i-do-it/

The most memorable part was the pregnant lady running into the shelter crying that it was going over the top of us.
I sat between a washer and dryer, holding on for dear life in my Dallas Cowboys poncho.  Yeah, memories.

#2 was the unsettling monster.  Unsettling because he was real.  When I was young, about the same age when I saw the tornado, there was a serial killer going around near my grandmother's neighborhood.  One family of four was slain a couple blocks away.  I stayed with my grandmother a lot during the summer.  So there were nightmares of a strangler walking in the house.  One of those crazy nightmares where you're running and all you can see are the oversized shoes and large hands of the maniac coming after you.

We were fine.  Grandma was never a target and when I grew up, I met the man.
http://fatherthunder.blogspot.com/2011/10/ive-been-alone-with-serial-killer-in-my.html

So force of nature and true boogyman.  I've made piece with one, and the other is locked away forever.

Now that you've found my inner demons, become one of my minions (linkon the right).  My novel "Hell to Pay" is available from Hellfire Publishing in book or e-book form.  My short story "The Ballad of Mercy Tyler" is available through Smashwords for free.

Alright you sadists, check out the rest of the nightmares:

Drought and A Slight Relief

Whoops, the problem with running several blogs.  I usually post this over at www.ruminationofthunder.com but sometimes other personalities break through.

Last month we received 0.22" of rain.  Cracks are staring to form in the soil where the grass has given up the ghost.  July tied for the 4th hottest in our history.  2011 was the 2nd hottest.  So as we are waiting for dustbowls and locusts a small cold front fired through last night.

Corn or what's left of it

At least something is growing

I thought I heard something and went outside to look, a bolt of lightning hit less than a mile from the house.  I miss lightning but in conditions like this, CG (cloud to ground) strikes can cause bad fires.

Starlight, moonlight, city lights

Moon breaking through

The Scourge of Social Media

Is Social Media a necessary evil?  Yes, unless you have one of the big six publishing house marketing juggernauts telling everyone how absolutely wonderful your new novel is.

Hello, my name is William Brian Johnson and my novel Hell to Pay is freaking awesome!
http://tinyurl.com/4yzb32k

You don't know me, I made a comparison to nothing, I've used an exclamation point, that may be a link to a virus, and you probably clicked off this.

People like photos and catchy lines.





A man who thinks he's losing his soul, meets a man who has.
Hell To Pay
from Amazon.com at http://tinyurl.com/4yzb32k

Did I grab your attention or did you just check your Facebook status?







I've talked on this blog about storm chasing, gateways to Hell, and my meeting with a serial killer.  Does that make me interesting?  Maybe.  I'm a regular guy that has some interesting stories to tell, looking for an audience to pay attention.  The question is, how do I grab you and keep you coming back?

Facebook talks to all my friends and family.
Twitter had me linked to a whole bunch of celebrities.
Tribrr has a good writerly friends that post each others blogs in hope that someone reads it.
Pintrist and Flickr are great for my photos and occasional strange grabs.
Goodreads are once again friends and writer folk I've met.
I've bloghopped and met some great people, but am I only meeting other writers also selling wares?

Don't get me wrong, I've talked with some great and interesting people in social media.  Some who I've followed for decades and received personal responses, but how to I talk to the readers?

That's what I'm still investigating.

Do you have a comment on this?  Leave one below, I would love to hear from you.

Why So Serious?

So what if two comedians decided to write a book like Fifty Shades of Grey and didn't edit or write any of it?  They asked for contributions and threw it up on the Apple site.  It's now number #4 in sales.

http://bookriot.com/2012/08/02/what-if-we-had-the-internet-write-a-book-crowdsourced-fake-erotica-soars-up-ibookstore-charts/

Hmmm, makes me wonder why I'm killing myself on worldbuilding.

Favorite Authors and Recommendations

Sometimes I wonder if a little of what we read creeps into the darker parts of our    brains.  Do our literary desires reflect what we want or who we wish we could be?

I hope not.  Otherwise I need to be locked up.

This weeks blog is to talk about our favorite authors and to give a couple recommendations on books.


I grew up reading Anne Rice and Stephen King.    My fantasy teeth were broke on Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Dragonlance saga (sorry guys, never made it past the second generation of characters). Then on to R.A. Silvatore and his world of Drizzt. I moved between reading fantasy and horror; Clive Barker, Micheal Crichton, Neil Gaiman and other fantasy/horror allstars and still do.  I have not jumped on the "Game of Thrones" bandwagon yet, but will someday.

Some writers say you shouldn't read when you write because it will alter your story.  I don't believe that.  I believe that we learn from our favorite authors, and have spent time picking apart their books like an English professor to figure out how they did what they did.

From Jim Butcher, I learned the art of cliffhangers and not being able to put a book down.

From Charles Bukowski, I learned to strengthen my own personal voice in writing.

From Shel Silverstein, I learned about the art of nonsense and how sometimes an incredibly powerful point can be made without having to say it.

So for recommendations:

Charles Bukowski: Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit (just for the title) but highly recommend The Most Beautiful Woman in Town.

Jim Butcher: Death Masks

Shel Silverstein: A Light in the Attic

Enjoy and keep reading.

Our Dystopian World

Check out http://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/351-the-dystopian-timeline-to-the-hunger-games-infographic what to read, what to read, or what is the world coming too.

Or if you want a good story about a born again evil god . . .
Touch the cover for the link.

What Am I Reading

What am I reading?  Everything.

Research - Conan A Witch Shall Be Born by Robert E. Howard.
Research - How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy - Orson Scott Card
Job - Common Core Standards
Job - The First Days of School - Wong & Wong
Relaxation - Freakonomics - Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
Relaxation - Sandman Slim - Richard Kadrey
Relaxation - Freedom Writers Diary - By them and Erin Gruwell

I tend to read like I do everything else.  All over the place.  My office, den, living room, bathroom, bedroom all have books.  All have bookmarks resting in some places that I may have left ten minutes or ten months ago.  I am a voracious reader, but will give up on books that take me no where.  I don't read free books on Kindle, although I might if time stood still and nothing was going on.

My selves are a mix of classic, young adult, and adult books of almost every genre.  Sorry majority of romance, no romance books.  Tried writing it once, killed of both characters in the first chapter, true story.
I have a reading crush on Jim Butcher (Dresden Files, didn't get into the other series yet), R.A. Silvatore (Drizzt series-es there are a ton of books), complete sets of Poe, Shakespeare, Bukowski (still need a couple books).   I tend to have books on paranormal and things that go bump in the night.  People might find it odd that I have two bibles.  One given to me by a very close friend.  The other is the family bible that I inherited from my Grandfather that contains our family history.

I have some books going back into the late 1800's and some books in languages I can't read.

I like books.  The feel, the ability to know exactly how much is left, the smell of old pages, and the rustling noise it makes when you turn a page.  I like Kindle, but if I read a book that I loved on it, I'd go buy it in paper.

Oh yeah. I also have my book.
Hell to Pay.  You can get it in e-book or paper.  Seeing myself on a bookshelf makes me happy.