Only 5 - 8 Feet Of Snow, And You Can't Get Here From Anywhere

 In the winter of '92 - '93, Tahoe set several snow records. One memorable event, after a particularly big storm, was when one of Tahoe's radio stations broadcast phone calls to ski resorts asking about how much snow the resorts had received. The calls to both Diamond Peak and Kirkwood were notable. Both said - in essence - "The good news is that we've got eight feet of new snow. The bad news is that you can't get here from anywhere!"

The recent storm buried Tahoe. While Kirkwood  (to the south) only got 5 feet, the Interstate 80 areas (to the north) got up to 8 feet.

Snow removal is better now than in the early '90s. However, the highways in and out of the Tahoe Basin were closed, and, for a time, you couldn't get here from anywhere!

Enjoy!

P.S. The resorts are following new pandemic rules, which require RESERVATIONS. So don't just drive to Tahoe and expect to ski. Do your research and get your reservation first.

Inaugural Poet - Great Writing...

 The inaugural poet made me cry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ055ilIiN4

Free Reading For All My Books

 Where we live in Tahoe, we don't have broadband internet. So we get DVDs from Netflix. We never consider buying DVDs. Subscription "rental" works well. Pay a monthly fee and watch as many movies as we want, subject of course to the speed of the post office moving those DVDs back and forth from us to Netflix.

So I understand the appeal of the Kindle Unlimited program. Pay Amazon approximately $10 a month and read as many books as you want. The only qualifier is that publishers have to enroll their books in the program for them to be available. Publishers have now enrolled enough books in the program for thousands of lifetimes of reading.

I recently read that 160 million readers have joined the Kindle Unlimited program. That sounds like an astonishing number. But, as with Netflix watchers, and Spotify listeners, there are readers all over the world.

All of my books are now enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. So members can read them at no cost beyond the low monthly fee. If you belong, enjoy my books! If you don't belong, maybe you should give it a try.

You don't even need to buy a Kindle, as you can download the program for free onto you laptop or your iPad or even your phone.  (Trivia: People in Japan read more books on their phones than any other way!)

You can try the Kindle Unlimited program for free. Here's the link:

https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/hz/subscribe/ku?ref=ks_us_g_hK_kwd-314757834900_aE&_encoding=UTF8&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

If you click on any of the books to the left, that will take you to their Amazon page.

 Thanks very much for your interest.

A Writer's Job During Harsh Times

I get a lot of mail. If I were to sum up the essence of what motivates most people to send me a note, it might be that people crave entertainment that distracts them from real-world stresses. Those stresses range from national and international problems down to personal and family difficulties.

People like to read fiction that - for all the trouble that takes place within stories - depicts a world where there is more justice and reassurance than can be found in the real world. In most fiction, the bad guys meet justice, and their evil deeds are neutralized.

The harsh events in the real world take their toll on creators the same as they do with any other group of people. But we need to keep our focus on our purpose, which is revealed in our mail. Soldier on. Readers are waiting for more stories. Turn off the news, pour another cup of coffee, and get back to work.

Progress Report On Next Owen McKenna And Company

 In the world of writing novels, there are few axioms that apply all the time.

One of them, perhaps the most important, is that the first job of writing a novel is to finish the first draft. Wait, let me put in some emphasis: Finish The FIRST DRAFT.

This sounds easier than it is. Countless writers get well into the first draft of their new novel, whether it is their first or 50th novel, and hit so many dead ends and seemingly inscrutable problems that it's easy to give up and quit. Or you think, I'll just put this monstrosity aside until it seems more clear to me.

Putting it aside for a few days or even a week or two is fine. But you always have to remind yourself that it is only when you have finished a first draft that you can begin to really understand the shape of the thing you're building.

Another rule of writing novels is that good writing comes from rewriting over and over. Your first draft is just a draft. It will be filled with crapola (technical writing term). But of course, you can't rewrite and start making consistent nice sentences and paragraphs and chapters without first having a First Draft. You can't shape your characters into living breathing people who have hopes and dreams and fears and worries until they've been roughed out in your First Draft.

So I'm very pleased give you a progress report. I've finished the First Draft on Owen McKenna #19.

It is rough the way crushed limestone is rough. It is awkward the way a kid making his first phone call to ask someone out on a date is awkward. It is filled with unfulfilled hopes for future good writing. It is like the Winchester Mystery House, with doorways that open onto thin air, and staircases that go nowhere. It contains bad writing, adolescent writing, purple prose writing, melodramatic writing, boring writing.

But that is the nature of a First Draft.

Now that I've completed that daunting First Draft, I can move onto the easier stuff of making it a little better on each page and each day. I can identify all the exposition that simply needs to be deleted. I can fix the mixed metaphors or get rid of them. I can make the hero more heroic and the bad guy waymo bad. I can add some intelligence. I can get rid of my faulty attempts at cleverness. I can take out what Mark Twain disparaged as twenty-five cent words and replace them with nickel words. I can endeavor to have every bit of dialogue do double duty as both showing what the people said but also revealing their character.

Tune in come May or June after the book has been through four editors and endured seventeen rewrites. I'll send out an email as publication gets close.

Thanks again to all of my readers who care about these stories. I owe my career to all of you.