Tom Gauthier, Novelist - Tom Gauthier Blog

Craziness IS my world today …

6/17/2015

Mea Culpa for the long silence on this blog. May I explain?

We finally decided to turn the page of life so we can maybe read a few more chapters in comfort—and even find out how it ends. So … we have our home on the market and are “moving to town”—to Reno, NV—to be closer to the things dictated by advancing age and infirmaries.

We dreamed, designed, and planned our log home for ten years before retiring in 2000—and then actually built it on 16 acres of beautiful High Sierra forest in Lassen County, California. The past 15 years have met all expectations for what we wanted to accomplish. Now it’s time to pass it on to a younger dreamer who can nurture it for another couple of decades. If you ever dreamed of mountains, log homes and peace--the place is for sale: Here's a tour (you may have to paste it to your search site)
http://tours.focustahoe.com/341088

Packing, garage sales, piles of donations to good-will, distribution of treasures to family and friends, all provide a wild ride of transitions … our crazy world!

My novel writing, audio book production, and our new publishing venture will continue when we finally settle into a “permanent” existence again. There will be a time of “limbo” for some months before one end closes and the other opens. But we spent our life together as “corporate nomads” so move, changes, new friends, keeping old friends close, are very familiar endeavors.

The beauty of the internet (among all its warts) is this ability to maintain one’s identity and close contacts wherever the physical world may be. So keep in touch—we’re “here” until the last chapter goes to press.

http://tours.focustahoe.com/341088

WE’VE BEEN AWAY -------

4/10/2015

But we’re back and working hard on new ventures.

The “away” was a trip to San Diego to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary.

We basked in the company of fifty—count ‘em—fifty siblings, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and assorted spouses! Youngest son, Tom, and his beautiful and creative bride, Becky, hosted one fantastic weekend. We met for the first time five of the great-grandchildren—and learned of the imminent addition of two more, for a total of seventeen. WOW!

New ventures? We’ve established a new publishing company to augment the work of my regular publisher, Patriot Media, Inc., Florida.
Marlene and I founded the ToMar Associates in 2002 as a consulting, counseling and teaching activity. Now the ToMar Associates, Publishing is a natural outgrowth—and we have three projects working already. In addition we have established an Audio Book Recording Studio and are working on the second production (the first, MEAD’S TREK, is out on Audible, Amazon.com and iTunes).

The first publication projects are quite a variety of works: FORCE THREE RISES is the fourth book in the Amos Mead Adventure Series. It is being rolled out Saturday, April 11, locally at a signing event at Margie’s Book Nook, the premier book source in Susanville, CA. We did the morning show with Chris Montgomery on KSUE/KJDX this morning, and Susanville Stuff.com has a featured article today. We can’t thank our local supporters enough for helping us to roll out our new offerings.

There’s more coming: We have worked with David Teeter at Margie’s Book Nook to publish a children’s book of short stories and verse for the holidays. Titled Pumpkins to Holly, it features stories by Tom Gauthier, children’s author Connie Faust, and poet Cora May Preble, plus a lot of that guy “anonymous,” gleaned from old English folk tales.

Do you know where the name “Jack O’Lantern” originated? The kids will when they read this book.

The third project is close to my heart. If you read the first story in the Amos Mead Adventure Series, Code Name: ORION’S EYE, you’ll remember the WWII US Army Air Corps unit, the 1st Fighter Control Squadron. Real soldiers were woven into the fictional story based on historic events.

Now we have written a book to honor these departed heroes in a history/memoir to tell their story from inception in 1942, through the harrowing experiences of a sinking at sea, and on to their island beachhead landings in New Guinea and the Philippines. As we get closer to publication we’ll share the sources of the personal memories of these men, obtained through the generous cooperation of their families. It is scheduled to be published in May.

MUSINGS FROM AN AGING BRAIN

3/15/2015

This week has been very productive in the writing department. Trying to test the hypothesis that an active brain is a healthy brain—for really old folks—my week had me burning up the keyboard on three, count ‘em, three, projects. And to make it interesting, the three writing projects are as different as global warming and the New England spring.

My fifth novel of the Amos Mead Adventures, working title: The President’s Deadly Friend, is charging headlong toward an exciting conclusion (And as soon as I find out what it is I’ll tell you—or not).

For my diehard fans, remember the very first story--Code Name: ORION’S EYE? And the dramatic sinking of the troopship SS Cape San Juan with over a thousand souls aboard? Well, I’ve chosen to pluck out one of the Army Air Corps units that experienced the Japanese torpedo induced sinking and gather what can be found of their history, war-time exploits, and personal memories, and put them into one book for posterity. The “official” history of the concept and formation of the secret mission of the 1st Fighter Control Squadron rests in six thousand fathoms of Pacific Ocean off Fiji. But with the help of the tenacious work of one veteran, Chester Driest, in the 1990’s to seek out the people he served with that day, 11 November 1943, and gather them and their memories in one tattered box—and now the help of his daughter, Edie Driest, the son of the units commanding officer, Dr. Michael Dake, the family of the leader of the Pacific landings after the sinking, Captain Edward Bonfoey, and the most dedicated historian I know, Eric Stone, who has filled in the blanks on the ship and the event, I have what I need to honor and remember their deeds.

(Do you believe the length of that sentence?)

So there is an action/adventure novel, and a unit history/memoir in play. The third project? A children’s book of stories and verse focused on Halloween and Christmas.

My challenge then is to be sure that you, my fine and valued readers, from reading about Amos Mead storming a New Guinea beach in 1944 humming Christmas carols while yelling, Trick or Treat!

The exercise will strengthen my ¾ century old brain—or dive me to drink. Hmmm.

Okay, one reminder: The fourth story in the Amos Mead Adventure Series is out on Amazon and points north, south, east and west! FORCE THREE RISES is 230 pages of action! Listed at $12.95 it’s your entertainment deal of the week. The Kindle version is $3.99—and free if you get it with a hard copy. And please write a review after you’ve perused the “inside the book” reading feature.

PREVIEW on AMAZON of my new AMOS MEAD ADVENTURE: FORCE THREE RISES

3/9/2015

https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1166088

Follow the link to Createspace on Amazon and leave your comments. This is the fourth book in the Amos Mead Adventures--and we're told they're only getting better. But we want to hear what you think.

CREATING MY AUDIO BOOK EDITION Of Code Name: ORION’S EYE

3/4/2015

Jason Wheeler controlling the process

Tom Gauthier Narrating Audio Book

We are in the middle of producing our second audio book—“we” being my audio producer, Jason Wheeler, and me, the author/narrator. While the experience of making an audio book is new ground to plow for me, I’m drawing on years of public speaking, occasional radio and television appearances, stage work, and my nearly three years as a blog-talk-radio co-host. But doing the book raised the bar to meet the technical requirements for a commercially produced quality product that are well above my pay grade. I rely completely on my friend and venture partner, Jason Wheeler, to keep me legal and viable as a “performer.”

Doing my own narration was encouraged by our production/marketing “big brother,” ACX Productions—an Amazon Company. They told us that author/narrator is sought after by buyers of audio books. Okay, if Bill O’Reilly can pull it off, why not me? Well, for one reason, my voice. Too many years of using it hard, and the impact of the last five years of “extreme medications” (which successfully worked to beat back a nasty disease!) has left me with a gravely, gritty, voice—recognizable on air for all the wrong reasons. But there is a good side for me—when I was asked to co-host Military Author Radio (after being a guest) I said that nobody would want to listen to this voice. To my surprise, the opposite proved true and folks called it unique, easy to listen to, and authentic. The latter adjective gave me the confidence to proceed with the audio book narration gig. Feedback on our first book, MEAD’S TREK, supported the proposition when folks called the voice just right for telling a soldier’s story. So, I’m guessing narrating a romance novel is not in my future.

Our audio books, MEAD’S TREK, and soon-to-be-there, Code Name: ORION’S EYE are available on Amazon.com, Audible.com and iTunes.com. (Check out the sample recording on this site—home page.)

For you authors out there who are encouraged to give it a try with your books, check out the tutorials on ACX.com—they’re informative and very helpful to clear up a lot of the fuzzy stuff for you. Give me a shout back on this blog about your experiences with audio books.

A NEW AMOS MEAD ADVENTURE IS ON THE WAY

2/22/2015

Finally, after way too many months, AMOS MEAD and his brilliant bride Dr. BRIGIT O’HARE MEAD, are getting back in the game. The new novel, FORCE THREE RISES, takes them on a twisting path of intrigue from Washington, DC to Moscow, and from China to war-torn Korea in search of their missing CIA friend—and a stolen atomic bomb. That’s right—and atomic bomb! The story around the bomb is historical fact—and very scary.

It’ll be a few more weeks until FORCE THREE RISES hits Amazon and Kindle—and you won’t want to miss it when it does.

Here are a few excerpts for you:

The moonlight failed to penetrate the deeper woods as Harmon Wetmore groped his way through the trees, oak branches clawing at his flight suit, moving away from the direction of the noise of the excited Chinese. A deadfall grabbed his foot and sent him headlong into the tangle of dense undergrowth. In seeming slow motion he scrambled back to a low crouching run, suddenly breaking into the silvery light, stepping into a small rushing stream.

He stopped, dropped to a knee and peered up and down the streambed’s opening to the sky. Leaning back into the underbrush, he listened. Nothing. Nothing but the usual night sounds of the woods—the sharp chic-chic of reed-warblers and the scurry of rodents sounding far too loud to his adrenaline pumped ears.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lying there in the night-cooling earth Wetmore let the adrenalin drain out of his aching body, his breathing slowing, the realization of his utter exhaustion coming fully aware. Still prone he crossed his arms under his face and let his eyes close, his body relax. In an instant he tensed from … and just as he became aware of a slight sound nearby he felt the cold, hard barrel of a gun rest against his neck.

Wetmore felt himself go numb at the realization of what was about to happen. A rough whisper delivered through clenched teeth accompanied the cold shock of the deadly gun barrel, “Dobryĭ vecher, gospodin amerikanskiĭ. Dobro pozhalovatʹ v Manʹchzhurii (Good evening, American. Welcome to Manchuria).”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Director moved behind Brigit. “Okay, make your call much like you used to do at Pearl. Pearl Harbor is already monitoring the channels we are using into mainland China.”

Brigit nodded and turned her head to smile at Amos Mead.

“Your show, Brigit,” the Director said as he stepped back and took a seat nearby.

Dr. Brigit Mead took a deep breath and keyed her microphone as memories flooded back to 1944 and a similarly hard chair in an office in Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii. She remembered that Yang Kuisong’s code name was shandian yun—lightning cloud.

“Calling shandian yun, calling shandian yun. This is Glinda, repeat, Glinda, in the clear. Over.”

Brigit looked down at the ledge in front of her, intent on the tiny sounds coming from the headset. Once more she broadcasted, “Shandian yun, this is Glinda calling in the clear.”

The crackling static in her ears increased, then a voice, “Glinda, this is Pearl Harbor. We have a reply and are translating for you--Shandian yun requests that you provide the countersign confirmation code. But he asked that it not be the last one you used, but the one from the first contact you made with him at the beginning of Operation Ichigo. Over.”

“Roger your request, Pearl Harbor,” Brigit replied. She sat back in her chair staring at the Navy gray ceiling … thinking. Quickly she straightened up and leaned into her microphone, “Glinda calling shandian yun. Countersign Gung Ho. Repeat, countersign is Gung Ho. Over.”

After an interminable moment Brigit heard her reply—not from Pearl Harbor, but in broken, but understandable English, “Glinda, this is shandian yun. I verify Gung Ho. It has been a long time, my friend, and many changes in circumstance, as I’m sure you know. Over.”

“Indeed it has, my friend. I’m glad we are able to make this contact and I know how much risk you may be taking to talk with me. Over.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The truck looked right, the uniforms were right, and the subdued lighting at this point in the fence drew no notice as the man in the back of the rig jumped out and approached the gate. He quickly cut the chain free and swung open the gate, returning to his place in the truck. The leader turned and peered back into the bed of the truck and whispered, “Is all in order? Everything ready?”

His partner, sitting among an array of explosive ordinance he had prepared answered in the positive. The truck pulled onto the edge of the tarmac and proceeded around the perimeter fence until it was even with the soaring tail of their target. Then it turned and with increasing speed drove directly toward the nearest American B-52 bomber. The man in the rear opened the canvas flap he had rigged that would allow him to do his work. The giant bomber was bathed in the brightness of the mechanics’ work lights so the truck seemed to loom from the darkness.

At first no notice was taken of the truck, then as it continued to approach at an unsafe speed for on-field vehicles airmen began to watch, and then draw away from its seeming aim point. The truck swerved beneath the tail of the behemoth aircraft, the driver marveling at the actual size of the plane. Forty-three feet above them the tail soared skyward. As the truck reached the tail and lined up with the aircraft the first explosive charge was thrown from the back of the truck.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FORCE THREE RISES is the fourth book in the AMOS MEAD Adventure series.

It continues the escapades of the Mead’s from:

Code Name: ORION’S EYE

MEAD’S TREK

DIE LISTE: Revenge on the Black Sun.

That’s it for now …. A lot more coming!

AUTHORS: TEST YOUR WORK EARLY

2/15/2015

My blog today is not mine at all—but a passing on of what I see as a great, and simple to do, idea for authors who are working hard to improve their product. The following is from Vikram Narayan, the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies, and one who surely knows this part of our “business.”

Narayan advises, “rather than put your book out there and see what the market thinks, you test to see the market reaction at a much lower cost.”

Here’s how:

Find three people who you think constitute your target readers. These three people could be your friends, family members or just acquaintances. Give them only the first thirty pages (or first 10%) of your book to read. Wait for about a week. Do any of these three people get back to you and ask for the rest of the book?

Dig deeper to find out if they don’t ask for the next chapters.

Your goal is to have all three readers ask for the full book.

A poor response means that either you’re getting the target audience wrong or that you need to rework your book. Figure out which may be the case for your particular book. Then repeat the test with three new readers. Keep iterating with sets of new readers until all three of your readers ask for the full book. The main goal behind this kind of reader testing is to ensure that the opening of your book (where most read / abandon decisions are made) is up to par.

But why should you enlist only three readers?

It’s much less daunting to find three readers than to find ten readers. The quality of actionable information that you get from three readers is not going to increase exponentially if you increase the number of readers to five or ten. You are more likely to do multiple rounds of reader testing if you need to keep finding only three readers at a time. And it is better to stay focused on the biggest problems with your writing or your reader targeting than to focus on the trivial issues.

Of course, this concept can be extended to the whole book and you can simply hand out only one chapter at a time to your test readers. But in that case you’d probably be better off just hiring an editor or enlisting the help of beta readers.

As an author, you don’t know if your book is ready for prime time which is what a listing on Amazon means. And you don’t want to treat your paying readers as beta testers. The consequences could be the loss of reputation, poor Amazon reviews and lost sales for your future books. By doing reader testing you will improve your chances of putting up the right book to the right target audience with the right opening.

Great idea. Thanks Vikram. I am working this afternoon to follow his advice with my completed (if ever they are) manuscript for FORCE THREE RISES. I’ve got three readers in mind for the test. But if anyone reading this would like to be part of another group of three, contact me from the contact info on the website.

Have a great week!

FREE Mead's Trek AUDIO BOOK AVAILABLE

2/11/2015

Everybody likes free stuff! The 8 1/2 hour audio book edition of MEAD'S TREK is available free if you go to Audible .com and sign up for a TRIAL subscription. So if you've got a long commute--or a long road trip coming up--let my dulcet tones and a really good yarn accompany you--for free!

HELLO ME—I’M BEGINNING TO LIKE YOU A LOT

2/8/2015

I’ve just begun a project that breaks with all the books I‘ve written so far. REALLY breaks, as it is aimed at YA—or those who have found it impossible to grow past YA. It is a shot at answering their questions about why do I feel this way? What’s the use? And the like. This blog is a brain-dump of some of what is buzzing around in my old head.

So tell me, what in your life makes you feel angry? An editor’s rejection? A teacher yelling at you? Your parents ridiculing the stupid stunt you pulled? What is it that pisses you off? Let’s get right to the point I want you to consider: That teacher, the editor, your parents—or your wife or neighbor or the “stupid” clerk at the store—did not, in no way, make you angry. Are you nodding “yes,” or thinking, “They sure as h—l DID tick me off.”

Settle down and let me explain. I just gave you a list of “events”—rejection, yelling, ridiculing, etc. What you added was your belief about those events. “He shouldn’t have rejected my best writing! She shouldn’t have yelled at me! They have no right to ridicule me! That clerk is stupid!

So when we add the event to your belief about the event we get your feeling of anger, frustration and embarrassment. And of course how we feel drives how we behave. And behavior gets you in more trouble—or gets you on the right to feeling better—your choice.

How much control do you have over the events that “make you mad?” Not much if any. Can you see now that if we have no control over events, and events cause our feelings—we’d be stuck. We would have no choice about how we feel. And we’d be correct in saying, “He made me feel bad … or mad.”

But that’s not the way it is—we do have a choice of how we will feel. Thus, how we will behave. So we touched cause and effect for feelings. Specifically, what we believe affects how we feel and behave. So where do those beliefs come from? When we were kids we did things that parents, teachers, and friends both liked and disliked. What would that list look like?

Cussed, lied, played hooky, got dirty, didn’t listen, daydreamed—or obeyed elders, stayed clean, got good grades, was polite, paid attention, and smiled a lot. Now that we know how we bugged or pleased our parents, teachers and friends, let’s ask another question: “What names were we called as a kid? I’ll go with the bad ones: liar, lazy, stupid, or dumb. And better: good girl, neat, proper, fun. Looking at what we did, then at what we were called, can we draw a couple of assumptions, even conclusions about ourselves?

We are what we do.

We are what others think of us.

Come on now—intellectually most of you can agree that we are not what we do, or what others think of us—but the fact is almost everyone behaves as if it were true. Here’s a tough little exercise. Write a list of things that answers, “Why do you like yourself?” Got a few … okay. I’ll bet that most of what we listed reflects the same way we were “rated” as kids. Look closer: The moment you wrote a reason for liking yourself as “I like myself because …” you began to rate yourself much like you were rated as a child. You make your self-acceptance contingent upon something.

There are only three ways we can feel about anything: good, bad, or indifferent. If you’re beginning to see that if we feel bad, or good, it is because we believe that whatever happened triggered our belief about what should have happened. Keeping it super simple, let’s look at a few of the most common beliefs people hold:

I can never be wrong (conversely, I must always be right.)
I can never lose (I must always win.)
Nobody should ever hurt me ( not physically)
Everyone should always like me.

What’s wrong with these beliefs? They’re all crazy wrong! Will you be wrong, lose, get your feelings hurt, be rejected?—yes, of course. So if these beliefs are setting me up for bad feelings and my behaving badly enough to find trouble—where did I get them?

Try this: Did your coach ever tell you, “It’s okay to lose this game … you tried.” Or did your teacher say, “It’s okay to flunk this test. After all it is hard.” Did your mother say, “Don’t worry, honey, I’ll take care of you.”

My point is that you can alter those beliefs and thus alter how you feel about them.

As a speaker I told myself, “Only about 80% of the folks in the audience are going to like my presentation.” With that self-talk I did not feel bad when 100% of the folks failed to cheer.

I know I’ve been rambling, and that there is still a lot to tie together with these thoughts. But if you’ve only begun to see how you can regain comfort and peace in your life, a stronger sense of control of your life, by giving serious though to what you believe—and making some constructive changes to those beliefs—then we’re on a positive path together.

AN INCREDIBLE NEW BOOK IS OUT

2/3/2015

Guest: Louise Esola, Author

American Boys: The True Story of the Lost 74 of the Vietnam War

paste the link below into your browser

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/patriot-media-broadcasting/2014/06/18/military-author-radio

This is the file to listen to my interview of Louise Estola about her incredibly moving book about the sailors who died in the Vietnam conflict--and are still not on the "WALL."

Author

Retired Business Exec who made a career in organizational development and personal improvement counseling and teaching around the world. Now, for the past ten years, I write novels. I've had great teachers and role models and I want to share what I've learned with you.

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