From the Desk of J.M. Poole

Hello, everyone!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m starting up a trivia contest which will be hosted here on the blog.  What’s the contest for?  Signed paperback copies of my books.  Which books?  Well, that’ll vary depending on the quantity of each title I have on hand.  How does it work?   Read on!

I want to encourage people to play and participate, so the rules aren’t going to be too tough.  Simply put, I’m going to post some movie trivia questions several times a week. Active participants (who answer correctly!) will be automatically entered.   I’ll gather the names of those who are playing and write each name on a slip of paper.  It’ll then be presented to Keeley (AKA Peanut from the stories!) to see which name she chooses.  The winner will receive a signed print copy of whichever book I have the most copies of.  Scientific, huh?

Now, you may be curious as to why type of trivia will be asked.  It could be anything from who said the first spoken line in a movie to random bits of trivia I’ve heard over the years.   And let me tell you I’ve picked up quite a bit!  I have well over 700 titles to choose from and know quite a bit more about many others.  My specialty, of course, is the fantasy/sci-fi genre.

The official rules:

1. To be entered, all you have to do is play!  Well, play and guess correctly.
2. You don’t have to guess correctly to win.  I made that last part up.  I want people to have fun, so feel free to guess, even if you don’t have a clue!
3. Be respectful.  No gloating allowed.
4. No spamming allowed.

I’m a die-hard movie buff.  Feel free to fire back with your own trivia questions!  Ok, without further ado, let’s get on with the trivia!

Questions – June 23rd, 2014

• What clan does Jake Sully tell the Na’vi people he’s a part of during their first meeting?  (Avatar)
• What’s the name of the little boy whose father died saving a marine’s life after they all had to exit the bus on the freeway?  (Battle Los Angeles)
• After Jack and Wang were gassed in the elevator and awaken when they were tossed into a room filled with water, which Chinese Hell does he say they are in?  (Big Trouble in Little China)

Avast all ye lovers of useless bits of movie trivia!  Wilst thou be stumped upon reading mine questions?  Continue on if ye dare!

Today’s questions, from easy to hard so everyone can play!

1. How nuch money does Fezzik have to pay Miracle Max for a miracle in Princess Bride?
2. Why did Steven Spielberg allow Harrison Ford to simply shoot the sword-wielding bad guy in Raiders of the Lost Ark instead of having a longer drawn out  fight?
3. At what speed was the NTI traveling when it passed by the American sub at the beginning of the Abyss?

Good luck!  I hope everyone is having a great weekend!  In case you’re wondering, I’m close to finalizing the rules for the movie trivia contest.    Stay tuned!!

Ok, you guys did well with the first round.   Let’s see how you do with this set of questions!

1. In The Hunt for Red October, before first contact is made with the Russian sub, the Americans determine they need to tell the Red October to go “somewhere deep”.  What was the name of the underwater locale Ryan sends to Capt Ramius?
2. In Jurassic Park which two dinosaurs were deliberately portrayed incorrectly with regards to their size?  Hint:  one wasn’t nearly as big and the other wasn’t nearly as small.
3. In The Abyss what three letter acronym was given to the underwater aliens?  There’s only one correct answer but there is a 2nd answer that I will accept.  I will need the acronym and what it stands for!  

Remember, the same rules from yesterday apply!  No Googling the answers!  If you don’t know it, just say so!  And try to avoid looking at other people’s answers!!

Ok all you fans of Lentari!  I’m looking to create a new contest for some signed copies of my books and thought this would be the perfect way to do it.  Now, seeing how I fancy myself a connoisseur of virtually all types of movies, you can see where I came up with the idea of a movie trivia contest!

Now, to be fair, I will admit that I haven’t watched many horror movies as I haven’t found that many that I really like.  I think Aliens is my favorite, and not just because I became friends with one of the actors.  So I think I need to see if you guys have just as much useless movie trivia in your head as I do mine.   Therefore this one will be a trial run!

The rules:

1. No using Google if you don’t know the answer.
2. Try to avoid looking at what everyone else has answered.
3. If you know the answer and it’s clear that others don’t, no gloating!
4. Be respectful.
5. No spamming allowed.  Spammers will be deleted and their IPs will be added to my Troll list (it effectively blocks you from accessing all aspects of the blog)

So what movies am I going to draw from?  Well, here in my office/man cave, I have several bookshelves FULL of movies and anything is fair game.  Chances are it’ll be fantasy/sci-fi related but anything sitting on one of those shelves could be used!   Mwahahaha!   Let’s see how you do with these.  We’ll start with an easy one then each question gets a little harder!

Question #1:   What’s the name of the creatures in Tremors?

Question #2:  What type of ship did Boss Nass give the jedi when they left the Gungan city in SW:  Phantom Menace?

Question #3:  Which Star Trek movie did Christian Slater have a cameo in?

Good luck!  Again, this is a trial run so I can get a feel for how good you guys are!

While I don’t necessarily appreciate getting another year older I do appreciate, however, when my wife tells me she’s taking a couple of days off to spend some time with me for my birthday weekend.  It’s actually Tuesday, but since it falls on such a lousy time of the week, we’re celebrating this weekend.

Besides, it’s Friday the 13th!  And there’s a full moon tonight!  How cool is that??

I’m figuring we’ll probably try to catch a movie or two.  Not sure which ones.  She wants to see 22 Jump Street.  Me, not so much.  Since it’s my birthday I’m really glad I get to choose!

Is everyone having a great summer so far?  It’s pretty much winter here, with no one (of sane mind) going outside during this weather so I’m getting plenty of writing done.  Progress is going great in the 3rd Tales of Lentari story.  As I mentioned earlier, on Facebook, this one seems to be stretching out quite a bit, and I’m reluctant to scale anything back in the story, so this just may turn out to be a 2 parter.  You guys alright with that?

I’m rapidly exhausting my list of names so if you have any other suggestions I”d be more than happy to hear them!  Let me know which gender they are as well as which species.  Or, if you prefer, I can just use the name where I think they would fit best.

Anyone else think it is time to hold some type of contest?  Yeah, me too!  So what should I have you guys do?  Answer trivia questions?  Perform some type of task?  Hmmm.  I’ll start thinking about it.

Hope everyone has a great week!  Stay safe and read lots!

J.

Last week I was in Phoenix for a few days.  I accompanied my wife while she needed to work at her company’s HQ, figuring I’d have plenty of time to write there by myself in the hotel room.

Don’t get me wrong, I did get some good writing done, but that was only on the first day.  Did I get anything done on the 2nd or 3rd?  Not much.  Why?  Because on Thursday, while I was going over my notes for the chapter, I heard the tell tale sounds of an old fashioned ringer coming from my cell phone.  It indicated that an unknown person was calling me and their contact information wasn’t in my address book.  It meant a client was calling me.

No problem.  I close my notebook and reach for my binder, which has all my notes for computer tech calls.  I take the call and begin the formalities.  He tells me his name (which I really wasn’t paying attention at this time) and told me what type of problem he had.  I listened and then explained what I could do for him.  He was interested and we set an appointment for me to go to his house for a training session on his new MacBook Air.

Again, no problem.  I’ve taken thousands of these types of calls.

Then he starts chatting with me about what his interests are on the computer.  He tells me what types of things he likes to do to pass the time.  I’m thinking, this sounds like a nice guy.  He then tells me that this house I’m meeting him at is his mother’s and he lives in Los Angeles.

The little man upstairs responsible for filing away all the useless information I’ve ever collected finally sits up and takes notice.  My eyes drop back to my notebook and I read the client’s name as I had written it:  Michael Bean.

Rusty wheels begin to turn.  He lived in Los Angeles?  His mother lived here?  I knew that the Biehn family lived in the same town as me and that Michael was related to them.

At this time we said our goodbyes and I hang up.  I’m still staring at my notes.  Had I just been talking to Michael Biehn, the star of Terminator, the Abyss, Tombstone, and Aliens??  How could I verify this?

I had the phone number he gave me, which was his mother’s.  Could I look it up that way?  A quick reverse phone check verified the last name was Biehn.

Holy shit!  Pardon my French, but I had just been chatting with a movie star like we were the best of friends!  A grin split my face and to tell the truth, it hasn’t left it for several days.

Ok, this brings me to today.  I had my appointment with him today.  My wife told me to keep cool and not geek out.  I’m sure I looked like a big goofy idiot when we first met.  We shook hands and he showed me his new computer.

For the next 2 hours I helped him set up his email, configure iTunes, helped set up his cell phone, create playlists, etc.  It was hands down the most surreal moment of my life, sitting so close to Michael Biehn that our knees were practically touching.

The best part comes next.  After we’re officially done, we sat around, with his brother, and talked about movies.  Movies!  We talked about the movies he’s been in.  We talked a lot about Aliens and what it was like filming it.

My big dopey grin is back.

One of the last things he does is to add me to his email contact book in case he has any other questions.  I told him I’d be more than happy to help.  Know what he said to me? “Are you any good on a set?”

Far and away the best tech call I’ve ever been on!!!

If you’re an author then you’ll understand how important it is to get your book as clean as possible.  You’ll also know easy it is to overlook the tiniest of errors.  If you’re like me, nothing frustrates an author than to devote so much time and energy to releasing a book only to discover a typo, or perhaps an inconsistency.

That’s why you need an editor.   An editor can point out grammar mistakes, typos, plot holes, or in my case, blatant WTF moments.   The guy who edited my last two books, Derek Pritchard, has started offering his services to other authors.  I would strongly encourage you, if you’re an author, to contact him to see what he can do for you.  His prices are very reasonable.  Let me tell you, ‘methodical’ doesn’t even begin to describe his work.  He will find the tiniest errors and bring them to your attention so that these errors don’t make it to print.

Here’s his website:  Derek Pritchard Editing.

Give him a try!  You won’t be disappointed!

Since today is the 1st official day I’m spending on aPfyT, I’ve sketched out some details for chapter 1 and am ready to write.  So, with that being said, I could use a couple of names!  Want to name a fictional character?  Now’s your chance!  Let’s see…  I could use:

1.  At least three or four human names.  Not related.

2.  At least 2 dragon names.

3.  For kicks and giggles, let’s throw in a dwarf name or two.

I always like having extra names handy.  Come on, guys!  Got some suggestions for me?  Hit me with your best shot!

Tales of Lentari #2 has been officially released!  I’ll keep updating this post with retailer sales links as I see them appear.  This is definitely the fastest I’ve ever written/released a book, so I’m hopeful I’ll get ToL #3 out by Christmas!

Here are the retailers that have the book:

Smashwords , Amazon USA , Amazon , Apple’s iTunes

The Amazon links don’t show the book’s cover just yet, but I do know that it can take a day or two for all the info to show up.  Seeing how this showed up less than 15 minutes after I hit the “Publish” button, that’s not bad.  🙂

I’ve done this for the last couple of books I’ve released and thought it’d be fun to show you, the readers, the steps that I will undergo to get the book ready to be released and what stage I’m presently on.  So, without further ado, here we go!

My steps for releasing a book:

• Finish writing the flippin’ book     finished!
• Finalize book cover    finished!
• Give to wife (Beta Reader #1).  Correct any advised changes.    finished!
• Get the pdf into the hands of my Beta Readers.    finished!
• Get the pdf into the hands of my primary proofer.  You know who you are.    finished!
• Revise manuscript to reflect changes.   in progress
• Format the manuscript for KDP submission (Amazon) – takes up to 24 hrs.   in progress
• Format the manuscript for Smashwords distribution – can take around a week to show up for Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Diesel, etc.   in progress
• Format the manuscript for Createspace release – this is the print edition.   in progress
• Pull out notebook and start working on Tales of Lentari #3!    in progress