Spring has finally arrived in Missouri!! Talk about Happy! No more snow in the Spring…please! Take advantage of the sun and enjoy nature at it’s best. Sandy will be taking more pictures of the garden this year to share with everyone!
Category Archives: Author’s Thoughts
The thoughts of the author in a blog format
The Pond
The First Pond
Several years ago, after turning the side yard into a garden, I decided what was needed was a pond.
At the time, my wife worked out of town most of the time. I thought, as a surprise, I would dig a pond for her.
It was late March so the ground was soft enough to dig. I marked the ground with orange spray paint, picked up a shovel and went to work.
Three days later, I had a hole twenty five feet wide by forty feet long and three feet deep. From the bank of dirt to the inside of the hole, it measured a little over four feet deep.
I located the pond between five large oak trees. My thought was a walk around the pond built from sandstone. That was going to have to wait until May or June. The creek has layered sandstone to mine but I needed the water level to drop.
When my wife arrived home the following Friday, she was impressed at the size of the hole I dug in the yard with a shovel.
She was not impressed that my back was not going to allow me to walk. I have a problem with my back from time to time so she was not happy with me, but was with the pond.
The rain came in April and it rained a lot during the month; enough to fill the hole turning it into my pond.
When the rains ended, so did the pond. The water drained and left me with a muddy hole in the ground. Asking the neighbors around the area, they said digging the pond between five large trees was not a good idea.
My daughter is a geological engineer. When she finished snickering, she told me to try bentonite. It’s a powder that, when mixed with dirt and water, gets “gooey.”
Off to the feed store I went and bought ten bags. I mixed and mixed with dirt, then spread and packed it on the bottom and sides. Taking the garden hose, I lightly wet the mixture until the water started to settle in the bottom. I could feel the success ebbing from my breast!
I let the hose run with the intent to fill the pond but Glenn, The Weatherman, predicted rain for the next several days.
It rained, the pond filled, then the water left me again.
The cost of a liner was prohibitive. A friend suggested “roofing rubber.” He used it and got great results. I went to our local hardware store only to find out I could not get the size I needed and it was far more expensive than a pond liner.
So, for the next several years while I saved the money, the grandchildren used the hole as a fort when playing soldiers.
The Fort
One day I decided that a roll of 4 mil thick plastic would (maybe) work.
To my amazement (and my wife’s as well), it held water. We went and bought 3 koi fish. We had a wonderful time watching and feeding the fish.
A year later, we had the driveway graded and new gravel laid. The man doing the work, Don, said he could dig the pond deeper and pack it with clay. My wife jumped at the chance to have Don do the work.
Three days and several tons of clay later, he finished.
The Second Pond
It was a wonderful job. We built a walk around the top and my wife put plants on the outside of the bank. All that was left was water.
I took the old garden hose and filled the pond.
There was one small problem: It wouldn’t hold water and still does not.
Now I have taken you through a tale of woe, but it gets worse.
My four year old grandson dug a pond in his backyard – just like Pa-Pa.
His pond is holding water.
Grandkid Pond
TGIF Happy Friday!
Happy Friday!
ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND!
The Price of a Book
When I was a kid…I keep going back to those carefree days.
I was twelve years old when I bought my first paperback book. The price was twenty-five cents. For a quarter of a dollar (plus a penny for sales tax), I received a weeks worth of an exciting tale, taking me to places I never dreamed I may really go someday.
Not long after I started reading paperbacks, my dad got really sick. He was in the hospital for a long time. I did not know he liked to read but learned his favorite genre was Westerns. So my twenty-six cents went to Zane Gray.
The author Zane Gray was a member of Penn’s varsity baseball team in 1895 and 1896 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Then one day I went to buy a book and they were up to fifty cents. I had just enough money. I planned to buy two. That was okay, Dad was not working but was starting to get around.
By the time I graduated high school, paperbacks were up to seventy-five cents. There was no money for college and my grades were not good enough to think of a scholarship. The Vietnam war was raging, and I had a choice: Get drafted and go straight to war or enlist. I would get enough training to keep me alive. So, enlist I did.
During those days of training, I learned that cold was not a totally bad thing and that an hour of sleep spread out over twenty-four was actually a lot.
Reading any type of novel was out of the question.
Some years later, I went past a drug store that had rows of paperbacks to buy.
My father passed away not long before. So when I started looking at the books, my first tendency was toward the Westerns. All the ones the store stocked I had already read. It didn’t seem right to read Westerns any more.
I bought another book. That cost me a dollar & twenty-five cents.
Since those days I have bought many books; a great many at used book stores where most were slightly discounted.
One day at a used book store in St. Louis, the owner and I were talking about what a new book would cost to publish.
He explained things simply: A person takes a year of their life to write the book. Then they spend money for the edit. Perhaps, the person lands a literary agent who gets 15%. Then if it gets sold to a publisher, they have the cost of cover design, printing, stocking and distribution. For that they get 50% or a little more. The book store that sells the book also gets a percentage.
At this point the poor author who thought he hit the mother lode is, for the time and energy to write and promote a part of his life, the recipient of the smallest amount from each sale.
On a twenty dollar paperback he makes maybe $5.00 per sale, but more like $3.00.
That made a great deal of sense.
Now I am an Indie author. I pay those costs out of my own pocket.
I am lucky enough to have a wife who is not just a business manager but does as much as a creative consultant. She did my cover design, as well as the book trailer. Sandy stays up with what I have going and need to attend. My wife designed the webpage and tends to it.
My paperbacks sell for almost $17.00 per copy. My e-book sells for $4.99.
I am not saying anything bad about a person selling their book for 0.99 cents, but ask yourself: Would James Patterson or Stephen King?
Nope!
My New "Engagement Area of Learning" the Past Two Months
By Sandra L. Jones, wife of The Author of "The Wolf's Moon," Patrick Jones
I start my writing career with this article dedicated to Anthony Wessel, CEO of Digital Book Today.
He believed in me, in us. Sometimes in life, you meet people that are cornerstones in your pathways through the maze they call life. My husband wrote a book.
Digital Book Today is very approachable for the author. Kudos to Anthony Wessel
Budweiser Clydesdale Super Bowl Commercial
GREAT CHOICE EVERYONE!
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE for “The Wolf’s Moon” BEST SELLER Status on AMAZON!!
ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?????
I would like to Thank Everyone for their incredible support of our FREE days this weekend! I cannot tell you how honored I am to have the most FANTASTIC FRIENDS in the UNIVERSE!
First of all, let me say…”ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!!!!!!!!!!!”
Statistics on the FANTASTIC FEEBIE EVENT 2/1/2013 and 2/2/2013 are as follows:
Total US downloads = 2,916
Total UK downloads = 76
Total Germany downloads = 75
Total Canada downloads = 16
Total Spain downloads = 1
YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME! THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH FOR YOUR INTEREST! Now…GO WATCH FOOTBALL! OOHRAH!
FINISHED UP: #10 Mystery Thriller/Thriller/Suspense AND #2 Mystery Thriller/Mystery/Series
A Book Store…
When I was a kid, maybe fourteen, I walked from my home to Maplewood, MO. It wasn’t far, just a couple of miles, but the walk was worth it.
Tucked away between the bar on the corner (that had the best Polish sausage with Miracle Whip sandwiches ever – of which I could do a blog just on them – maybe later), and the music store was a small book store.
Title: Shakespeare and Company Taken on: 2004-09-19 11:11:16 Original source: Flickr.com – image description page (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It was indeed small but the shelves went from the floor to the ceiling, with every genre of hard cover or paperback book.
There were new books, traded books and books that looked as though Shakespeare or Poe may have browsed the pages.
At first, I went there to get comic books. They were, after all, only a dime. The little grey-haired lady kept a close watch on me. The thought of ever stealing a book never entered my mind. Those books were the way the lady had money to feed herself. I would pick the comic book I wanted, give her my dime, then leave the store.
In the coming months she grew to know me and her surveillance of me slowly disappeared as I graduated from Superman to Doc Savage.
Then, the Mike Hammer books were the ones I wanted to read.
The grey-haired lady, at first, would not sell them to me. She told me to wait a few years.
I really liked the lady so I said okay and settled on a Doc Savage I hadn’t read.
Winter came, and with working before and after school and going to school, the thoughts of going to a book store was furthest from my mind.
When the winter snows were over and school work dwindled down to a snail’s pace, I had a pocket full of money. The bookstore with all those treasures of written words, awaited me.
My arrival to a corner of the world I felt reserved for me, I found the store closed. Looking through the front window, where the new hard cover releases were displayed, I saw no books. My gaze was met by empty shelves.
I went next door to the bar and asked Gus the bartender, where the little lady that owned the next store moved.
He looked at me with kind eyes and said, “Heaven. She passed away a month ago.”
In the ensuing years, I found other places to buy my books. Places like Borders and Barnes & Noble were there.
Borders is now gone and is being followed by Barnes & Noble.
The feel of a book is slowly but surely being replaced by electronic media.
I hope the little grey-haired lady, whose name I never got to know, has a huge bookstore in Heaven, not having to worry about kids stealing comic books.
Copyright © 2013 Patrick Jones, All Rights Reserved
FULL WOLF MOON RISING
Please Click Here for a Link to the Interview
Today, Indies Unlimited featured “The Wolf’s Moon” by Patrick Jones as a Book Brief. Isn’t it interesting that they chose this weekend to feature the book! That coincidence may never happen twice!
Thanks to Indies Unlimited for their devotion to writers everywhere!
The Library
Years ago when my son was moving from kindergarten to the first grade there was a summer reading program. The program covered all students in St. Louis, Missouri. If a student read five books over the summer, the reader received a certificate for an ice cream cone from the St. Louis Public Library. The fast food chain, McDonald’s, sponsored the program.
That summer my son, Pat, was six years of age. Even at six his bright mind was quick and always looking to find the things that would benefit him. Simply reading five books to acquire an ice cream cone was easy. Pat had been in tow with me for years going to the local branch library. That year on summer vacation my son attained his first library card.
My daughter, Rachel, was two years old and she, too, wanted free ice cream cones. So while Pat was looking for books, I told Rachel she could get books on my card. She had also learned to count. Five books was a number for her to count.
Once, sometimes twice per week, the three of us were at the library returning books and getting another certificate.
Rachel would sit on my lap and we read each book together. She learned her alphabet and was sounding out words over that summer.
While at the library returning books, Rachel asked in her soft, sweet voice, “Daddy, when can I get my own “libraby” card?”
The ladies working at the library heard her question and told her she had to sign her name. That was all that was needed.
Those two bright, brown eyes looked to me for the answer. I asked the younger of the two ladies for a sheet of paper, then we sat at a table. Starting with large block letters, we reduced the size each time until she wrote the letters. Pat stopped looking for new books to read and was cheering Rachel on. Soon I noticed the crowd of adults and other children watching.
Finally Rachel signed her name twice, the same size, to go on the back of the “libraby” card.
It was time.
I filled out the card, the one that told the librarians where the book that was not returned was located.
Rachel took the pen from the librarian and signed her name in the block letters. When she finished, it seemed Rachel had drawn a crowd - everyone applauded her!
My daughter was not just happy but proud of herself.
Now she was able to earn her ice cream cones on her own and Pat was every bit as proud of her.
A few decades later, Pat is Director of Informational Technology for a school district. He is currently working on his PhD and Rachel has a Bachelor’s degree as a Geological Engineer. All from reading at a local branch library.
One other thing, I have always been proud of both!
Copyright © 2013 Patrick Jones, All Rights Reserved.
