My New Book and Link to My New Blog

I'm probably shouting into an empty cave and probably getting an echo in response, but just in case anyone is still visiting here by accident or otherwise, I thought I'd put up a new post. Since my last post I've published a new book. It's a fun twist on the time travel genre called Time To Lie which you can find in e-book and paperback format on Amazon. (The audiobook is coming soon!)

If you'd like to visit my current blog, which is just this one still going after 12 years, I've moved over to WordPress. You can find the new and improved Phil Factor HERE! Hope to see you soon! ~Phil

My New Novel: The Sneaker Tree

Remember when you were a kid and you had that one magical summer that seemed to last a lifetime? Cooper, Gooby, Chuck, Cliff and Bolo don't know it, but they are in the midst of a summer they will never forget. Their small town is paralyzed with fear as a serial killer preys upon children and The Golden Boys seem to be the only ones who have a chance to stop him. A life-long bond is forged between them as they confront each other, their worst fears and a killer that is more than anyone could possibly imagine. It's now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iPad. Like a blind date, it's funny, suspenseful, and cheap.

Fifty Shades of Phil

It's my new book of the 50 best posts of the last 8 years of The Phil Factor. It's a fun, when you have a few minutes to wait and need a little entertainment kind of book.

You can find it on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Shades-Phil-Mommy-ebook/dp/B00DLS13CW/ref=pd_sim_sbs_kstore_1

Please Visit My New Blog

Hey Everyone, Please visit my new blog at The Phil Factor and if you leave a comment with the link to your blog I'll try to link back to you. I don't want to lose you!

Someone Interviewed Me?!!?

Through the Six Degrees of Separation miracle that is social media Gregory G. Allen, who blogs for the Huffington Post, found my novel White Picket Prisons and we began to converse via Twitter. Crazily he decided to interview me for his personal blog, which happens to be a great read whether I'm in it or not. You can read the interview here

I Need Your Help with this Idea: Facebook National No Re-Post Day

Please check out my new blog and share the link:Facebook National No Re-Post Day

The Phil Factor is Moving

I'm very sad. This is the end of an era. Although I had partially moved my blogging to Posterous two years ago I still always held a weak spot in my heart for Blogger and all the great people I've "met" here. Posterous gave me the ability to forward my posts from there to here so I stayed connected. Unfortunately Posterous is shutting down next month. For 8 years The Phil Factor has been here with this very same template. After 8 years however I am realizing a dream by finally publishing my blog and information about my writing at my new site at: thephilfactor.com If you're one of my old blogger friends please stop by my new page and leave a comment so I can still follow you.

The Next Big Thing

The Next Big Thing is a blog meme making the rounds among indie authors. A meme is kind of like a chain letter. If I break the chain by not posting this bad things will happen to me. The idea is to pique interest in your next work (the next big thing)  and to expose readers to other indie authors. For this assignment I was tagged by Natalia Cherjovsky whose collection of captivating short stories, Humanity Revisited, was published to Amazon about 7 weeks ago. 

What is the working title of the book? It is currently titled The Ghost Runner but since another writer published a book by that exact same name towards the end of last year I’ll have to come up with another title. Let me know if you have any ideas.  No, seriously, let me know.

Where did the idea for the book come from? My son is a baseball player and when they don’t have enough players for two full teams in a pick-up game or scrimmage they employ ghost runners as imaginary runners when someone who is already on base has to bat. That’s all I’m going to tell you.

What genre does your book fall under? General fiction/suspense

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition? That’s a tough one because the main characters are all about 12 years old. Who I would really like to cast is the actors from the movie Stand by Me, but only if they were still that age. This would have been a great story for both Corey’s, Feldman and Haim, to have been cast in as young actors.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book? The Golden Boys return, or become, in this humorous prequel that takes the reader back to the terrifying and magical summer that forged the lifelong bond between them.

How long did it take you to draft the first manuscript? I’m still working on it. Are you implying that people actually write more than one draft of a manuscript?

What else about your book might pique the readers’ interest? For readers that follow my Facebook page I’ve had contests where the readers give me ideas for the name of places and other things in the story, so several readers will get to see their funny ideas worked into the story. For those that read White Picket Prisons they might be surprised to know that there may be a little romance for Chuck and a whole other Golden Boy they’ve never heard of.  There’s also a fair bit of humor worked into the story as well.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? At this point I’m planning on self-publishing, but if anyone knows an agent or agency who might be interested I’m willing to listen to offers.  Let’s just say that I’m looking for Stephen King kind of money.  I probably won’t find it, but it can’t hurt to look.

My tagged writer to do this for next Wednesday is the talented Rene Folsom. Check out her whole catalogue of paranormal romance novels.

 

 

Daylight Stupid Time

When I'm elected President, or Sexiest Man Alive, whichever comes first, I'm going to pass a law getting rid of Daylight Savings Time. I don't know if other countries do this.  I do know that not all the U.S. states abide by it. Daylight Savings Time was created about 100 years ago to give farmers more daylight in which to do their work in the fields. Call me crazy, but why the hell didn't someone just suggest that the lazy ass farmers drag themselves out of a bed a little earlier each day? Because those cud chewing, overall wearing, udder jerking lay abouts can't be bothered to set their alarm clocks we're all stuck changing time?

I don't know if anyone else noticed, but about 6 or 7 years ago the U.S. Congress, in another colossal waste of their time and our tax dollars, extended daylight savings time by a few weeks on either end. First off, why isn't it called daylight spending time since we are using more daylight in the summer months? Secondly, at this point the farmers (except the creepy Amish ones) all have electricity and alarm clocks, which may not have been the case 100 years ago. I can get away with saying that about the Amish because my demographic data shows that for some reason I have very low readership among the Amish. I guess they just don't get me.

Reportedly the reason Congress did this is to save energy. How will changing our clocks twice a year save energy? Don't we set our thermostats and use heat based on the outdoor temperature, not how light out it is? I'd like to save the energy I expend changing my clocks! I'd like Congress to tell me when I get that back. Congress has again proven to be the biggest collection of morons outside of...well...I guess I can't think of a bigger collection. Why doesn't Congress set their alarm clocks an hour earlier so they can get up early and get more of this important work done?

B.T. dubs, if we set our clocks ahead an hour now but we turn them back in the Fall, over the course of a year what difference does it make? If we learned anthying from Marty McFly it was that we shouldn't muck about with time. 

In an effort to help you, and show off my newfound ability to use hyperlinks, I'm providng this video of tips to help you adjust to the time change.  If you need this information you're an idiot, no offense meant of course. Apparently the day after we change our clocks there are more workplace injuries, car accidents, and for the day, a 10% rise in heart attacks. So where's the problem? That sounds like natural selection at work!

I for one am not going to go for this stupid daylight savings time thing anymore. I don't work at a farm or for Congress, so I told my boss that for 6 months I'll be to work an hour early or late, however it works out. When I'm elected President, or Sexiest Man Alive, whichever comes first, this is going to change.

If you'd like to support my bid for President or Sexiest Man Alive, please hit the Facebook Like or Share button below, but hurry because you have an hour less to do it in this weekend. 

 

 

Bad Blogs on Broadway

When Al Gore invented the internet he had no idea most of it would be wasted by bloggers. Allowing just anyone to blog without a screening process is like letting 'The People of Walmart' walk around with a p.a, system all the time. Just because you can say something doesn't mean you should. It's gotten so bad that even Fox News has a blog.

Bloggers have no idea what the rest of us think of them. In conversation if you ask someone what they do and they respond with, "I'm a school teacher and a blogger," how do you react? Most of us roll our eyes and sigh, hopefully not too noticeably because we don't want to upset the "blogger." You know how volatile they can be. They might run off and write a scathing post about us that would be read by all of their friend. The one thing that we don't do when someone tells us they're a blogger is to say, "What's your blog about?" In fact I'm fairly certain that last sentence was the first time in history that those words have actually been assembled into a sentence. 

I imagine that at internet headquarters the people in charge are getting pissed. I picture a bunch a poindexter brainiacs in a room looking at a white board with a pie chart titled "Internet" that shows the internet contains 10% legitimate websites, 40% pornography/dating sites, and 50% blogs. Next to that would be another pie chart titled "Blogs with redeeming social value." That chart is just a big empty circle. 

Blogging is so 2005 isn't it? There was a time when it was kind of cool to have a blog. Ok, maybe there wasn't, but now that virtually every person in the public eye has a website masquerading as a "blog" that you can comment on it is so not cool. You know what is cool is the Harlem Shake. Nope, definitely not. As soon as someone in my demographic knows what something is, like blogging or the Harlem Shake, then that thing has lost whatever cache it might have had. Seriously, I just nailed down Gangnam Style and now I have to learn the Harlem Shake?  I think the definitive way to tell if some pop culture trend is past it's cool peak is that if someone with a blog describes it as cool. 

What is hot now is Vlogging. Video Blogging! Instead of writing words you read, all of us arrogant dolts who think you want to know our thoughts are now on Youtube in front of our webcam telling you what we think. I know, that's pretty hot right? I guess Tosh.0 has to get his material somewhere. 

I just wrote a sarcastic blog about blogging. Does that make me an ironic hipster? I'm not sure, but if I just said ironic hipster then it is definitely not cool to be one. I'll make a deal with you. If at least 10 of you go back to your Facebook page and click the "Share" link under this I promise I won't ever do a Vlog. This is a birthday present to my big brother Steve whose birthday was yesterday and he asked me to write a sarcastic blog about bloggers.