On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, besides being a mouthful of a title for a book, is children’s book and a fantasy. I’d give it a G to PG rating because of some bad guys that might be scary for a younger reader. It’s written at a juvenile level, which is a good thing as a children’s book, but some of the words are mash ups of regular words, so they might be hard for a young reader to figure out. With critters like toothy cows and flabbits, depending on the age of the reader, the little one might need some adult help.

This book is the first in a series, and it covers a series of events for a grandfather, mother, and the three children. The older boy (Janner) is 12ish, the younger boy (Tink) is 11, and the youngest of the three, the girl (Leeli), is maybe 8ish, I forget. Much of the story focuses on the older boy’s thoughts/actions but then the story shifts to pull in the point of view of all three children with a smattering of thoughts from the mother and grandfather.

For story development and mechanics, I found the book to be a bit thin on those points. But then I know I don’t read fiction like a normal person (whatever that is). As a writer I’m reading with a different kind of brain. If the story doesn’t suck me in and keep me sucked in, I will start to pick apart the mechanics. This story didn’t suck me in.

For children, I think this is a perfectly acceptable read and fun story for them. They won’t give a hoot about story mechanics. It’s an entertaining read for a youngster with lots of things going on with twists in the story line. For kids, I recommend this story. If you’re an adult looking for an easy read, this fits the bill. If you’re an adult looking for a story with some meat to it, keep looking.

I struggle with frustration. Unchecked frustration for me turns to anger. It’s how I operate and how I am wired. But what if I can modify that circuit? Are we really as hard wired as we think we are in our behavior and actions?

My life coach, Chris Dewey, recommended this book to me. The transforming this book discusses centers on looking at things in a different way. When something goes wrong, what if you looked at it with a completely different perspective? Thing A didn’t go wrong, but it instead offered a new possibility or alternative outcome. I’m not saying it’s only a feel good book of all things work out for the good in the end or any of that crap, but it’s more about changing how you think about things regardless of what you’ve been taught, learned, or picked up from some of our whacked out cultural rules.

This book had some good information in it. I ultimately grew annoyed with the plethora of analogies and stories from the authors’s real life experiences or parables, but some were good. Personally I’ve gotten way more insight and transformation from working with my coach, but this book would have been a good place for me to start if I didn’t already have the coach in the mix.

“What the heck is a life coach?” you ask. Check out the link above for Chris and see for yourself.

I like to do my own posts here, but as a follower of other blogs, sometimes I run across one that is just too great to not share with others that may not otherwise see it. Case in point, Seth Godin. This guy is a wealth of knowledge and encouragement. I’m in the process of reading two of his books at the same time, and I read his daily posts. The post that landed in my inbox this AM, is this one.

We Don’t Care Enough to Give you Constructive Feedback

Within this post is a link to another of his posts, The Generous Skeptic.

I highly recommend giving them both a read. In fact, I highly recommend signing up for Seth’s blog.

In the course of writing, I’ve gotten that constructive feedback from others and the givers of such feedback have no idea how much it meant to me for them to take the time to talk with me about my stories and ideas in depth and pointing out both strengths and weaknesses (Joel, Rebecca, Sarah, Juan, to name a few). Certainly I expressed my gratitude to the givers, but my gratitude went much, MUCH deeper than the verbal “Thank you!” So again, thank you to all who have crossed that social boundary to give me constructive feedback. Your time, support, and caring mean so much to me.

Above is the new book badge that I added to the website today for Do And Die. Thank you, Steven, for creating this for me.

Below is Suzette Standring, super nice woman, and book festival winner of the How To group: The Art of Opinion Writing. She lives in the Boston area, and I plan to look her up the next time I am down that way. You can read more about Suzette on her website: readsuzette.com

Book festival badge created by the very talented Steven Catizone.

Photo of Suzette by me, 2015.

Last night, in downtown Boston, in the middle of a snow storm, the New England Book Festival held their awards ceremony. Thank you, Joel, for giving me the final kick in the pants to get me there.

Started the 4+ hr drive in wicked sloppy weather, found the Omni Parker House Hotel, and met up with friends to go play for a while. Chris, I’ve known since 7th grade, Allison, Chris’s better half that I’ve known since before they were married, and Helen, my niece and a reason I even wanted to attempt writing a novel for her to read when she was older, met me and we left for a stroll.

The snow kept coming down as we meandered through town and through the Boston Commons. The snow was heavy, wet, cold, and primo for snowballs. My gloves were soaked by the time we made it to the restaurant for a super late lunch, and they got round-two-soaking on the walk back with more snowball battles. Fortunately Allison was the adult of the group and kept us all on track and more or less out of trouble even when Chris’s wayward snowball broke apart mid flight and tagged some innocent bystanders. Thankfully they were good sports.

We parted ways after warming up in an Irish pub, and I loitered in the hotel lobby until the meet and greet portion of the ceremony began. The ceremony was held in the same room where Kennedy announced he was running for president. Massively cool!

I met some incredible people and will be posting more on them in subsequent posts. One journalist/author/winner I met wants me to visit with her the next time I’m in town so she can interview me for her local TV broadcast. When it was my turn to get my award, I gave a little thank you speech and a very brief history of how the series came to be, pictured above.

Despite the weather, we all had a great time. I certainly did and stayed chatting for another hour after the ceremony ended. I left to drive to Portland, got horribly lost in the city, went by Fenway a couple of times unintentionally (Look, kids! Big Ben!), but eventually found my way out. I made it to my hotel and fell into bed around 2am. I was up at 8am and on the road to finish the drive home on much cleaner roads.

Despite being insanely tired today and requiring a nap (oh, how I love naps!), I wanted to make sure I did a post today about the ceremony.

I am so honored to have been included among the winners, tossing my book into the mix where less than 5% of the entries win. The head winner of the whole thing was a 30 year sports writer for the Boston Globe. My book went into the mix with a man of that caliber and came out with an honorable mention. It’s still hard for me to fathom this feat.

More to come on the ceremony, fellow winners, and pics.

Top photo by Suzette Standring, 2015.

Second photo by me, 2015.