Of instagram & other gambles.

In the latest bow to the unrelenting online facts of modern life, I’ve recently signed up for an Instagram account.  Officially, I pursue increased exposure for my writing via another platform of increasingly ubiquitous social media.

To see the results, give me a follow @tfpruden there.

Meantime, due primarily to the various demands of bootstrapping a cannabusiness start-up in Canada, pursuit of a manageable writing routine continues here.  To date, success is limited.

For like a lot of writers, I’m a creature of habit.  Perhaps more than most, this one relies on a method quite specific.  Handmade over decades, though time-consuming it’s also proven durable.

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to adjust for circumstance.  As result, I’m not yet ready to begin work on the next novel.  The post you’re reading as example of typical recent effort, leaves little need for further explanation.

Here’s another fact; the unspoken covenant between writer and reader, artist and audience, or musician and listener has long governed life here.  For better or worse, the bond that remains unbroken in this writer’s life is that committed to words and those who might, somewhere or someday, discover them.

As ever, a man endeavors to persevere.

Focus remains this writer’s primary talent.  Before poker went mainstream, to be known as a sitter was as much respectful compliment as mild pejorative.  The sitters of the world anchor every game, private or public.  Without them, few gambling operations would survive.  For while high rollers deliver the glamor of occasional big stakes, the consistent losses of the inveterate gambler keep the low limit tables open year-round.

In this way, small daily losses add up to large annual profits.

Blame nature if you must, but every man’s loss is another’s gain.

Though few are consciously aware of it, most industries (including literature, either traditional or independent) follow a pattern not dissimilar to achieve certain success.  While social media uses an undeniably new business model enabled by technology, despite much talk of disruption money tends to follow the well-known path.

Unlike writing, which is always, at best, a gamble.

Though admittedly for this writer, it more often resembles the low limit grind of an everyday sitter than glitterati playing table stakes.

Focus is essential to writing completed here.  Just as it is for survival in any five-ten poker game, where a commitment to patience is the only sure thing.  Because every hold ‘em player knows a winning hand waits on the next flop.

The cards meanwhile, will lay as they fall.

A man must choose only to play those he is dealt, or fold.

Work continues for a fall release of ‘The Recalcitrant P.I.’ (my latest novel, #4 to publish).  I’ll post more news when I have it.

Thanks for being here.

 

TFP

September 4, 2018

 

The next one.

Once again, the time is imminent.

After months of interrupted effort, the latest scrawl transmogrifies to the point of publication readiness.  At least, close enough to it by estimation of its author.

A fellow known for being loose with such interpretations, the reader is thus considered forewarned.  While neither requested nor necessary, also provided here is explanation for disavowing earlier claims swearing off publication of future tomes.

Let it not be said a man was unaware of his numerous contradictions.

For like many blessed with an addictive personality, quitting one bad habit often requires collecting a replacement for it.  Whether in the form of continuing education, new employment, treatment programs, recreational activities, or emotional entanglement, the cure most times can prove as dangerous as the illness.

A man hopes most for improvement in selecting these compulsions though neither trial nor error has so far proven foolproof.

History meanwhile, documents the factual basis of the above-stated opinion.  In justification to myself alone however, the facts provide opportunity to continue delivery of unwanted literary effort to an unsuspecting world.

To be succinct, so long as a writer demands no remuneration for his time, the novels break even on their publication expenses.

I will state here for posterity I do not, for either its own sake or as result of acquired habit, like work.  In fact, despite a reputation for doing plenty, that time is better spent avoiding it has been a consistent philosophical position in these parts.

A man however, does need something to do.

That lesson I received as a gift from my father, for whose unvarnished wisdom I remain ever grateful.  As result, the only factually magical experience of which I have been party to, draws remarkably close.

As for this writer, his work alone provides the respite from a host of unrepentant maladies.

I thus remain more grateful for the freedom discovered on the written page than for anything beyond family in this most fortunate of lives.  From the earliest boy’s poems to the many young man’s short stories, through the countless songs of Harwill to these few novels I’ve been fortunate to complete, only writing has ever satisfied an unyielding desire.

Now as ever, I remain as relieved as I am convinced it has been my purpose.

Though perhaps, more grateful now to have received it than in my youth.  For there were long days when such an intensely experienced psychological burden was beyond my capacity to bear.  In those times, my father’s wisdom would help me see what mattered personally, in fact, not philosophy.

For eventually, a man with something to do will find his way.

A man does his best to thank his dad for such gifts, daily if possible, but always when recalling the countless experiences of wonder, grace or brutality this life has so far provided.  As in the writer’s never-ending work is found not only purpose, but freedom ever-lasting.

The big news here is a planned series of novels, with the first of them set for publication on or around the usual date later in the calendar year.  Featuring an unmistakeably western Canadian private investigator named Mac Armstrong, watch the blog this summer for more news about ‘The Recalcitrant P.I.’.

To all who visit here or might read these occasional words, to those who review a novel or offer a word of support, know you, too, are the source of endless gratitude.

Thanks for sharing the blog.

• TFP
  July 14, 2018

One Fate Befalls is published!

After much delay, a great day for this writer once again arrives!

I’m pleased to announce independent publication and retail availability of my third novel One Fate Befalls, a tragic romance set in western Canada.  Now available exclusively from Amazon CreateSpace in paperback, author inscribed copies may be ordered by contacting me here at the blog.

See the ‘Mail Order’ page for details.

To purchase a copy direct from Amazon dot com, click the ‘Paperbacks’ link above.

Also available in eBook exclusively for the Kindle reader, click the ‘Kindle eBooks’ page to order.

To read the latest reviews, see the novel’s Goodreads page by clicking on the cover to the right or follow the link below:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36564847-one-fate-befalls

I also send my sincerest thanks in advance to anyone kind enough to offer either a review or a rating of the novel.

For those with a taste for them, I’ve included the book’s cover blurb below.

 

'One Fate Befalls’ is a love story about choices.

Kate, a married suburbanite whose doting husband works out of town, owns a lonely home, an infant son and a heart full of secrets. A surprise meeting with Nick, her long lost first love, forces them both to evaluate choice, responsibility, failure and supressed hope.

An exploration of youthful indiscretion and middle-aged impulse, the web of secrets, lies, substance and sexual abuse boldly grips the reader's attention.

Can there be answers to questions best left unasked?

 

As times here lately have been busy, I’ve had little of it left to invest into my burgeoning career as the world’s most unpopular novelist.  Primarily due to a continuing desire to eat despite the ongoing literary failure, most of my efforts these days are devoted to yet another half-baked entrepreneurial pursuit.

While results so far have been everything in and nothing out, a man unwilling to take direction other than his own must endeavor to persevere.

A writer takes what comfort there is knowing much like anything else, it’s most often the stubborn who achieve their goals.

It took a long while to finish writing One Fate Befalls.  After too many years spent on an abundance of iterations, dozens of revisions later the heart of the story is what remains.  At last complete, the writer believes it one worth telling.

I hope you like it.

Thanks for sharing the blog.

 

• TFP
  November 16, 2017
   

 

 

 

The gift.

This month’s note emerges from the bottom of what appears to be a deep hole, out of which with diligent shoveling I continue trying to extricate myself.

At this writing, my efforts have resulted in little more than increasing the distance between the top of a deepening cavern and the floor upon which I stand.  No matter the hours invested, only more distance appears between where I am and where I would seek to be in response to what has proven more than less continuous exertion.

Meanwhile, though a man’s fascination with digging seems only to increase, what remains unclear is whether that’s despite or because of the results.

From within such ordinary maelstroms, this writer’s work is completed.

Also, let it not be said a man did not suffer for his art.  Recall instead long years keeping alight a flame known of by few and cared for by less.  Remember too, in such crusades most writers toil, seeking not immortality but release from the relentless grasp of an undying compulsion.

Life after all, remains neither more nor less than what you choose to make it.

This writer has, and ever will a man would suppose, always appreciated that fact most.

As the end draws undeniably nearer, the joy received from what has proven a daily grind advances despite the increasing moan of old age’s infirmity.  While not an unwelcome surprise, with the vigor of youth but receding memory a man is doubtless best-off spending as much time looking ahead as he is back.

Despite knowing what’s left behind most often defines the way forward.

It has been this writer’s intent to describe with his work a continuous discourse upon a singular experience.  Using a variety of forms and media, from poetry and prose to music and acting, from CD and mp3 through assorted journals, ezines, blogs, indie films, the Kindle and at last paperback, documenting everyday happenstance was the first goal.

As result, a fictional account of life among those either less fortunate or not famous might in time be constructed.

The record of an enrichment otherwise unknown, by his own hand and those of his fellows, could thus also be documented.  As factually as fiction allowed, under the fiercest of editorial restrictions should the writer produce his record.  By careful alteration and inconsistent addition, using incoherent sequencing and unreliable subtraction, the routine and unbelievable circumstance of experience would be reconstructed into a series of near recognizable literary landscapes.

From building blocks of existential philosophy and metaphor, with equal parts sarcasm and symbolism, tales of heartrending adventure, bold farce and tragic romance are told, each within the framework of fictional memoir.  Found there, is entertainment, distraction, perhaps an insight or two, and with luck, a brief respite from the temporal confines in which all of us here are ever trapped.

No more, and nothing less.

As mentioned on near countless occasions, the contents of these notes much like the writer’s works are intended to momentarily distract.  Neither this man nor the writer have interest in leveraging either the work or the site as a platform from which to espouse personal political opinions.

For to this belief the writer holds: the greatest gift an artist can give is that of entertainment.

That does not mean a man is either unaware or ignorant to the societal divisions now running amok around the world and here at home.  For the first time since the turbulent nineteen sixties of my early childhood, the evil forces of racism and bigotry take to the streets, publicly inciting the always simmering fuse of privately repressed intolerance, ignorance and hate.  From the despicable rhetoric spewing from the highest political office of our closest geographic neighbor to the deplorable anti-Semitic rants of regional right-wing municipal politicians, current public discourse demonstrates both populist bigotry and systemic racism at levels unseen since World War II.

As a less-visible member of a historically repressed minority group in my own country, a man is disappointed by the situation to say the least, and concerned for the future of progressive society if pushed to say more.

To those interested in such matters meanwhile, it’s unmistakeably clear that left-leaning and progressive ideology govern in these parts.  If these facts arrive as news to you after reading or hearing any of my work, you must at once consider occupying yourself with less challenging intellectual pursuits.  For in the writer’s opinion, it could scarce be more obvious.

Despite and whatever our differences might be however, a shared commitment to live and let live is what allows our democracy to work.

Besides, that’s not the point of either this site or its contents.

The site is devoted to literary entertainment and the pursuit of insight about the human condition.  If you’re in search of an argument, look elsewhere.  As not only in fact but also by intent, a man has neither time nor patience for the vast ignorance driving much of the vicious anger now threatening the peace and freedom of our democracy.

Even less when confronted by endless work and ever-lessening time in which to complete it.

For to this man at least, the attempt is everything.  Around here, honor is believed located in commitment to a task considered ethically just, not its completion.  As such and in most cases, neither success nor failure can be properly apportioned by reviewing apparent results.

Thus, in every writer’s work is found a secret.

It has of course, been left for the reader to decipher with but a simple caution: nothing is as it seems, and you must look inside to discover each person’s story.

On that note, we turn to the all-important local literary news.

With the calendar showing no sign of slowing down, the struggle to complete proof reading the manuscript of third novel ‘One Fate Befalls’ while awaiting a formatting date continues.  With any luck, the novel arrives before the holidays and the fast approaching end of another year.

Watch the site for news.

Thanks for sharing the blog.

• TFP
  October 14, 2017