The Perfect Spook House novel is at the publisher's, just in time for a pre-Halloween launch.

Halloween 1969, two car loads of eleventh graders venture down the winding Cedar Springs Road. An old deserted house screams haunted dares to those in search of spooks and goblins. Do tricks or treats await the young thrill seekers? Spontaneity has never taught a tougher life’s lesson, prompting a tiny southern community to shun their very own.  Ask Payne Lewis, the past can haunt forever. Nineteen years of torment comes to a head and eleven men must face their childhood demons one last time. Nostalgia guarantees no happy endings and sometimes is just better off left alone. There once was the Perfect Spook House…

The backdrop is Abbeville, S.C., as along the theme of the Detective Trudy Wagner series in Myrtle Beach, local hangout and landmarks are speckled through the saga. I as always when I have new book published, will plan a book signing in the hometown, especially since this one is centered there.

Next up and hopefully before the Thanksgiving-Christmas shopping time will be Cornbread and Buttermilk, Good Ole Fashion Home Cooked Nostalgic Nonsense, a memoir of course. Pass the Hash, Make Mine a Second Helping on Loaf Bread, second addition to first, more nostalgic foolishness.

My first ever kids novel is being proofed and edited too. Mister Twix is Missing, A Cat Scene Investigation. Join neighborhood sleuths Bucky and Elvis as they attempt to solve the missing cat caper and help little Lorrie find her cat.

Blogging is something one must sustain or the blog goes dry. Reruns or mulligans don't work. I've been focusing too much on writing and proofing and writing and editing. I just haven't written anything new here. Rambling isn't blogging, is it?

Okay, I am trying to push my butt towards at least publishing something. It's been nearly a year and half since I published the last two. It's not that I don't have plenty of stuff to publish, because I do. I'm sitting on top of nearly twenty completed novels. I hope to have The Perfect Spook House published by Halloween. Hoping and doing are not exactly cooperating. Procrastinating is working just fine though. I don't have writer's block and don't think I ever have. It's that drive to promote and sell that has come to a screeching halt. Sadly, that rests on my shoulders as all who self publish are aware. No one pays us to write. No one is out there peddling the goods. It falls squarely on our shoulders. It often makes you feel like a mutation, a cross between a used car salesman and snake oil peddler. It works for a while then it gets sort of old for me and those I'm dogging.

Every author, sounds too strange for me to admit I am, searches for that one break out book, one that makes the world take notice. Unfortunately there are a zillion hungry souls out there chasing the very same dream. You can only go to the well so many times before family and friends cry uncle and band you from the land. People begin avoiding eye contact, crossing to the other side of the street, stop commenting to your babbling on Face Book. Book sales become mercy killings.

I began writing in 2003 while cooped in a hotel three night a week during business travel. I did it for me, not real aspirations to publish. I cranked out a 650 page something called The Lord's Last Acres. Looking back at it now, it needs a tune up and should be sliced and diced, made into a series instead of one book. I wrote The Caregiver's Son for me, my way to overcome grief and depression after losing mama, daddy and granny in 11 months. I did it for me, never ever really expecting to share it with anyone else. Road Rage just came to me after we moved to the beach. I kept a log of near misses, crazy drivers, eye witnessed wrecks for a few weeks and came up with the idea, what if someone was pushed over the edge...and no, I am not a serial killer but I did stay at the Holiday Inn Express. Dark Thirty bubbling in my pea brain after seeing all the senseless bullying in this world. I liked my characters in Road Rage, thus North of the Border evolved and I'm currently winding down the third in the Detective Trudy Wagner series, Tithe and Offerings, with the plot of a forth already stewing, The Low Country Hunt Club.

Lou Who evolved from this crazy brain of mine, a woman suffering from Alzheimer's becomes possessed b a vengeful one hundred year old witch. Alzheimer's finds it way into many of my tales.

Absent on Arrival, a weird tale of something gone terribly wrong at a resort in the Smokey Mountains, a little Steven King sort of...and NO, I'm not comparing myself to the great one.

No Mulligan came to light after watching Tiger Woods life spiral out of control. I put my twist on the story and upped the anti to toss out a murder mystery with my usual twists.

The Perfect Spook House is depicted in Abbeville. Outside the Clique is centered in Calhoun Falls. A group of high school buddies attend a high school reunion many years later. One of the guys has lost touch with the others. Dark secrets exist for the homeboys who never left and he is soon reeled back into the clique where things are not one they seem.

The Tenth Elemental is centered around the world of Gnomes and deities in Maggie Valley.

More bullying exists. Mack, Dark Thirty Continues. Just what happened after the ending in Dark Thirty? I have a series of short stories geared towards young folks, Bully on Board.

I have two more kid's books completed but no published of course. Digging Sea Turtles and Mister Twix ix Missing, A Cat Scene Investigation.

Of course I have my Sasquatch Trilogy, the first two novels complete, (1) Foot (2) Another Foot and the third started, The Final Foot.

Characters from Foot series and Trudy Wager series cross paths in Last Stand on the Grand Strand, something primeval swims in the waters off the coast.

More memoirs:  (1) Cornbread and Buttermilk, Gold Ole Fashion Home Cooked Nostalgic Nonsense, (2) Soppin the Possum, the Second Helping (3) Fostering Four, my time as a foster parent


Have I babble blogged you senseless? How about this, the in progress projects that I am writing...

(1) The Hardwood Walker of Ports Harrelson Road, a tale from Bucksport, SC, based on factual events, with my spin added. (165 pages in the can)
2) Just Who the Heck on the Joneses (another mystery, 78 pages)
3) Raw Ride, a Good Ole Fashion Zombie Apocalyptic Shoot-um Up (44 pages)
4) Potential Novellas or Four stories within in one book titled Love from the Man Cave Perspective with four stories 1) Love from the Dark Side 2) The Longest Hello 3) The Single Guy's Roadmap to Marriage 4) The Widow Magnet
5) The Book Peddler - just what would you do to sell your books?
6) Potential kid's books 1) Walking my Fish 2) Chicken Lovers Inc. 3) Drum Stick and Jack-O-Lantern 4) The Pinecone People

And then MAYBE, the BIG SURPRISE, a nonfiction one might eventually see the light of day.

And one other project potentially, a collaboration with a talented Abbeville Classmate...

Say shut up...blogged you good, didn't I?

MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) - The sign at Myrtle Manor Trailer Park has been stolen again. Filming of the third season of TLC's reality show "Welcome to Myrtle Manor" is scheduled to begin at the park on Friday.

The sign was taken from the mobile home park at around 3 p.m. Tuesday, according to Barbara Patrick, the owner.

She and her husband Cecil said a police report has been filed. "Myrtle Manor," also known as Patrick's Mobile Home Park, is located off Highway 15 in Myrtle Beach. 

The Myrtle Manor sign was stolen back in March of 2013, shortly after the reality show premiered on TLC. 

The third season of the show is expected to begin filming on August 8, according to the Myrtle Manor Facebook page.

The reality show features the ‘colorful residents' in the ‘five-star trailer park' of Myrtle Manor, according to its website.

The show first aired March 3, 2013.

Copyright 2014 WMBF News. All rights reserved.

 

Okay, here's my take on this article posted on WMBF News website. I confess. I have watched every episode of Myrtle Manor thus far. I have even driven through the movie set location in Patrick Trailer Park. I live in Myrtle Beach so why wouldn't this intrigue me. This is similar to the perception of Tiger Woods. You either hate it/him or you love it/him, not much wiggle room for in between. I am a wiggler just the same. As mentioned in this article they're about to begin shooting episodes for season number three. Yep, I'll most likely watch them too. One must keep it in perspective. It's like watching wrestling on television. I go into this realizing most of it is staged and fake. Reality TV is not really reality as we live it. My life as a reality show would be canceled after the first episode...boring...that is unless I did stuff to make it more entertaining. Those who know me, know that isn't going to happen because I'm so shy and introverted. Well...I used to be.

Recap...the sign has been stolen for a second time. Souvenir hunter or someone totally embarrassed by the show, there lies the mystery. Possibly it was a publicity stunt or munity on the Myrtle. Some have been real pissed about the show depicting the community and palmetto state as a bunch of dumb ass hicks. Oddly, many of the characters on the show have been northerners. Actually depicting a Myrtle Beach trailer park speckled with northerners (Yankees for those not catching my drift), is probably more accurate. Living here for ten years now in the tourist community, I have realized that I am the minority, an anomaly, as few South Carolinians actually live here.

Be careful how you stereotype grand strand dwellers. Good ole boys don't sound like wise guys when they talk. We like grits, fried chicken, our style pizza and we wave when we meet you, whether we know you or not. We like the ways things are and don't expect the world to change just because we moved here. We're laid back and slow because it is less stressful and that's the way we like it. We're not lazy. We just work smart. Myrtle Manor is just a show. Wrestling isn't real. Make believe and an hour of silly ass entertainment is just that...entertaining.

I don't take it seriously and can remote to any one of a zillion other channels if I don't like it or feel offended. This is America. Right now I have choices. File that one away for another time; change isn't always good. I write this stuff because I like doing it. It's my form of entertainment for those who enjoy reading it and put up with my babbling. If you don't...then don't. I'll sleep well if you don't and you'll sleep better by not allowing it to get all bent out of shape. I write mostly fiction novels. Guess what, it's mostly make believe. Well, the names have been changed to protect the innocent or maybe the guilty.

Myrtle Manor...its just a show looking for ratings and a following. It's your choice to watch it or not. If the ratings suck, it will go away. Third season filming...someone must be watching. Get your own sign and leave theirs alone, how about it? Okay...now go back to whatever you were doing before I reeled you in...that is if you got this far.