One Over X News

Swept Up In Change

I have a a couple of fairly new friends. I don't know why but lately I have been meeting a lot of good, interesting people. When added to the core of great friends that I have maintained a level of communication with over the past few years. I really feel very fortunate.

A couple of days ago I met another published author. He writes books on sports psychology. He had done extensive research and has been a coach for over 30 years. He is a really nice guy. He brought his wife into my store tonight and so I met her as well. They are great people.

I was helping him with a Quark file that his publisher sent to him. For those of you that are not associated with publishing, Quark is the defacto industry standard. I prefer Adobe Pagemaker. I find Microsoft Publisher much easier to use. Quark does some things better than anything else out there and so it is the standard. I don't care for the program. I use it because I have to.


The past few days have been an emotional roller coaster for me. When you drive 4+ hours each was and are all alone you have a lot of time to think about things and with all that has been boiling up around me lately, I did some serious thinking. I have decided that I probably made a huge mistake somewhere along the line.

There are many things that I would do over if I could. I think everyone in the world feels that way from time to time. It is just that one never knows where he or she would be now if this or that had been different. There are so many variables.

That is an underlying theme in One Over X. It is also an overriding guiding principle in my recent life.

In an Internet chat a while back I had a weird discussion with someone that I know only from the internet but he has read my books. Actually he has also read roughs of books 3 and 4. So he knows a lot more of the plot than anyone else with the exception of my publisher, an editor and me. He is one of those people that try to think ahead of the writer and figure out how the book is going to end. He asked me if I had written the ending. I told him that I had written four different endings but that I had basically decided which one works the best and was likely going with it.

He thinks that if he told me how it is going to end that I would hurry and change it just to be different. So he claims that he knows how the One Over X ends but will not tell me. I of course called him out on his bullshit. After he reads the ending he will claim to me that of course he had it figured out all along. Frankly, judging from my publisher's initial reaction to the ending I really doubt anyone is expecting it. Oh the clues and the indications are there, buried beneath the red herrings.

I told him to mail his expected ending to my publisher and I would tell my publisher not to open it until after Book 6 ships. He says he will but as yet he has not. It really is bullshit I think. If he reads this, now he knows what I think. Take up the challenge!

That might actually be a great idea for a contest. Guess the ending. The person who submits an ending closest to the one that actually appears in the printed version of Book 6 wins to trip to Universal Orlando to spend a week hanging out with the the author. Submissions would be mailed to my publisher and none opened until Book 6 is in print and shipped. Well, maybe a third party would have to be used. But the idea has some merit. If the books do very well, movie rights and all maybe the prize could be a cruise. I would like to go on a cruise.

Lately I have been exchanging internal business emails with people that I hardly ever write to. I have been sending personal emails to new friends and some new readers - readers that have found me. There has been a lot of uncharacteristic behavior on my part. I have also been very straight-up and blunt with people at work, which is the real me all the way to the bone. So I am in a quandry to explain what is going on with me and my reactions to the world.

I kind of think that some things are in transition. I am swept up in change; subtly and hopefully soon I will experience a quantum shift in my reality. It has been my experience with predictions that they are never really what one would expect. We see the future as a field of soft grass and wildflowers. The sun always shines there and a soft breeze cools the air. Such a place could never exist as without rain the grass and flowers would die and when it rains the breeze is often not so gentle.

The nature of the world is balance. Whenever there is trouble it is because something is out of balance.

Here is something to ponder and another thing to check out:

First, this comes from a very close freind that I have never met but I know him very well from exchanging emails over the past few years. He is also very close freinds with Ela'na and was one of the notorious originals of the Wolf Pack.

***Just thinking again. Have you ever noticed paper? Like when you crease it or fold or wrinkle it? No matter how hard you may try with weights or anything to make it take its flat shape again it never does? Sort of like life, maybe. You try to do your best,to love, but you get wrinkled and spurned, and try as you may you can never get unfolded again. You try to unfold, but it just never happens. So there comes the time you just quit trying to unfold and accept being wrinkled.***

Second, there is someone that I met online through the special sort of sociometry that exists in groups and such. I received an invitation to join a group. As I know sveral models I assumed that one of them had offered the invite. I accepted and from that odd beginning I met ended up meeting someone that inspires me with her overall positive attitude and her seemingly inexhaustable energy. Honestly she is one of the nicest people I have never exchanged emails with. She is an aspiring model/actress. She has been a cheerleader for the Pittsburgh Penguins NHL Hockey team and has been a spokesmodel for several local businesses and products. There is a lot of competition in modeling but I am sure she will make it . She has some intangible, endearing quality that stems from her go-for-it approach and warm personality. She uses her site to promote other models as well as herself. She goes by 'Naji'. If any of you that read this blog have any connections in the modeling or entertainment biz, go check her out at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mz_naji

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posted by Unknown @ 10:59 PM