Today is the day I reveal the cover of my newest book, “Sapphire Crucible”.   It should be out within the next month.  I am so excited to share this with you.  May the whet your appetite!

Today I have the distinguished honor of being a Guest Blogger on
MichaelSciFiFan.  I chose to write a piece on the relevance of Fantasy
Writing.  Other genres are getting quite a bit of notoriety at the moment
and I felt compelled to state my case for the theme I am passionate about;
Fantasy.  You can read the piece here:  http://www.michaelscifan.us/relevance-fantasy-writing-rival-gates/http://www.michaelscifan.us/relevance-fantasy-writing-rival-gates/ 
I want to thank Michael Long for being so accommodating in his blog.  He
runs a first rate site and I encourage everyone to check it out.  Tomorrow
is the cover reveal of “Sapphire Crucible”!

The final edits are back on “Sapphire
Crucible.”  I am so excited to read
it but I have to stay focused on looking for errors before it goes to
print. It’s pretty cool if I do say so myself.  Talk to you
soon.


 

You have to give them credit.  Grocery stores have tried various things
over the years to try to get us to buy at their particular establishment. 
When I was younger I can remember the store my mother went to having a point
system.  You received a certain number of points for every purchase. 
When you collected enough points, you traded them in on a piece of
tableware.  Being a young boy I failed to see the allure of the
prize.  People, it would seem, really like “Free” things and this program
was no exception.  In spite of numerous large purchases, I believe the only
thing we every earned was a butter dish.  To my mother’s last day I don’t
believe we ever used it.  When I moved to Michigan, double-coupons were all
the rage.  If you had a coupon, the store would double its value as long as
it was not over fifty cents.  This sounded like a great idea.  We
always bought the Sunday paper and would clip any coupons we thought we might
remotely use.  Then we would go to the store and the troubles would set
in.  Many of the products we had coupons for were new and were not yet on
the shelves. Many of the coupons for products in the store were for fifty-five
cents off and therefore would not double.  Coupons quickly changed to
having shorter and lifespans.  Before long you had less than two weeks to
use the coupon or else it would expire.  Coupons were great but they were
never on the items on sale.  I think the grocery stores planned it that
way.  The problem with coupons is that you can’t live on the products you
have coupons for.  Seriously, how many shampoo and conditioner sets,
toothbrushes or pain relievers does a person need?  Even if the coupon is
for food, you are only buying parts of a meal.  If you want something like
meat, there is no coupon for that.  All the same, we religiously used our
coupons as well as possible and looked for the ever elusive dollar off double
coupon ads which came along every so often.  It wasn’t until we moved to
Nebraska that double coupons made sense.  They didn’t have them out
here.  If you had a coupon for a certain amount off, that was what you
received.  The astonishing thing was that the food was less expensive
here.  It turns out in places where they double coupons; they also jack up
the price of food.  That means if you are not one of the lucky people to
have the right coupon, you are actually paying MORE for a product because of the
coupons.  The concept worked for the stores in Michigan because most people
didn’t have a coupon for everything and then they would get their margin. 
The latest trick in the grocery store playbook is the discount on gas
scheme.  There are two ways of doing it.  With the first you receive
one penny off per gallon of gas at their gas station for every ten dollars you
spend on groceries.  You can bet that’s built into the price.  The
second method is to only have discounts on gas if you buy certain items. 
Maybe they have five cents off on two boxes of pancake mix.  The problems
are, 1) you only need one box and 2) the brand you usually buy is fifty cents
cheaper per box.  Then you have to do the math in your head to determine if
it is worth buying.  The only ways to beat the system are to have a coupon
for that product or to have them price match a different store where it is on
sale.  Deep down, though, is that drive to save on gas.  There’s
always a gimmick to get you in the store.  One way or another, they get
their money.

I watch a recycling bin slowly tumble down the hill on which I live.  The
stop sign across from my house is shaking back and forth as remnants of long
fallen leaves chase one another down the street.  It is a blustery day here
in Nebraska.  That is hardly uncommon but it is always noteworthy. 
The weather man says the winds are gusting to 50 miles per hour.  While no
hurricane, it gets light objects moving.  I stand by my window on my day
off and watch the spectacle unfold.  When a particularly strong gust
rattles the windows I take increased notice.  They shake for a few moments
and then the wind dissipates.  Up the hill a trash can just blew over and
is lying in the street.  A plastic bag rolls for a time and then
stops.  Then the wind pushes it on once again and sends it frolicking along
down the hill.  It pleases me that the temperature is 44 degrees and there
is no snow being driven by the wind.  All at once I am reminded of my
childhood.  One of my favorite books from the time I could remember was
“Winnie-The–Pooh and the Blustery Day.”  If you are not familiar with the
story, it revolves around a stuffed teddy bear named Winnie –The-Pooh and his
friends in a magical place called the Hundred Acre Wood where they come to life.
(In England, where it was written, that must be a big stand of trees)  To
sum up the story, a wind and rain storm comes along and raises havoc with Pooh
and his friends.  Their good friend and creator, Christopher Robin, comes
along and helps save everyone in the end.  I never grew tired of hearing
that story.  It was especially good when I would cuddle by my mother and
listen to her read the various parts with different tones of voice. 
Everywhere we went, that book came with us.  My oldest brother and sister
would go to high school on the other end of a long, grand bridge.  After
they were dropped off in the morning my mother would take the off-ramp from the
bridge on the way back and take me to a park by the river.  In the days
before car seats I sat on my metal lunchbox and was belted in.  We would
often go sit under a tree and would unpack out breakfast snack from the
lunchbox.  There were sandwiches and a thermos full of milk.  They
were wonderful picnics.  Afterward she would take me over to the swings and
push me.  There was no one else around except for a stray fisherman. 
It was just Mom and I and I could not imagine a more wonderful time.  If it
was windy, raining or snowy we had our picnic in the car and she would read
Winnie-The-Pooh to me.  Even though I could not read, I would say the words
along with her from memory.  She would laugh as I pretended to read the
story to her.  My mother had the most beautiful laugh.  When we were
done we would go home and go on about our day.  But for that brief time, it
was just the two of us and she was giving me her full attention without anyone
else to disturb us.  Years ago I drove across that same bridge and saw they
had built a casino where the park used to be.  I was sad.  The park
was gone.  My mother was gone.  Now only the book remains.  And
so I watch the wind blow from my window.  I think of my mother and all that
she gave me.

It’s Daylight Savings Time again.  Once again that time of year has come
about when everyone sets their clocks forward one hour in order to have longer
days.  It is observed by Europe and most of North America.  It is not
observed in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and
Arizona in the United States and the Province of Saskatchewan in
Canada.   Why do we do this?  Those areas seem to get along fine
without it.  The common answer I hear is that we are somehow benefiting the
farmers.  The farmers I talk to, however, tell me it is more of a
hindrance.  They explain that most farmers are used to getting up at a
certain time (Usually at dawn) and going about their business.  The “extra
hour of sunlight” we gain in the evening is really just stolen from the
morning.  As a result, farmers are actually impeded to a certain degree by
this blessing.  Another common misconception is that Benjamin Franklin came
up with the idea.  Ancient Romans were adjusting water clocks long before
Ben was around.  He did write an anonymous letter when in Paris suggesting
that Parisians wake earlier in the day to use more sunlight and preserve
candles.  That’s about as far as his part in this goes.  Time was not
even standardized until the 1800s when the railway necessitated a regular time
setting in order to track arrivals and departures.  Though several people
suggested one way of advancing the clock or another, the practice was not
adopted until 1916 by Germany and Austria-Hungary to curb the use of coal during
war time.  Britain and many other countries soon did the same and the
United States jumped on board in 1918.  Not long after the war we did away
with it and brought it back periodically over time.  It did not really stay
until the 1970s when an energy crisis caused a desire to use less electric
light.  We have used it ever since.  Maybe I’m just missing that hour
of sleep I didn’t get last night, but how is this beneficial? 
Traditionally retail and tourism have benefited the most from the change. 
Later hours mean more business as consumers are more likely to shop late than
early.  That’s all well and good but is the change really necessary? 
At Christmas time I never seem to have a problem going to the store when it is
dark out.  I admit that travel is easier in sunlight but many travelers
leave early in the morning already.  The days are already growing in length
as we move toward the Summer Solstice.  Why do we keep doing this?  I
said it already.  The reason is tourism.  That, in turn, means
money.  More light in the evenings leads vacationers to spend more time
using their money before bed.  That’s the secret answer.  It’s all
just another way to get more money.  The rest of us are just along for the
ride on this one.  So when you’re waiting extra-long for that fireworks
display to start because it isn’t dark yet, remember someone out there is
getting a few more sales.

The other day my twelve year old wanted help with her homework.  My
schedule is pretty hit and miss so this job usually falls to my wife.
(Thanks)  When my daughter pulled out her homework I could not believe the
volume.  Her backpack was bursting at the seams.  She’s in 6th grade
and had homework in every subject.  We worked on it from before dinner till
bedtime.  What surprised me most was that most of the answers were not in
her textbook.  We were expected to go on line to find the answers. 
Social studies and history both required internet work.  I was exhausted by
the time we were done and I was only helping.  Even in college, the answers
for the homework were always in the textbook.  Isn’t that what a textbook
is for in the first place?  The only times we needed to consult outside
sources were projects or papers where we did research at the library. I freely
admit that I didn’t have a resource like the internet so handy but this seems
like a bit much for 6th grade.  I talked to my wife about it and she said
that the homework is like that every night.  My daughter’s attention span
is short but such a daunting mound of work for one night is ridiculously
difficult to accomplish.  She often has a hard time finishing.  In
sixth grade I rarely had homework that took more than a few minutes.  Is
school harder now?  Are they trying to teach more than we learned?  I
don’t have the answer.  Maybe the school she goes to is harder.  Maybe
all schools are like that now.  What I know for sure is that there is an
awful lot of homework for a young age.  I admit this would not be an issue
to me if I wasn’t affected.  I was mostly blind to the matter until I was
confronted with it.  Now I see the volume of work being dropped on my child
and I become agitated.  It would be one thing to have the students combing
through the text but they are expected to find outside sources for their
answers.  That seems a bit unreasonable.  My older daughter in high
school doesn’t have anywhere this amount of work.  She usually can do her
homework in about an hour.  It was like that for me as well.  Looking
at it objectively, maybe the teachers are being hard on them early so they will
develop good study habits that will benefit them down the road.  Maybe that
is the case.  All I know is its Saturday night and I have to help with
social studies so there isn’t so much work to finish tomorrow.  You can bet
the answers aren’t in the textbook.

The last couple of days I have put marketing of “Quest for the Red Sapphire”
down for a bit.  I didn’t work on edits for the sequel, “Sapphire
Crucible”.  In loading some files from my Documents file I spied the one
titled “Book III.”  I have been so caught up with the other two books that
I hadn’t looked at it for a while.  It couldn’t have been that long since I
worked on it.  Maybe it was a few weeks or a month, I thought.  When I
opened it I saw the last date the file had been saved.  It was November
9th, 2013.  I had gone almost four months without writing anything new on
that book.  It blew me away.  I have been so caught up with promotion
and production that I never made time to do my favorite thing; writing.  I
cleared my schedule and sat down to write.  It had been so long since I
worked on it that I had to reread parts to figure out where I was in the
story.  I go over some part of the book every night before I fall
asleep.  It is the key to my thorough writing.  By going over it in my
head over and over, I can find flaws and fix them before I ever type it. 
That way I can sit down at the computer and let the story flow through my
fingers.  The point in the story where I left off was in between major
events and I had to storyboard the sequence to get it right.  Once I was
there I set to writing.  It was like I had found an old friend and was
catching up.  I hadn’t written for the love of writing in so long that I
had forgotten how exhilarating the process can be.  It was a chapter of
almost entirely dialogue.  Laying it out properly requires the skills of a
choreographer.  Each step must lead seamlessly into the next.  It was
slow going at first.  Since I love the work, though, I didn’t mind. 
Then I found my groove and the words flowed like water.  The book is nearly
complete with perhaps 2 chapters to go.  It was the happiest I have been in
a long time.  Promoting and editing are fine and necessary.  They are
an important part of the publishing process.  There is no feeling on this
earth, however, like finishing a chapter or major section of a book you are
writing and sitting back to read your words.  What you have created seems
impossible and fills you with immense pride and joy.  I have a great deal
of other work to do but I must not forget what brought me here.  It is
important to take time to write.

Today author Elizabeth McKenna was kind enough to interview me for her
blog.  There is a short biography on me as well as the interview and an
exempt from Quest for the Red Sapphire.  It also has links to my various
sites as well as places to buy the book.  The link to the interview is http://elizabethmckenna.com/2014/03/05/meet-author-rival-gates/ 
Let me take this moment to thank Elizabeth McKenna for giving me this wonderful
opportunity and exposure.

Today is Fat Tuesday for Roman Catholics.  It is the day before the start
of Lent when traditionally the sugar in the house was used before the fasting
period.  These days it’s an excuse to buy super fattening special doughnuts
made for the occasion and eat what you want.  So I decided to talk today
about something Americans are obsessed with; fat.  It was back probably
around 2001 when I was watching Entertainment Tonight with my wife and they
showed a poll of several thousand women.  They asked them, “If you could
have any star’s body, who’s would you choose?”  At the time the
overwhelming first choice was Britney Spears.  As soon as they said that my
wife said, “Ha, I bet she’s not happy with her body.”  I was confused and
asked why.  She said, “No woman is 100% happy with her body.”  That
floored me.  That can’t be true, I thought.  My wife is perfect. 
So many women are absolutely beautiful.  How could that be?  Ever
since then I have taken a non-scientific poll of female friends and asked them
if they were happy with their body.  Nearly every one of them told me they
were too big here or too small there or there was too much fat in this
area.  I didn’t see what they were talking about.  Then I started
listening to my male friends and they were unhappy with their bodies too. 
They had the same list of complaints except in different areas.  The
biggest difference was that men were usually less inclined to do something about
their weight.  Our society condemns anyone overweight.  Women are
particularly held to an unfair higher standard, it would seem.  They are
expected to look like some size 0 supermodel.  In the movie “The Devil
Wears Prada” the main character is ridiculed for being a size 6 which I am told
is not very big.  I have always been heavy.  When I was having a
health screening for my insurance I was shown a chart stating just how obese I
had become.  As bad as I felt about the number, I looked at where I needed
to be in order to be “Normal” on their list.  At 6 feet tall I needed to
weigh 135 pounds.  When I was starving in college for lack of money I
wasn’t even that light.  The old excuse is that “I’m big-boned.” 
Well, I do have broad shoulders and a large frame.  I am still way
overweight right now but those tables they use to figure your weight do not
reflect different body styles.  It’s like saying, “Every vehicle should
have a 4 cylinder engine for better gas mileage.”  What about big
sedans?  What about SUVs?  What about trucks?  We can see the
wisdom in that but are harshly judged by those tables.  I think they are
purposely adjusted to make people pay higher health insurance premiums and
frighten them into losing weight so they won’t have as many trips to the
doctor.  Lighter people in good physical condition tend to lose fewer days
of work.  It’s not like I try to make poor choices when I eat but as many
of you know, it is hard to eat healthy.  In the morning I am usually in a
rush and have a bagel on the go.  Recently I saw that my innocent little
bagel had 600 calories in it before I even put cream cheese on.  That’s
over a third of my daily allowance of calories in a few bites.  I’ve tried
cereal but I am usually hungry an hour or two later.  The bagel seems to
stick with me longer.  Since restaurants are the places that display the
calorie content, let’s stick with them for lunch.  If I get a Jimmy John’s
sub, it’s nearly 1000 calories.  I might as well have gone to McDonald’s
where I can buy my grand-daughter a Chicken McNugget Happy Meal with the same
number of calories.  I will work on my weight, but in the meantime I won’t
look at the calorie content in restaurants.  As I seem to enjoy saying,
“Ignorance is bliss.”