So my political thriller, The Persian Gambit, debuted on Amazon recently and I couldn’t help thinking about the old philosophical question about whether a tree falling in a forest makes a sound if there is no one around to hear it.  And the best answer to that question is usually, “It depends….”  It’s the same answer to the question concerning whether or not any particular one of the 300,000 new book titles published last year will be a success.

It depends on the author. We know that in the current environment publishers mostly expect authors to market their own books. Even in instances where there’s publisher involvement in marketing, it’s limited and insufficient to pave the way for a successful launch. And in the case of self-published books, the author is completely alone when it comes to a book’s marketing. Yet, the sound of a quarter million books failing is the same as the sound of a tree falling unheard in the forest; it is the sound of silence. This is ironic because writers themselves are responsible for the silent deaths of their books. Unfathomably, many after spending countless hours, even years, writing very readable books, make very little effort to make sure they get read. They put themselves into a sort of writer’s dystopia, because finding themselves in a world of unprecedented opportunities for writers to create, market, and sell their works, they (paraphrasing Simon and Garfunkel’s lyrics) write books that readers never share, and no one dares, disturb the sound of silence….

But what’s a poor writer to do, you say? Well, for starters, how about using some of the same ABC tools to get the word out about your book that is employed by legacy publishers: advertisements, bloggers/reviewers, and connections.

For advertisement, think self-advertisement, not Madison Avenue. In my case, I carry a copy of my book with me on my commute. If I see someone reading a similar genre and/or am able to strike up a conversation, I always say “By the way, I’ve just released this political thriller. You should check it out.” That has resulted in at least one sale and maybe more because the guy I met on the commute emailed me to say he’d made the purchase. Who knows who else he might tell about my novel if he likes it? As far as the effectiveness of book blogs, I refer you to the Amanda Hocking story about one of self-publishing’s most successful icons. And connections? You really never know what connections you have until you begin to ask. For example, I am determined to get a couple of major newspapers to review my novel, although the naysayers tell me that self-published books aren’t typically reviewed by the major papers. I don’t know yet if I’ll ultimately get a review with a major paper, but I can tell you that I am close—not because of a direct connection to the paper, but because of a connection through someone else who has a direct connection.

Will any or all of these efforts help to successfully launch my novel? Who knows? What is the tipping point? When does the drip…drip…become a deluge of sales? I have no idea. But I do know that no one hears a falling tree in a people-less forest. That poor tree dies in silence. And books fail in silence when they’re not properly and determinedly launched. Not because they were badly written, but because no one cared. That’s kind of sad considering how much hard work goes into a decent book. Authors, get busy!

–

Eugene Bull loved reading thrillers from an early age. After several failed attempts to produce a novel, he realized that his writing was stymied because he lacked access to the information and experiences he needed as an author. Fast forward to 2007, after several years as a stockbroker and financial advisor, Eugene had completed law school and was in the midst of a busy legal career. His work included investigating high-profile international cases involving major publicly traded corporations. The facts in the cases often read like the fiction Eugene had been reading over the years. And by 2007, Eugene’s extensive international travel, his legal career, and the Internet had erased the disadvantages he had faced the first time he attempted a novel. The Persian Gambit, his first novel, was written in under a year.

Find out more at: http://www.eugenebull.com

            I suppose every writer has a preferred mode of creation—that combination of place, sound (-lessness), and tools that triggers something and causes the words to begin flowing. OR NOT. I say or not because I haven’t quite yet discovered mine. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been at writing long enough, or maybe it’s because I haven’t yet forced myself into the discipline of writing.

Not too long ago I read about Daniel Silva’s creative process. It was a combination that included a bevy of sharpened No 2. pencils, yellow legal pads, comfort clothing, something called McVitie’s digestive biscuit, and a certain room in his home. Me, I can write anywhere, but always on a computer of some sort (PDA’s will do in a crunch for short spells). I have been known to jot down notes on the odd napkin or loose paper but I often as not lose the notations before they can be turned into anything useful. I’m old enough to remember when laptops were not so ubiquitous but I’d have to say I’m definitely a convert to the gadget.

I remember sitting at a pool bar with my laptop at a Puerto Rican resort while writing The Persian Gambit. It was the kind of bar you have the option to swim up to as evidenced by the large differences in the quantity of clothing displayed by the bar’s patrons. As I sat there writing (or not), I thought, this is THE writer’s life. “Ha!” says Mr. Silva. And truth be told, I don’t think I got a lot written at that bar (but I did have fun!) Half the time was spent ensuring that my laptop stayed dry.

Pool bars notwithstanding, I think each writer over time has to discover his or her own creative process. Sometimes I can write with family around or music in the background. In fact, some scenes I want to write with a certain kind of music that evokes nostalgia—it just works for me. Other times, I need absolute quiet. I think most of The Persian Gambit was written on the deck at the back of my home, overlooking a large pond. I prefer open spaces, so I already know that a room in my home will never become my favorite writing venue, and while a pool bar at a tropical resort may be fun, it’s probably not productive. For me it’s somewhere open, like a deck, or somewhere between a deck and a pool bar…and definitely on a computer of some kind.

My point is probably an obvious one: finding your optimal writing environment is a process of discovery. I doubt that Mr. Silva figured out his writing diet and uniform, even down to the brands, at his first go. But over the course of several novels he figured out what worked for him. So experiment. I’d hesitate to follow some writing manual that says the writer’s workspace should be just so. If writing is a creative process (yes of course it’s also a discipline) you shouldn’t expect that process to be so circumscribed. I know in my case, I’m still discovering. And maybe, I’ll end up with a process that is not as prolific as many of the writers out there, but if it’s fun, I’ll take that.

–

Eugene Bull loved reading thrillers from an early age. After several failed attempts to produce a novel, he realized that his writing was stymied because he lacked access to the information and experiences he needed as an author. Fast forward to 2007, after several years as a stockbroker and financial advisor, Eugene had completed law school and was in the midst of a busy legal career. His work included investigating high-profile international cases involving major publicly traded corporations. The facts in the cases often read like the fiction Eugene had been reading over the years. And by 2007, Eugene’s extensive international travel, his legal career, and the Internet had erased the disadvantages he had faced the first time he attempted a novel. The Persian Gambit, his first novel, was written in under a year.

Find out more at: http://www.eugenebull.com

            Mark Twain once uttered these words: “Write what you know.”  Presumably his sage advice was meant to apply equally to the setting of a story as it did to the other elements.  After all, it’s hard to argue against the notion that writers are more likely to create authentic settings when they have actually visited a place, talked with its people, eaten its foods, and experienced its culture.  So what’s an aspiring international thriller novelist to do?  Unless he or she is an ex-spy or international businessperson, it’s probably unlikely that many of the locales featured in his or her novels will be places personally visited.

Enter the Internet. For example, quite a bit of my novel, The Persian Gambit, takes place in Lebanon. I have a Lebanese in-law, and a few more friends who are from there, but I’ve never been there—I’ve never walked the streets of Beirut, driven through the Lebanon Mountains to Bcharre, or gone wine tasting at any of the magnificent vineyards of the Beqaa Valley, at least not for real.  Virtually speaking though, I can tell you that I’ve spent quite a bit of time there.

A search in Google images for “streets of Beirut” results in over 1.5 million hits.  How much time would you have to spend looking through those search results before you begin to recognize certain landmarks, popular streets and intersections, and the general location of neighborhoods.  And if you wanted to see inside any building of significance, chances are there would be pictures that allowed you to do that.  And virtually (pun intended) the same thing holds true for the drive from Beirut to Bcharre or the wineries in the Beqaa valley.  As for actually tasting the wine, you can always visit Total Wine or whatever your local wine shop is called.

The bottom line is that the Internet has virtually (there’s that word again) leveled the playing field between writer’s with a travel budget and those without, and to a great extent, fiction writers with a particular expertise and their not so fortunate counterparts.  It’s no wonder that many of the early espionage novelists were believed to be ex-spies, whether or not the writer’s themselves admitted to that particular pedigree.  The learning curve was far too steep for the kinds of information needed to put out convincing material otherwise.  But with the information on the Internet, there is certainly enough there to competently fill in the blanks, at least as far as 98% of readers are concerned.

No, I am not arguing that the Internet replace actual field research by writers.  Our virtual experiences have not become so good (along the lines of what we’ve seen in science fiction movies like Surrogates) that we can substitute them for actually living.  But in the crunch, the Internet is an extremely useful tool and if it’s used skillfully for locality research only a very small minority of readers will catch on. So now may be the time to tweak Twain’s famous saying: “Write what you know or can know.”

–

Eugene Bull loved reading thrillers from an early age. After several failed attempts to produce a novel, he realized that his writing was stymied because he lacked access to the information and experiences he needed as an author. Fast forward to 2007, after several years as a stockbroker and financial advisor, Eugene had completed law school and was in the midst of a busy legal career. His work included investigating high-profile international cases involving major publicly traded corporations. The facts in the cases often read like the fiction Eugene had been reading over the years. And by 2007, Eugene’s extensive international travel, his legal career, and the Internet had erased the disadvantages he had faced the first time he attempted a novel. The Persian Gambit, his first novel, was written in under a year.

Find out more at: http://www.eugenebull.com

EUGENE BULL

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is co-incidental and not intended by the author.

Ours is no bloody battle
With woe and horror fraught
Our joust is of a gentler kind
A measuring of Mind with Mind
A tournament of thought
– Daniel Willard Fiske

Chapter 1

Peter squirmed. The tux didn’t quite suit him, and neither did the party. He didn’t want to be there. It hadn’t been his idea. Someone senior had intervened to secure his invitation. But for that, and the insistence of his boss, he’d be somewhere else.

He scanned the mirrored ballroom, searching for a reason to blend in, and ended up pulling at his bow tie. In one reflection, Assistant Secretary Cox gesticulated somewhere on the floor. Cox’s arm swung like a maestro’s, punctuating animated con-versation with Muhammad Atefi, the Iranian ambassador to the UN. From where Peter stood, the arm movements looked decidedly undiplomatic and failed to hold Atefi’s attention.

Peter followed the direction of Atefi’s gaze to the source of his distraction. Irina Belakova and the Finnish ambassador stood just inside the French doors that connected the ballroom and an adjacent garden, she, swaying to the band’s rendition of Night and Day. Irina whispered something into the ambas-sador’s ear, and his drunken laughter played just above the music.

“I need another drink,” Peter muttered as he headed for the garden exit away from where Irina stood. So far, he couldn’t tell at all why he needed to be at the party. He’d observed little more than eager men crisscrossing the black and white, checkered marble ballroom floor like penguins on ice, their tuxes riding them like skin; or women, flaunting more than their overpriced jewelry, like forbidden penguin hunters spreading a net of charms. They all played the diplomatic party game very well, aided by the ballroom’s massive chandeliers. See and be seen. Had his assignment been to catalogue combinations of marital infidelity extant among Washington’s glit-terati, he’d be busy. But his purpose was narrower.

Word of Irina’s frequent trysts with Atefi in ho-tel rooms around Washington had made it to the State Department. Peter’s boss, Mackey, had asked him to approach Irina and offer money for infor-mation, though they both knew Irina worked for Russian intelligence. With the Iranian and U.S. gov-ernments in high level discussions aimed at thawing relations, Mackey reasoned that even tainted infor-mation trumped none at all.

Outside, the party had shifted gears. The prox-imity of the patio bar accounted for this. But it didn’t hurt that the District had somehow produced a balmy November evening, the kind that invigorat-ed and motivated all at once. Peter rubbed shoulders with a well-known senator at the crowded outdoor bar, even making a stab at conversation. The senator ignored Peter altogether, instead laughing hard at a joke told by a Sunday morning talk show host who stood on his far side. Despite this rejection, Peter began to feel at ease in the open air. He turned from the bar to find Cox appraising him.

“You work for Mackey, right?” Cox said.

“Yes.”

“I hate these parties.”

“You seemed to be having a good enough dis-cussion,” Peter said.

Cox’s short laugh morphed into a repeated sneeze. He finally composed himself, and said, “Do-ing my job is more like it.” He took the refilled glass of wine from the bartender. “How about you?”

Peter watched Cox unsteadily head back into the house, sneezing as he went.

He turned back to the bar to find that the elegant fiftyish wife of the Finnish ambassador had replaced the senator.

“You look like you need to be rescued,” she said.

Peter flashed his most polite smile, and she got right to the point.

“If my husband’s screwing the Russian,” she continued, “do you think he’d mind if…” She stopped, and together they listened to the band’s amplified announcement for a doctor.

Peter returned to the ballroom and shouldered his way past the crush of guests to find Cox passed out on the floor. Cox’s face looked as if someone had inflated it, and his engorged neck strained mightily against his bow tie and collar.

“There’s not a doctor here?” Peter asked.

No one stepped forward.

He loosened Cox’s tie and collar and performed CPR until the paramedics arrived.

The death sparked an exodus en masse by all manner of glitterati, including high-ranking govern-ment officials hurrying to avoid the police and press. Peter didn’t join the flight. He owed Cox that. The authorities would want to talk to him since he’d been closest to Cox in the last seconds of life.

He surveyed the room. Atefi was gone. Irina watched him from a corner. In the midst of human tragedy, she remained totally self-absorbed.

She sauntered over to Peter, trailed by the Finn-ish ambassador.

“Come to my place when you’ve finished here, Peter.” She pressed a slip of paper into his hand.

“That’s not fair,” the big Finn said, undeterred in his efforts to seduce Irina.

Irina rolled her eyes, her white, clingy gown slinking from a spaghetti strap around her jeweled neck. “Henri, be a good little boy and run along” she chided the ambassador. “You’ll get your cookie later.”

“Promise?” The Finn perked up. “Before I go back to Finland?”

“Of course,” Irina said.

The Finn clapped Peter on the back. “Good night, lucky man” he said. Armed with Irina’s prom-ise, he staggered toward a group of departing guests.

Irina turned to Peter. “You will come?”

“Let’s talk here.”

She smiled, staring into his green eyes.

“Come on, Irina. Stop playing games. I just lost a colleague.”

Irina took time wrapping herself in an elegant cashmere stole. “I don’t play games, Peter. You pay me, right? Tonight was no accident.”

He tried unsuccessfully to read her expression. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you later. Right now I need another drink before the cops get here.”

Most of the guests had escaped by the time the detectives and medical examiner arrived. One of the detectives, a tall black man, conferred first with a paramedic than stood apart from everyone and cool-ly studied the remaining guests. The detective’s eyes met Peter’s and he walked over to where Peter stood polishing off a dry martini.

“You administered CPR,” the detective said.

Peter nodded.

“I’m Detective Fiske,” he said while extending his hand.

“Peter Graser.”

“Did you know him?”

“We both work…worked at the State Depart-ment. My boss reported to him.”

“Was your boss here tonight?”

“No.”

The detective arched his eyebrows.

“I was here keeping my eye on someone.” Peter added quickly, “It’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Really?” Fiske said. “So who was it?”

“I can’t say.”

“Mmmm…” Fiske looked across the ballroom to where his partner was questioning a group of servers. “Did you know about Cox’s allergy?”

“Peanut allergy?”

“You knew?”

Peter shook his head. “He was already dead by the time I realized what killed him.”

“You spent time with him at the party?”

“No…” Peter said.  “Well, not exactly.”

“Which is it?”

“He came up to me when I was at the bar out-side. We spoke for about thirty seconds.”

“That was right before he passed out, wasn’t it?”

“I didn’t kill him,” Peter said.  “Do I need a lawyer?”

Fiske ignored the question.  “What did you two talk about?”

“He wanted to know if I worked with Mackey.”

“Your boss?”

“Yes.”

“What do you guys do exactly?”

“We’re the State Department’s intelligence arm.”

“Spies?”

“Academics. We analyze intelligence for diplo-matic uses.”

“And you were doing that here, tonight?

Peter didn’t answer.

Fiske took a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his forehead. Peter didn’t see any sweat.

“So what else did you and Cox talk about?”

Peter drained the rest of the martini and placed the glass on a nearby table. “He said he hated these parties, and I told him his conversation with the Iranian ambassador seemed to be going fine.”

“Was that the last person you saw him talking to?”

“Yes.”

“Did he say what they were talking about?”

“No. He said he was doing his job, and ques-tioned whether I was doing mine, and then he walked away. The next I saw him, he had passed out on the floor.”

“It wasn’t his day,” Fiske said. He laughed at his understatement, and wiped his forehead again. He noticed Peter hadn’t joined his laughter. “Sorry.”

Peter nodded.

“The unlucky bastard didn’t have an Epi-pen on him,” said Fiske, shaking his head. “Go figure.”  He turned to walk away, and then turned back.

“Stick around,” he said.  “I might have a few more ques-tions for you.”

–

Eugene Bull loved reading thrillers from an early age. After several failed attempts to produce a novel, he realized that his writing was stymied because he lacked access to the information and experiences he needed as an author. Fast forward to 2007, after several years as a stockbroker and financial advisor, Eugene had completed law school and was in the midst of a busy legal career. His work included investigating high-profile inter-national cases involving major publicly traded corporations. The facts in the cases often read like the fiction Eugene had been reading over the years. And by 2007, Eugene’s extensive interna-tional travel, his legal career, and the Internet had erased the disadvantages he had faced the first time he attempted a novel. The Persian Gambit, his first novel, was written in under a year.

Find out more at: http://www.eugenebull.com

A. Started out as a bucket list item. I’ve wanted to write a thriller since I was 15.

Q. Do you have any secret writing tips you’d like to share?

A. Keep writing until the inspiration hits!

Q. Tell us a quirky or funny story about you!

A. I was a pasanger on a converted Russian cargo plane that flew into the Liberian civil war.

Q. Have you ever battled writer’s block? How do you deal with it?

A. All the time. Just keep writing something until the inspiration hits!

Q. What’s your favorite quote?

A. Whatever works at the moment.

Q. Who inspires you the most?

A. As cliché as it sounds, my mother.

–

Eugene Bull loved reading thrillers from an early age. After several failed attempts to produce a novel, he realized that his writing was stymied because he lacked access to the information and experiences he needed as an author. Fast forward to 2007, after several years as a stockbroker and financial advisor, Eugene had completed law school and was in the midst of a busy legal career. His work included investigating high-profile international cases involving major publicly traded corporations. The facts in the cases often read like the fiction Eugene had been reading over the years. And by 2007, Eugene’s extensive international travel, his legal career, and the Internet had erased the disadvantages he had faced the first time he attempted a novel. The Persian Gambit, his first novel, was written in under a year.

Find out more at: http://www.eugenebull.com

Over the years, people have lost the true meaning of the word hero.  Whether due to the imagery portrayed on television or what’s posted online, or even what’s on products these days, it has become apparent.  The concept of a true hero has been lost to society and there’s no real way to get it back.  That is, of course, unless someone happens to come by and do something dubbed heroic.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of heroes out there and society is right in naming them so.  There’s fireman, police, the branches of military (army, navy, air force, etc).  These are true heroes.  But, and there is always that “but” there, people rarely understand why.  We believe what we see, what we read, what we hear, to be certain.  What happens if that truth becomes nothing more than an illusion.  What happens when our heroes lives are brought into the light and they are more flawed than you or me?  Does that make them any less of a hero?   And if so, does that mean a hero is simply defined by a moment?  Does one good deed grant this status?

I believe a hero is someone, like a friend of mine who recently passed away of cancer, who did everything he could for his family, his friends, his community, and anyone who ever needed him, stranger or not, including me.  That is the true definition of a hero.   A person who gives of themselves selflessly over and over and over again, Someone who isn’t afraid to get dirty if needed, Someone who puts all others first, especially his family, over everything else.  A hero’s life.  He lived and died a hero.  He was like a father to me and a best friend.  I know him to be a true hero.  He lived every day to help people, not because he had to, because he wanted to.  He chose to.  All my life, I’ve never really looked up to anyone, but now, I do.

Society strives to create heroes for our children and everyone else, big or small.  These falsified depictions distort the real meaning behind the concept.  As an example, for kids of all ages, there are super heroes, who aside from having super powers, do the same thing that people do every day.  They swoop in and save the day, save the good people from the bad guys, save someone from a burning building, save someone who is on a ledge or falling… sound familiar?  But, the thing is, these heroes are made to be saviors, gods, powerful creatures, not humans.  Not civilians.  Not a prominent member of society.  When you think of what a police officer does, then you think about tv, the first show that pops into people’s heads is COPS or CSI or something along those lines.  What people don’t see is that they don’t have to look to their t.v.’s for comfort, for safety.  There are people here now in every town, city, and state who do what they see every day.  The only difference is we don’t idolize them.  The true heroes are in the shadows, the background, doing what they do best.  It’s almost sad to think every single one of them deserves at least a hug, a handshake, and a thank you daily, but not a single one will get that.   Not even from their own families.  It’s tragic.

In closing, I hope this has made you think about these people, these members of society, who keep us safe by staying in the background and doing what they do best.  I hope that if you do encounter someone like this, who gives their all every day for the better, that you will hug them, shake their hand, thank them, for everything they do, have done, and will continue to do.  A hero’s job is never finished.

–

My name is Chris Bryant.  I’m 26, born and raised in Lexington, Ky.  I love to write.  I have been writing since I was little, always short stories about action or adventures I’d have liked to have been on.  The Sword of Hope is my first of many books to come.  My dream has always been to be able to get one of my stories published.  This is my first full length story.  I can’t wait to see how everyone likes it.

Learn more at: http://theswordofhope.com

Good day, good people.

I know a panegyric is a speech providing accolades. But if it is written, I would call it advertising, marketing and publicity. If written by a person about one’s self, I would call it self-promotion.

Self-promoting is embarrassing to me, and I do it grudgingly. It appears to be the accepted practice today particularly on the Internet. But is there a difference between self-promotion and using a proxy or surrogate, hiring a company or someone to do your publicity, sales and marketing? Other than, it is not embarrassing when someone else blows the horn and you are not blowing your own? Is any recipient of the sales pitch, publicity or marketing campaign fooled? Does the recipient of the campaign believe a word of the copy?

Self-promotion reminds me of Donald Trump’s presidential aspiratory pretense. Was he sincere? Only he knows.

Herman Cain campaigned to be the president. He led the viewers of the Republican presidential debates to believe he was sincere. Was he? Only he knows. Or, was it as the experts, the talking heads on television said. He was promoting his lobbying business, his books, his motivational speaking availability and was really running for a job as president of his own radio or television talk show.

The key to self-promotion in the world of the Internet is getting attention. Surfers have an attention span of 1/50^th of a second. If they do not see what they want in the span they are gone. So no matter the number of blogs you write, YouTube videos you display or how many tweets you send — attention is king. And, how to get it is the queen. She needs to be very attractive, seductive, tenacious and very well-dressed.

If you believe you are right, you must be persistent. The writing is its own reward. It is trying to the best of your ability to make an important contribution to our society. When you come face to face with the apparent insurmountable, remember your goal, be resolute, never quit, for as long as you play the game you increase your chances of winning. The only way to kill an idea is with a better idea. If you believe, truly believe, then let us read your idea — your story. After all, the reader is the final judge, give the reader the opportunity. And therefore, it is alright to engage in self-promotion to bring a better idea to the fore.

Gore Vidal said of John Updike, “. . . he’s just another boring little middle-class boy hustling his way to the top if he can do it.” Hustling in the context of this quote is a synonym for self-promoting. Is society a better place because of the “hustling” of John Updike? Did he make a contribution to the betterment of our society? I believe so to both questions. What is your opinion?

What is your thought on self-promotion and the questions asked above.

Comments and constructive criticisms with honesty, their constant companion, will always be welcome at www.danielmcneet.com.

When I met my wife Wendy in Majorca in 1968, the last thing on my mind was falling for a twenty-year-old girl from Zambia. In Africa, she lived on 100,000 acres cattle ranch and that summer she was vacationing in Palma Majorca with her parents. As fate would decree, I happened to be staying at the in the same hotel.

By that time, I had already lived in New York for a period of time and had returned to my apartment in London close to Hampstead High Street. My business was flourishing, my TR5 PI, was red and gleaming and my lifestyle played like a movie script. Club nights were always Friday and Saturday at Annabelle, Thunderball, La Cage Dior, Casablanca or a host of others.  The British phrase for such behavior was called Bird Pulling Night.  To keep the flavor of the day, one of my neighbors directly underneath me was a member of the hot British pop group “The Kinks”, so things were always hopping.

However, that summer in Majorca, the ultimate selfish bachelor, now twenty-six and with no intention of marriage got smacked in the face by this exciting and interesting female. It was a case of Hook, Line and Sinker. In a matter of days I was talking unabated rubbish to this girl, something I had never done in the past and I mean never. My girl or lady friends never lasted longer that a month and I believed this encounter with Wendy to be just another in a long line conquests. After all it was the swinging sixties and to go back to London with bragging right about a young white girl from Africa was a must. It didn’t work out like that as the aforementioned unabated rubbish consisted of how crazy I was about her and as I freely started to use of the love word for the very first time ever, I was compelled to propose as something deep inside me told I wanted to be with her forever.  They say that love is an itching of the heart that you can’t get at to scratch.  That’s got to be Irish.

Of course coming from a thespian background, I had to do it in the old-fashioned chivalrous way.  Thus, I went down on my knees in a popular square in Palma and asked her to marry me. Wendy pleaded with me to get up and stop embarrassing her. I made it clear that unless she agreed, I be there all evening.  I really knew how she felt and when she finally capitulated and agreed, thus, I stood up to an abundance of Spaniards, who came out of surrounding stores shouting Bravo, Bravo and clapping their hands.

Our relationship was now six days old and here I was going to get married.  Wendy and her parents came back to England and I promptly took her to Ireland to meet my parents. I remember, my eldest sister telling me on the phone that she would always stand by me no matter what. I didn’t quite get it. Then my mother, the ultimate actress, informed me that her physician was a lovely young colored man. I finally got the message and came to the conclusion that they all thought that because she was from Africa, that she must be black.  My mother was always a little suspicious of Wendy’s amazing tan.

It all took two weeks and I was committed, ring, date and the whole enchilada.  Save the letters via snail mail, my only contact over the following six months was a valiant effort with a three hour marathon telephone call, via Paris, Khartoum, Nairobi, Lusaka, Livingstone and finally Kalomo. I was now ten miles from their ranch, but the idiot could not connect me and decided to play “Malcolm in the Middle.” This clown would tell me what Wendy said and then ask me for an answer. It was frustrating, yet farcical, as I would eventually find out after living in Africa. Thus, I never saw Wendy again until April 1969 when I boarded a plane to Lusaka, Zambia with marriage on my mind. My brother Gary and friend Graham pleaded with me at Heathrow not to go. Their attitude was who goes to Africa, even on vacation when one can go to the South of France. They couldn’t understand that I would give up my lifestyle, go into the middle Africa and marry a stranger. They had a wealth of great ammunition in their efforts to stop me, far too much to bring up at a single sitting, but I never wavered and took the flight.  I could talk about the landing amid the gunfire and my paranoia when I got off the plane, but that’s another day.

That one-week’s vacation has taken me on the trip of a lifetime. Next year we will be married forty-three years, with three children and five grandchildren. Guess there are times in one’s life when your God is with you.

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Guy Quigley was born in Ireland and hails from a third-generation Irish thespian and musical family. He and his wife, Wendy, relocated to the United States in 1983. They have three children and five grandchildren. He is a graduate of CBS in Ireland.

In writing his novel The Rebel Son, Guy drew heavily on his life experiences in Africa, which include ownership of a cattle estate in Zambia. He owned and operated a real estate company in Salisbury (Harare City), Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and acquired a private pilot’s license for travel between cattle estates in Zambia and offices in Rhodesia. He was forced to cease operations due to the explosive Liberation War.

Learn more at: http://guyquigley.com/

Previously I had blogged about meeting my wife in Majorca and ended it there. However, when I wend out to Zambia to marry her, and the aircraft landed amid gunfire, I though, just my luck. Here I am in Africa, against the advise of everyone and landing right in the middle of a Coup. So I stayed on the plane and waited for the crew. At the same time, her father, George Horton kept on insisting to Wendy that I had stood her up, as all the passengers had deplaned. The taunting of my bride-to-be came to an end when I finally got off with the crew who had informed me that the gunfire was a salute to the Tanzanian President who had just landed before us. So Wendy was right, I was right and her father was wrong.

It was a three hundred mile drive to their cattle ranch in Zambia’s Southern Province, just seventy miles north of Livingstone and the Victoria falls.  Her dad being of American origin always drove American trucks and cars and this old 1964 blue Impala, big and long as it was, had seen better days.  I recall that half way through the trip; the old man pulled over and asked Wendy to drive. I was asked to scoot out of my door and let Wendy out of her seating position in the middle of the front bench seat. I was aghast and boldly stated “What if a snake is waiting for me?” They both laughed at this statement, thinking it was the most ridiculous thing they had ever heard. I was not amused; after all there were no snakes on Hampstead Heath.

Once on the property, I met my old sarcastic nemeses, Wendy’s mother Stella. She was the hauthy-haughy one of the parents, who when we met in Majorca and wanted to get married after one week broke into hearty laughter.  Stella was amply laden with cutting sarcasm and an upper crust air that could slice to the bone. However, I got her number in Majorca and she knew it, so we became great friends. On my wedding day, she was teaching me to shoot (no guns in Britain) with George’s hand made Wesley Richards .318 rifle from Bond Street London.  There was a persistent crocodile in one of the dams on the ranch. I never did get that crock, as we had to go. I told Stella that we are supposed to get married in about fifteen minutes and that we were not dressed and three miles from the main house.  With her typical wave of a hand, she stated that nobody was going to go home. A free booze-up for the entire community, courtesy of the Horton’s would not be ignored.

After about a year in London, the old girl and Wendy plotted to get me to Africa and I fell for the pitch. What the hell I was going to do was another story. The only meat I ever saw was in a supermarket. But, I’m a fast learner and after five years there, we grew our place into 40,000 acres. We had a Simmental herd of pedigrees from Germany and yours truly had learned how to deliver their calves, arms right up to the armpits in the lazy cow (that sounds too British). But that’s the way they were, no dropping calves like our ranch stock, these babies lay down and demanded to be treated like ladies.

I could amble on here, but I must get to the heading and the word complacency. So here goes. Wendy and I had acquired a German shepherd dog from The Rhodesian Police (lived in Salisbury too). She was slightly smaller than the others and was rejected by the police. We named her Cindy and she was the coolest of dogs. I trained her at the police department with the regular cops and upon our return back to the ranch after a couple of years away, Cindy learned to lion hunt without getting herself killed.  Bigger dogs think they have a chance, but one swipe from a lion can take their head off. So she hunted with the little terriers, running around the lion in circles and frustrating the beast.  Oh yes, compliancy. Remember the snake story at the start of this blog, well after five years; this moron was now walking around at night with a flashlight that was not switched on. On one occasion, Malcolm, a kid who worked for me and myself were walking over to Wendy’s grandmother’s home.

Cindy was in front of me and she stopped dead in her tracks and I almost fell over her. The dog-kept backing into me until I got smart and switched on the flashlight. There in the doorway was the most magnificent Egyptian Cobra, fully hooded and ready for business. Double bonus, this baby was at crotch level for the strike.  I nearly had a senior accident and then I gave the light to Malcolm and told him to keep it focused on the snake. I returned with a .410 and blew its head off in the doorway.  Let me say that after that the flashlight became my best friend and old Granny Horton demanded that I fix and repaint her door.

Just one story of the African days.

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Guy Quigley was born in Ireland and hails from a third-generation Irish thespian and musical family. He and his wife, Wendy, relocated to the United States in 1983. They have three children and five grandchildren. He is a graduate of CBS in Ireland.

In writing his novel The Rebel Son, Guy drew heavily on his life experiences in Africa, which include ownership of a cattle estate in Zambia. He owned and operated a real estate company in Salisbury (Harare City), Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and acquired a private pilot’s license for travel between cattle estates in Zambia and offices in Rhodesia. He was forced to cease operations due to the explosive Liberation War.

Learn more at: http://guyquigley.com/

This is my first blog and what a “LULU” it is. My friend Joe (Surname withheld) who lives between Dublin Ireland and Durban South Africa had to come to the United States on August 2nd 2011 to attend a deposition in a vexatious litigation case brought upon him by a party he does not know and who does not know him.

I am the real target where all the arrows are aimed, so they made the net enormous and encompassed several of my friends. Joe was scheduled on US Airways from Dublin to Philadelphia via Charlotte, NC with an arrival time in Philadelphia of 4:15PM; add to that an hour and a half of rush hour traffic and it can be easily established that he would be at our home by 6:00PM.

As fate would decree, the flight arrived in Philadelphia first, thus, shaving three hours of his travel time and he duly arrived at our home at around 3:00PM. We were elated that he was early and our elation was soon diminished when Joe went grey, started to sweat and collapsed in a chair and slipped into a semi-unconscious state. Being old friends who had lived in Central Africa, we immediately assumed that he was suffering from exhaustion and he would pull out of it.

Fortunately, Claudine, our eldest daughter, who happened to be in our home at that time, took one look at Joe and called 911. I had Joe on the floor at this point with wet towels and an ice pack on his neck. Within five minutes, Officer Lawn from the Plumstead Police Department arrived through the door followed in hot pursuit by paramedics. Within fifteen minutes they took Joe out of the house on a gurney, had him hooked up in the ambulance to the bevy of electronics and drips and took off at sirens blaring. Together with my brother Gary (who had popped in to say hello to Joe and never got that far), we followed the ambulance to Doylestown Hospital. In the emergency unit, cardiologist, Joseph F.X. McGarvey Jr., who happens to be a neighbor of mine waved to me saying “Hello Guy”. Joe the cardiologist spoke to Joe my friend and then came out to talk to us. He stated that our friend was in the throws of a massive heart attack and he was taking him into the theater for an immediate “stint”.

It was all over by 6:45PM and three days later we still have our friend with us who has now been released from hospital. The point of this blog is to really thank the doctors, nurses, paramedics, police and the entire Doylestown Hospital staff for their professionalism and efficiency

Yes, we currently do have the best medical system in the world, so we should never forget it.  However, if one looks at the timelines and the changes in schedules that allowed our friend to have the heart attack in our home instead of an airport terminal in Philadelphia or Charlotte or for that matter the pick-up car, where he could have died, one has to say that the hand of God was very much present.

–

Guy Quigley was born in Ireland and hails from a third-generation Irish thespian and musical family. He and his wife, Wendy, relocated to the United States in 1983. They have three children and five grandchildren. He is a graduate of CBS in Ireland.

In writing his novel The Rebel Son, Guy drew heavily on his life experiences in Africa, which include ownership of a cattle estate in Zambia. He owned and operated a real estate company in Salisbury (Harare City), Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and acquired a private pilot’s license for travel between cattle estates in Zambia and offices in Rhodesia. He was forced to cease operations due to the explosive Liberation War.

Learn more at: http://guyquigley.com/