I love to read mysteries and action adventure. I also like historical fiction and well written historical biographies of well known figures.

I use kindle on an i-pad. My wife uses kindle--the actual device from Amazon. I'm not one of those Apple people that are fanatics, like my nephew. Wow, he should get paid by Apple. No, I'm simply excited about all the devices that allow us to have a stack of books by our side without having our arms full.

Facebook, Linkedin, and personally sending copies of my recent book with Dr. H. James Harrington, which is about personal communication in a business setting, directly to selected universities. I direct them to departments related to the subject with a signed note on the title page. I also have a small link below my name on all my emails to my book and my web sites.

Messy like Albert Einstein.

I grew up in North Texas, which is the Fort Worth/Dallas area. I grew up in the decade of the 1950's and stayed outside most of the time. Whenever my brother and I were in the house, mom would say, "You boys go outside and play." So we built forts, climbed and chopped trees, fished for crawdads, and shot our BB guns. It was a good time. It was a time of formation that gave me a belief that I could do anything I wanted and succeed.

Then, almost exactly on my 14th birthday, we moved to Hannibal, MO, the boyhood home of Mark Twain. I walked all the hills and threw rocks into the same river inhabited by Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. So that continued to shape my desire to write with a belief that it could influence society. And the Junior High and High School were fabulous for finishing my education. I won 2nd place my Junior year on a poem I submitted to a national contest for high school students.

My desire to write came in High School, but I didn't become a professional writer at that time. I felt led to go into the ministry during the last year of college. However, I not only spoke publicly multiple times each week, but I wrote articles for newsletters and other religious publications. I took a mail order course on "How to Write" in my late twenties. So I have always been interested in writing to a larger audience. That began to occur after my kids were raised and I began doing some business consulting with Dr. H. James Harrington.

My latest book grew out of my journey as a pastor. It was written in the late 1980's, but was rejected by several religious publishers. Later I was glad, because after a few years passed and I read it, it was not good. It had too much of my emotion in it and wasn't objective. The angle and voice also were wrong. So, in the summer of 2014 I had one of those epiphanies at a coffee shop where a new angle on the subject slapped me in the face. As I answer this question I'm in the editing phase of the book which is the same subject with a radically new angle. Although it is directed to the Christian community, the principles could be used in other contexts. Working title: Church Barnacle Busters: Why Your Church Is in a Mess and What to Do About It.

Just knowing I can publish on Smashwords has encouraged me to do more writing. Getting a traditional writing contract takes a middle man (an agent) and lots of time submitting ideas. This process uses a lot of time and causes me to second guess what editors will publish and subconsciously holding back on ideas in which I really believe. Using Smashwords cuts out the middle man, the time lag, and the timidity. Run your work up the Smashwords flagpole and see who salutes.

The great joy of writing is the stimulation of one's mind to think at a higher level of insight. One starts writing and wrestling with describing a personality or the intersection of plots. Suddenly, a burst of understanding the inner qualities of people or insight into the power of chance relationships gives birth to intriguing plots, insights into a protagonist, and new connections of old ideas that one could not envision until one started writing.

After the non-fiction book I'm writing now I hope to move into writing a mystery with the setting on the eastern coastline of the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez). Stay tuned.