Best first lines

I guess I must be a sucker for a good first line...5 of my favorites are among these first 15 listed. The first line I thought of when I saw the link was..."Call me Ishmael." Ha!

Courtesy of American Book Review. For the complete list of the top 100 lines, click here:
100 Best First Lines from Novels

1. Call me Ishmael. —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)
2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice(1813)
3. A screaming comes across the sky. —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow(1973)
4. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. —Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa)
5. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. —Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)
6. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877; trans. Constance Garnett)
7. riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs. —James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939)
8. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, 1984 (1949)
9. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. —Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
10. I am an invisible man. —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)
11. The Miss Lonelyhearts of the New York Post-Dispatch (Are you in trouble?—Do-you-need-advice?—Write-to-Miss-Lonelyhearts-and-she-will-help-you) sat at his desk and stared at a piece of white cardboard. —Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933)
12. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. —Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)
13. Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested. —Franz Kafka, The Trial (1925; trans. Breon Mitchell)
14. You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. —Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler (1979; trans. William Weaver)
15. The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. —Samuel Beckett,Murphy (1938)

My next giveaway through Amazon's KDP Select program begins March 23 and ends March 25. Download The Case Files of Thomas Carney for free. If you have Amazon Prime, you can borrow the book any time for free...you don't have to wait until March 23! 

Click here for my Amazon listing.

Click here for my Amazon UK listing.

Results from Amazon's KDP Select program...it works.

So...I had my doiubts, but no more. KDP Select delivers as promised. Thanks to all of you who checked out my book over the President's Day holiday. It reached the Top 10 in downloads for the Fiction-Ghosts and for the Fiction-Occult & Supernatural categories in both the US and the UK.

My next giveaway through Amazon's KDP Select begins March 23 and ends March 25. Download The Case Files of Thomas Carney for free. If you have Amazon Prime, you can borrow the book any time for free...you don't have to wait until March 23!

Here's the link for my book in the Amazon Kindle Store

For readers in the UK, go to Amazon UK Kindle Store

Red Adept Review on The Case Files of Thomas Carney

Thank you to SingleEyePhotos for a very fair and well-considered review of my book.

To read the review in its entirety, click here:  Red Adept Reviews

KDP Select

As of today, the eBook format for The Case Files of Thomas Carney is available exclusively through Amazon via their new KDP select program. I've heard good things--so I signed on. We'll see in 90 days.

Through KDP select, I'm offering a promotion. Over the President's Day holiday--on Sunday, February 19 and Monday, February 20--you can download the eBook for free. That's $0.00. Give it a try.

How to Name Your First Novel

Reprinted from HOW TO NAME YOUR FIRST NOVEL by Linda Holmes, via npr.org

If Your First Novel Will Be A Busted Romance:

[ANY OF THE SEVEN DWARFS]: A Love Story

If Your First Novel Will Be A Harrowing Historical Account:
The [A COLOR] [REPEAT THAT COLOR] [A FLOWER]s Of [A CITY IN EUROPE]

If Your First Novel Will Be A Withering Teenage Quasi-Memoir:
How I Flunked [YOUR WORST ACADEMIC SUBJECT] But Passed [THE FIRST MUSICIAN YOU SAW IN CONCERT]

If Your First Novel Will Be A Workplace Satire:
At Least They Left Us The [A PIECE OF OFFICE MACHINERY]

If Your First Novel Will Be A Quirky Woman's Story From Someone Else's Point Of View:
[A CHILD-CARE-RELATED TRANSITIVE VERB]ing [THE NAME OF YOUR PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER]

If Your First Novel Will Be A Quirky Man's Story From His Own Point Of View:
[THE FIRST NAME OF YOUR MATERNAL GRANDFATHER]Reads The Works Of [CLASSIC AUTHOR]

If Your First Novel Will Be A Miserable Story Of One Person's Suffering:
My [A FRAGILE OBJECT] Is [A WORD THAT MEANS "BROKEN"]

If Your First Novel Will Be Self-Consciously Ironic And Self-Congratulatory:
[A COMIC-BOOK SOUND EFFECT WORD] Goes [A NEIGHBORHOOD IN BROOKLYN]

If Your First Novel Takes Place In Gorgeous Locations:
The [ANY COUNTRY] [ANY COMMON SOCIAL EVENT]Chronicles

If Your First Novel Is Intended To Launch A Giant Moneymaking Franchise:
Everything Starts With ["1" OR "A"]

I'm a five star slacker

Sometimes you feel like a writer, sometimes you don't.

I'd like to say I've been so busy I haven't had the time to sit down and concentrate on the two novels I have in the works, but that's just not true. I managed to finish an astounding number of levels on Angry Birds. Warning--if you see the Angry Birds app on any device you own, never...ever...touch it. It's a sly demon sent by the Lords of Time to suck your life away. It's the game equivalent of crack.


When I started Case Files I posted a spinning banner on my screen saver that read: Three Pages Per Day. That was my goal and it came with conditions. If I didn't complete my three pages, if I wrote only one for example, then I owed myself two pages the next day. I didn't always reach my goal, but the phrase kept me focused. And it kept me feeling guilty for wasting time. Many people have written many pages outlining their secrets for overcoming writer's block. For me, guilt is a great motivator.

Time to turn that screen saver back on.

Five Star Review

This just in. Thank you, Susan R from Reader's Favorite.

"Listen. Would you like to know a secret? Did you know everyone heads off into the Afterlife once they die, regardless of whether they're good or bad? It's true. Just read "The Case Files of Thomas Carney".

Tom Carney, a nondescript school-teacher before he died, awakes to find himself a supernatural investigator in Afterlife Investigations.

Ms Wolfe deserves an award for sheer imagination in this quirky novel. Don't expect it to be feel-good with angels on clouds and stardust. Tom now inhabits a place midway between life and his final destination, a place swirled in mist and utter, mind-bending, bureaucracy. His companions are gelled into their own eras. His secretary, for example, still uses a traditional typewriter and receives strict orders for his investigation missions from the Home Office. 

Following Tom's somewhat bungling attempts to find his feet in his new job was hilarious and I couldn't put the book down as he's drawn into the case of releasing a ghost child from the clutches of an evil being that belongs neither on earth nor in the after-life.

The cast of characters are unique and fully-rounded - those in the bar next to Tom's agency are as varied and enjoyable as those in the TV series "Cheers". The pacing gallops along and I enjoyed this supernatural romp that will keep me thinking about it for a long time to come. With any luck Ms Wolfe will be considering a sequel because I surely haven't had enough of Tom Carney."

Impacted!

I can't take it anymore. With the flood (no pun intended) of recent news coverage about Hurricane Irene, the misuse of "impacted" has reached frenzy level. I suppose saying that something is impacted rather than affected by events has more verbal punch, but I still say it is WRONG and using is again and again doesn't make it right.

"Impacted" is an adjective in the English language, meaning tightly packed or wedged in. It shouldn't be the used as the past tense conjugation of the transitive verb, impact. This verb's primary meaning is to strike forcefully or make contact with, however, recent usage has given it an alternate meaning as in to alter, influence, have an effect on. For example, The senator's insistence on cutting Medicare funding will impact the lives of the elderly. Affect or even effect would be better, but impact is correct. The elderly are impacted by deep cuts in Medicare funding. No!  If they are, they should consult a physician, despite the loss of funding. They're probably eating too much cheese.

Bottom line, wisdom teeth and bowels are impacted. People, places and events are not.

My Real Ghost Story #1

My friend Natalie tells me I should write down all the weird encounters I've had, mostly as a child, and put them into a biography. Well, they're isolated incidents, not much story line to work with, so I thought I'd post them now and then on this blog. Here's one from my teenage years:

My parents scraped the money together and paid for me to study overseas for a summer session at Universite Dijon when I was sixteen years old. Our group stopped off for a day in New York City before heading to France. Our guide took us to St. Patrick's Cathedral, which didn't appeal to most of the sixteen year old girls. They wanted pizza. I, however, fancied myself a budding art student and wanted to see the interior--particularly the statues, icons, etc. Besides, it was much cooler in there than out on the street. While they debated over lunch, I popped inside for a look. I made it a little way inside the entrance, near the back row of pews, and stopped to look at the angel on one of the water fonts. It was very quiet and peaceful inside--just a few visitors milling around a good distance away near the alter.

I heard a tapping sound behind me. I turned toward the big entry doors. They were closed. An elderly woman in a long black dress and long black veil--she looked like a stereotypical 1900s Italian grandmother--was heading straight towards me with a vengeance. The tapping sound came from the metal tip of her black umbrella striking the marble floor. The taps weren't in cadence with her stride. She was hitting the umbrella rapidly against the floor to get my attention. Being an awkward and relatively shy teenager, I whirled back around to stare at the statue again. I didn't want to get into a confrontation with somebody's nana. I could feel her walk up directly behind me and the tapping stopped. She leaned over and hissed in my left ear--Don't pray to St. Theresa, she'll give you tuberculosis!  I caught a glimpse of her black dress whisk past me on the left and turned to look. All I saw was the empty aisle stretched out ahead. I turned around--no one. I looked at the other visitors. They were going about their business. Granny had vanished. I hustled out the front doors, rejoined the group, and set out for lunch.

I learned much later in life, while reading about the Cathedral, that indeed there is an alter to St. Theresa down that long vacant aisle I saw. This particular Theresa was awarded the honor of Church Doctor and died from her good works after contracting--you guessed it--tuberculosis. Why this spirit felt the need to warn me, I don't know. Maybe she had an axe to grind about this particular place. Or maybe she just took the opportunity to come back from the other side, have a little fun and tease an impressionable teenage girl.