I have been working to get my novels into audio format for quite a while.  Almost two years ago, I contracted with a young man to produce Lost Coast Rocket as an audio book.  We worked closely together and shared a lot of common background, including being National Guardsmen, and he was doing an excellent job reading.  Unfortunately he vanished, and I spent about 4 months trying to reestablish contact with him, to no avail.  What hurt so bad is it seemed entirely out of character for him to just quit without explanation as I felt we had actually become more than business partners and were friends, but I was finally forced to terminated our contract.

About fifteen  months later I got a message from him, written by his wife.  He had finally remembered that he was doing the project and struggled for 40 minutes trying to find the words for his wife to send me.  He had been in a severe automobile wreck and suffered major injuries, including head trauma, but was recovering far more than his doctors thought possible.  It was a pretty devastating letter to receive and it matched the fears I had when he disappeared.  J.K. Mayberry, God speed to you and your great little family. Keep striving and fighting, my friend, to recover all your great abilities. Thank you for all the ideas and feedback you gave.

I put Lost Coast Rocket back up for audition and received an excellent submission from Cheyenne Bizon, a young actress, and we signed a contract.  As life does, it threw up barriers for her but she fought them down and prevailed. Excellent job, Cheyenne!

Cheyenne Bizon

Order the audio book, Lost Coast Rocket.

Over the spring and summer I worked with a talented professional reader, Robin J. Sitten, and had my book Impossible Beyond This Point  made into an audio book.

It is available here at Amazon. 

Celebrating 50 years off grid at The Flat – June 3, 1967 to June 3, 2017 – with no intention of leaving!

I am writing this today as I will be headed to ID/MT on the actual day of our 50th anniversary at The Flat and being off grid.

The top picture is Virgil on Sept. 6, 1966, after our first attempt to find The Flat.

The second is a photo of The Flat taken by John Brookes in the summer of 1967. Note the little shrubby pine on the right front corner of the cabin.

In the third and last picture, taken today, you can see that pine 50 years later. I would like to have taken a shot of The Flat from the exact same vantage point as the 1967 photo, but after a very wet winter, the river is running too high to reach the spot.

Raymond Flat summer of 1967

Cabin Pine June 2, 2017

This morning as I pondered writing this post, I scanned through the Amazon reviews of Impossible Beyond This Point and chuckled as I read a review titled “Wannabe Hippies” where the author wondered if the book was really non fiction. I guess my parents would have had to have known about back-to-the-land hippies in order to be wannabes. In 1966, back-to-the-land hippies had not yet started the migration to what they believed would be a simpler life. Before Virgil and Marcy passed away, they had witnessed the arrival of the first and the departure of nearly the last of the back-to-the-earth generation of young people.

In 50 years, we have seen a lot of changes and many, many acre feet of water has bubbled by in the North Fork during that time.

So here’s to the next 50…

Joel Horn

I am doing a promotional giveaway of the ebook edition of Lost Coast Rocket November 14 through the 15 of November. This is your free chance to discover the Mare Tranquillitatis series.

Download it here!

As I began the journey into the world of novels, I didn’t realize how many things I would learn. So far, the biggest one is how much reviewers tend to make assumptions about me as the author by evaluating the characters within the novels I write. Unlike many authors, I do not try to fashion my lead characters after myself. I would find it very constraining as neither is my ego big enough to create myself into a superhero nor my self esteem low enough to create myself into a degenerate loser.

I at least try to write as I have observed the world and people to be, not how I wish it or them to be. When a character acts a certain way, I very likely  observed  those or similar actions in the thousands of people I have met. Readers react to a novel based on their own life and culture and will review based on those experiences that make them into individuals. If they have not experienced or seen what I have, they will quite possible believe the actions of my characters to be implausible and/or contrived, or worse,  a reflection on my morals and ethics.

Communication is defined as the accurate transfer of an idea from one person to the next. If anything breaks down in that transfer, be it verbal, grammatical or visual, communication has failed. In novels, the only things that can fail are the grammar of the writer or the reading level of the reader. I am the first to admit my grammar skills are not topnotch, but I have a good editor. At times, a failure in the idea transfer has occurred, and we have edited and republished the novel. If it is a failure of reading skill, it is beyond our control and I have to live with the poor reviews based on that. Such is the world and I am okay with it. The one area I tend to be sensitive about is a reviewer who presumes what was in my mind and announces to the world what my intentions were in writing the novel.

As an author, you have to have very thick skin as you are putting your work out into the vast world for others to pontificate on. Some may hate it and others may love it, and as the author, you get the highs of seeing your work bring enjoyment to others and the lows and self doubt when readers get zero enjoyment.

Thirty-five years ago, my need to write Hatching the Phoenix Egg was sparked while listening to a speech by a Nobel prize winning physicist. What he said that day changed my thoughts dramatically and gave me perspective on events around me. It was like zooming out on a large telephoto lens.

This speech made me realize people get so tied up in such minor things like Trump/Clinton, ISIS, Iraq war, Vietnam war, WWII, WWI, global warming, nuclear war, or any other event in the history of man, that they miss the major things that WILL effect all the people and life on earth.

It’s NOT a matter of if, but WHEN, and maybe it is beyond the hand of man, but I feel strongly that whether it is or isn’t, man should work in unity to evaluate this, even if it is in the realm of God.

If my novels Lost Coast Rocket and Hatching the Phoenix Egg had a sound track this would be it. I wrote much of them listening to this collection.

Lost Coast Rocket is available free on Amazon through Oct 2nd!