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Greetings, Bainheads. Welcome to another installment of ‘Let’s prime the tap protruding out of Angelo’s head and see what oozes out.’ I’m gonna skip all of the ‘check me out here or here’ mess and get down to brass tacks Ok, let’s cannonball right into this, READY, SET, GO!
What you see me talk about a lot is my new book, Caesar’s Move. Why? Because I wrote it and I seem to think is pretty damn good. But what do I know? I’m a little biased and all because well, I wrote it. But what I’m going to talk about today is a threefold salutation to a few individuals lurking behind the scenes whose influence helped push Caesar’s Move into its inception. Each one contributed in a different way but my appreciation towards them all is exactly the same. A very heartfelt thank you for believing in me and the support. Here, today, I will reach out and shake the digital hand of three individuals. I will call them … the B.O.T.R., the Lie Detector, and the Chemist. Unusual names for people, you say? Allow my ‘thank you’ to explain.
First, The B.O.T.R.
The acronym here (completely made up) stands for Back Of The Room. The kind of person who is
more comfortable standing at the back of a room and out of the spotlight than up and front and in everybody’s face. Much like myself, my first heartfelt thank you goes out to someone who does prefer the back of a room, my son, Michael. When I first started talking about writing Caesar’s Move, something about it sparked his interest. He listened to the Mod Podge concepts I was spewing out of my mouth and decided to put his two cents worth forward. Turns out, it ended up being more like, maybe, forty-three dollars and eighteen cents by the time it was all done. I fed off of him and he fed off of me. Couldn’t even begin to tell you how many of his suggestions I ran with versus how many I vetoed. (I get the final say here, people. I wrote the damn book. Kinda makes me CEO. Just funning.) But what I can say is that I ran with a hell of a lot of them. He had a lot of great ideas that made total sense to me. I could tell you that the voices inside my head made me do but I’d have to clarify and tell you that he was one of the voices. I guess the boy might be just as twisted as I am. Blessed be. The end result was one great story. Here I am pushing my
bias again. Anyway, to my back of the room son, one big heartfelt thank you for contributing. True story, I gotta throw this in for fun. When my son was in high school he took a drama class. I had the pleasure of watching him perform on stage a couple of times and all I can say is … WOW. Absolutely, WOW. Who in the hell is this kid? Is that my son? My back of the room son? What happened? People, it was like someone flipped a switch and what we got was someone standing on that stage in the purist form of self-confidence and acting skill. He might have been terrified out of his mind, don’t know, but damn, he sure faked it till he made it. Completely believable. I was floored. He fed us all humor and wit. The crowd loved it. I loved it. One of my most cherished memories of his youth. My B.O.T.R. kid was up front and owning the damn joint. Good times. Loved it, Michael. Truly was so proud of you.
Ding Ding. Ok, round two.
Next, The Lie Detector
When I finished my absolute last rewrite on Caesar’s Move and it had been sent back from the editor, I needed a guinea pig to push it on. Sure, the editor read it, but I didn’t know him personally and he was getting paid to do a service for me. What I needed was an average reader to crack my story open and give it an honest read. I needed an unbiased test subject. Not a family member. Not a friend who would stroke my ego as to not offend me. I needed someone who has a knack for being brutally honest in life, regardless. I thought on it for a bit and then it hit me, Beth Patterson. To clarify my stance on this just FYI, I do recognize her as not only a good friend
of mine but also someone who fits into the category of ‘If your work sucks, I’m gonna tell you it sucks.’ Bingo, my test subject. Aside from my editor, I believe she is the very first human to ever chase the rabbit down the hole in its entirety from page 1 all the way to page 501. And the verdict was … (drum roll, ratta tat tat tat) … well, let me try and remember her exact quote …”This is really good. You should totally do something with it. And if you don’t, give it to me and I will.” Not completely verbatim but close. I absolutely loved the mornings I would see her at work and she would come up to me after an evening of reading it and say to me, “You’re killing me. I can’t quite figure it out, if it’s this way or that way.” Once again, not verbatim but the gist. My intentions here is not to stroke my own ego, people, just to paint a picture of why her input was so very important to me. Her opinion of it gave me confidence in my writing ability. I could actually pull something out of my brain, slap it down on paper, and keep someone interested in it through the next one hundred and seventy-nine thousands words. Success in my book. It pushed me off of the procrastination wagon and when my feet hit the ground they began to run. I went through the processes and got it out there and live on Amazon and at the same time found the motivation breeze that blew on the smoldering creative embers and got the fire started again. So, why do I label her as ‘Lie Detector?’ As I mentioned earlier, I had absolute confidence she would give me the honest truth (in her opinion) if my story was good enough and not lie to me about it. So, to my second individual, Beth Patterson, another heartfelt thank you. You may think you only read my story but in fact, you actually did so much more. I look forward to pushing my next works on you. (Haha)
And last but not least ...
The Chemist
My last thank you goes out to the wonderful lady who took care of both the exterior and interior my book, Nada Orlic. I was blessed to stumble across Nada while searching for a freelancer to create my book’s cover art. I went online and found a place where one can search for possible candidates at a marketplace called upwork.com. It’s where freelancers can market their services like writing, graphic design, web development, voiceovers and such. After perusing around the hopefuls for a bit and narrowing it down, person by person, I eventually found myself staring at Nada’s qualifications profile and decided to take a chance on her. Boy, am I so very glad I did. I actually read through the reviews (on each freelancer) and kept seeing the same three words from many previous satisfied customers that described her. “Above and beyond.” Others kept remarking that Nada went ‘above and beyond’ what they had expected of her and reading this just solidified for me. I explained my cover concept to her and with a little back and forth on specifics. She mixed a little bit of this with a little bit of that and some of that for good measure and ... SHAZZAM! Caesar’s Move had its skin. I only used the word ‘shazzam’ here because I bet many of you hadn’t read, heard, or thought about it in the last decade or more. A little throw back for you, if you will? Any-hoo, I think I made it a wee bit more difficult for her than I should have (not actually knowing the process and all) but she was nothing short of kind and professional, to say the least. I absolutely must give a very loud shout out for her with hope that if anyone is in the market for some similar freelance work, do yourself a favor and check her out. If you’re in the market, take a chance on her and you won’t be disappointed.
Look her up at erelisdesign.com or go to upwork.com and search for her by name, Nada Orlic.
Nada, a very heartfelt thank you for your professionalism.
So, once again, that’s what you get when you turn the handle on the Bain brain. Did it flow out in a nice steady stream or simply plop out looking more like sludge than water? Either way, that’s what you get, folks. Take it or leave it. I’ve got some stories pinballing around inside my head, Bainheads, and they want to get out so you can play with them. You know you want to. Perhaps they will open your mind a little or maybe just screw you up some, who knows? But I can’t take complete responsibility for that. You gotta own your own like I own mine.
Until then, continue to feed your brain. You owe it to yourself.
Angelo
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