James Ross's Blog, page 7

I am going to change gears today and instead of featured several characters in a blog post, I am going to use the letter "W" to feature the Whole library of my Written novels.

My first book was Lifetime Loser , which focuses on a character J Dub who must adjust his life goals when he falls just short of making the professional golf circuit. But, there are deeper and more sinister activities occurring throughout the pages of this book as well.  Criminal offenses and civil fraud occur as some small-time con men swindle an estate and steal a golf course. J Dub now has bigger problems than reflecting on one bad swing.

My second novel is Finish Line . To pay off an act of mischief, two teenage boys land a summer job on a golf course. There they come face-to-face with several middle-aged men who battle personal vices. However the biggest story here is the man who becomes these boys' mentor faces a struggle with cancer. In doing so, he teaches valuable life lessons about courage and a positive attitude.

Tuey’s Course is my third novel. A minority businessman is forced to deal with the power-hungry officials who work at City Hall and the consequences of this relationship are deadly.   I add some controversy by incorporating stereotypical dialect for several characters throughout the novel to demonstrate the differences we still perceive in one another.

Opur’s Blade , my fourth book, features a young prodigy. His golfing talent takes him from modest means to the pinnacle of golf’s grandest stage. Anyone who has been in the position of underdog will appreciate this journey.

In January of 2012 my fifth novel was released. Pabby’s Score features two autistic teens who visit Prairie Winds Golf Course on a regular basis so that they can develop some professional and relational skills. Unbeknownst to them a sinister undercurrent exists. Unethical lawyers, a corrupt court and a secret society swirl outside the confines of their foster home. An Internet dating site and online texting weave into the mix as well. Mysterious forces collide and lead to a dramatic conclusion.

James Ross 
Author of Lifetime Loser, Finish Line, Tuey's Course, Opur's Blade, and Pabby's Score [email protected]
Website: http://www.authorjamesross.com/
Publisher Websites: http://www.xlibris.com/ and http://www.nightengalepress.com/ 
Blog: http://www.authorjamesross.blogspot.com/ 
Purchase: http://golftwitt.com/46ey

 Vern Morton is a wealthy real estate developer who made a fortune in St. Louis properties. His role in Lifetime Loser is short as we quickly learn of his death in the first few pages of the story. However his estate practically becomes its own character as it is a main focus throughout the novel. Several con artists swindle Vern’s widow by misusing a forged power-of-attorney document. The heirs to the estate lose their assets and file a series of legal challenges in civil court. This event serves as only the first example of many instances of corruption and crime in a book that shines a light on social injustice.

The readers meet Tina Ventimiglia in the pages of Finish Line . She is the attractive mother of Justin, a teen who has to pay off a debt that he incurred after a petty act of vandalism. Earlier in her life she dated Curt, the co-owner of Prairie Winds golf course. After their relationship fizzled she married another guy but Curt remained close to her son. The relationship between Curt and Justin is the focal point of the novel, as Justin works toward his debt at Prairie Winds while also learning some important life lessons that will last well past the summer.  Tina is opinionated and domineering but tremendously concerned about the well-being of her son.

Finally my readers will find Philippe Vaugh-Purdy in the pages of Pabby’s Score . The beer baron owned a large brewery in St. Louis before selling the business and starting a micro-brewery. The site of the business is three fourths of the way up the bluffs that line the Mississippi river. The readers take a harrowing trip up the river road to the site of the brewery. But a surprise awaits them. What secrets is Philippe Vaugh-Purdy hiding? Pick up a copy of Pabby’s Score to find out!

James Ross
Author of Lifetime Loser , Finish Line , Tuey's Course , Opur's Blade , and Pabby's Score [email protected]
Website: http://www.authorjamesross.com/ 
Publisher Websites: http://www.xlibris.com/ and http://www.nightengalepress.com/
Blog: http://www.authorjamesross.blogspot.com/ 
Purchase: http://golftwitt.com/46ey

Pops is the father of Pork Chop, a recurring character in my stories. Readers first meet him in my fifth novel, Pabby’s Score . The regulars in the clubhouse cannot bring themselves to call him Pops because he isn’t their father, so it's determined they must have another nickname for him instead. Based on an appearance that you just will have to read to understand, Pops earns the new name of Uncle Woo.

Poor Uncle Woo has a forgetful mind, struggling to remember simple things. Pork Chop eventually admits to the guys that his father suffers from Dementia. He is only in the early stages of what is diagnosed to be Alzheimer's disease, but it is clear to all that Uncle’s Woo’s story telling comes complete with a lot of mixed up facts and confusing moments. Uncle Woo will most likely remain a recurring character as he adds a lot of light-heartedness and heart to the pro shop.

So, this character got me thinking about uncles.  Most of us have that one uncle who is known for telling great stories or being ornery at the dinner table during the holidays or, maybe, seems to have a tendency to walk that line so that you wonder if there may be a call from the authorities coming some day.  Uncles can make for great characters! 

Do you have a great uncle story, or perhaps have a fictional uncle who automatically comes to mind (John Candy's Uncle Buck or Tom Hanks as Uncle Ned on Family Ties )?  Share your uncle moments!

James Ross
Author of Lifetime Loser, Finish Line, Tuey's Course, Opur's Blade, and Pabby's Score [email protected]
Website: http://www.authorjamesross.com/
Publisher Websites: http://www.xlibris.com/ and http://www.nightengalepress.com/
Blog: http://www.authorjamesross.blogspot.com/
Purchase: http://golftwitt.com/46ey

 The title character in my third novel, Tuey's Course , is an impoverished black businessman who is victimized by those whose sense of power is greater than reality at City Hall. Tuey seems to take two steps back for every one step forward in his attempts at professional advancement. His frustrations with our local political system reach catastrophic levels when he gets thwarted one too many times.

Opur’s Blade offers my readers a character named Trent Tee. This clean cut, meticulous announcer is the voice of golf for most Americans who follow the game. He shares the dramatic events on the final day of The Classic as competitors play for the most sought after reward in golf – the prized fedora.

Percy Fewel "Tank" Oglethorpe III is the best player in American golf.  His towering six-foot-five frame is intimidating. His swing is perfect. His personality is charismatic. Tank has the golf came that champions admire. He provides the perfect adversary for one of my main characters in his attempts to measure up with the greats in the game.

DeWitt Tracy is a retired attorney who my readers meet in Pabby’s Score . For most of the story the character is unknown. However he dominates the last third of the book while we learn about his world of secret societies, clandestine meetings, sinister motives and back-stabbing personalities. His unique passions include falcons and savage sport hunting.

Pabby’s Score also brings us a short comedian formerly of the vaudeville stage by the name of Lemuel Trot. The first name is dropped and the character is simple known by his last name. With a weathered face, a large nose, prominent ears, and a mouth that stretches from sideburn to sideburn, the comic grabs an audience before he utters a word. Once he speaks, his repertoire of one-liners is seemingly endless. Trot will be a recurring character as my story writing continues.

James Ross
Author of Lifetime Loser , Finish Line , Tuey's Course , Opur's Blade , and Pabby's Score
[email protected]
Website: http://www.authorjamesross.com/
Publisher Websites: http://www.xlibris.com/ and http://www.nightengalepress.com/
Blog: http://www.authorjamesross.blogspot.com/
Purchase: http://golftwitt.com/46ey

We met Harold Syms, an unscrupulous banker/real estate developer, in Tuey’s Course . He valued a dollar, used other people’s money for profit and manipulated finances for his personal benefit. His furry mane and pointed snout gave him the look of a sly fox and the consequences for his behavior at the end of the novel are dire.

A teenage girl by the name of Shae is one of the main characters in Pabby’s Score . She is the product of a broken home and is raised at Footprints of Hope foster care center.  She is a special needs child who is mildly autistic but who has a savant-like memory, especially when it comes to geography. Her sidekick is Pabby, the title character of the story, who also exhibits some of the same remarkable recollection abilities.

Dennis K. Sneed is an attorney who specializes in civil matters. He is a man tho meditates to yoga and who is non-conforming both in thought and appearance. His role in Lifetime Loser is to file a lawsuit on behalf of the heirs of a swindled estate. When the main character, J Dub, realizes that he also has been cheated financially, Sneed's involvement in the storyline deepens.

Scottie P. Lampe is a tall, good-looking fellow with long, curly blonde locks. He operated a used car lot for most of his professional life but sold the business when he turned fifty so that he could enter retirement and pursue his passion for golf. He carries a handicap that is plus two, meaning that he often shoots below par at Prairie Winds. Scottie P is also the live-in lover of the Catholic priest, Father Alphonso Blair.  So, there's an interesting twist!

James Ross
Author of Lifetime Loser , Finish Line , Tuey's Course , Opur's Blade , and Pabby's Score
[email protected]
Website: http://www.authorjamesross.com/
Publisher Websites: http://www.xlibris.com/ and http://www.nightengalepress.com/
Blog: http://www.authorjamesross.blogspot.com/
Purchase: http://golftwitt.com/46ey

Roxie and Rayelene are two women who never met but have a common interest--a man. They are both featured in mt fourth novel, Opur’s Blade .

Roxie first called Russia her home. She hailed from an area not too far from the Black Sea and followed her brother to the United States after he made it as a professional hockey player. She eventually settled in Oklahoma City, and Roxie did what she needed to do to pay the bills while going to nursing school. It was in the course of making ends meet that she encountered Owen Purler, an over-the-road trucker from the St. Louis area. They began a passionate affair.  Problem was, Owen had another woman back home.

Rayelene Purler is the wife of Owen Purler. She is a stereotypical, small-town farm girl who grew up off a dirt road. Outspoken and a head turner, but also displayed an obvious naivete regarding the ways of the world through her words and actions. This stay-at-home mom gets blind-sided by her husband’s affair, which leads to a series of irrational moments. I’ll forever love the “country girl” sayings of this character. She was a definite favorite of mine.

Finally, in the pages of Tuey’s Course , we meet R. W. Reeves. He is the Director of Public Works for the local municipality. The main job of this character is to carry out the dirty deeds of the mayor. Bald but with a bad toupee to disguise it, disgusting body odor, and tooth decay make for a rather unappealing character. These physical traits are an accurate reflection of the behavior in which Reeves must engage every day.

Hard to believe we're more than 2/3 of the way through the A to Z blogging challenge!  I've been enjoying every day of thinking about my characters and visiting some great blogs out there!

James Ross
Author of Lifetime Loser , Finish Line , Tuey's Course , Opur's Blade , and Pabby's Score
[email protected]
Website: http://www.authorjamesross.com/
Publisher Websites: http://www.xlibris.com/ and http://www.nightengalepress.com/
Blog: http://www.authorjamesross.blogspot.com/
Purchase: http://golftwitt.com/46ey

My writing began with a failing effort by my main character, J Dub Schroeder, at a PGA qualifying event in Texas. Also known as Q-School to professional golfers, the week pits the best golfers in the world against each other to distinguish which new rookies will play on the professional tour. If the players finish in the top twenty after six grueling days of competitive golf, then they earn their badge and take their place on the tour.

J Dub falls just short in his bid to play on the tour. He then becomes a local club pro and operates a public golf facility known as Prairie Winds on the east side of suburban St. Louis. The southern Illinois course is popular with the golfers from Missouri and is one of the busiest stops for local golf enthusiasts. Without J Dub's disappointment at Q-School, Prairie Winds would have been a very different place.

One of my favorite tasks in writing is creating diverse personalities that have quirky character traits, as I think it makes the people on my pages more memorable . . . and it's just fun! My stories are filled with dysfunctional men and women. They chain smoke, overeat, suffer from a variety of afflictions, struggle with sexuality, and have unusual ways of handling the circumstances in their lives.

A barber who hails from Beirut is in the clubhouse at Prairie Winds frequently. A Hispanic landscaper from Chihuahua, Mexico is also a regular. A Japanese businessman spends time in the clubhouse whenever he is in town and has developed strong friendships with the local guys. There are retired and ornery old-timers and a professional comedian that uses his friendly audience to relive his vaudeville days.

There are so many unique individuals with whom we have the opportunity to come into contact every day. How often do we take a chance to strike up a conversation with someone new?  Maybe you can start by meetig some of the characters in my books. And, you just may find one who reminds you of someone you know.

James Ross
Author of Lifetime Loser , Finish Line , Tuey's Course , Opur's Blade , and Pabby's Score
[email protected]
Website: http://www.authorjamesross.com/
Publisher Websites: http://www.xlibris.com/ and http://www.nightengalepress.com/
Blog: http://www.authorjamesross.blogspot.com/
Purchase: http://golftwitt.com/46ey

 One of the con artists in my first book, Lifetime Loser , is the owner of a title company named George Pierce. He is instrumental in obtaining a power-of-attorney form and subsequently forging the signature of an old lady on many real estate documents. He ultimately flees the country after collecting all of the loot on the property transactions.

A character that I have fallen in love with is a regular at Prairie Winds Golf Course named Andrew. Half of the world calls him Andy and the other half calls him Drew. However, after a sudden U-turn in an interstate median during a golf vacation the guys at the golf course nicknamed him Pork Chop to commemorate the pork chop and eggs special featured at the highway diner that had caught his attention while behind the wheel. The short, heavy set character is an eating machine and can often be counted on to share remnants of his previous meal on the front of his shirt.

The title character in Pabby’s Score , my fifth and most recent novel, is an autistic teen. The fourteen-year-old who lives at Footprints of Hope foster care center shows up at Prairie Winds for an orientation program into life away from the orphanage. His personality is magnetic and the regulars quickly adopt him as one of their own. But Pabby’s adventure is not without its ups and downs. I hope that many readers will be cheering for him as the story unfolds.

Peel It Backe was the stage name I created for Tyrone Munroe, who is also known as BowTye to the guys at Prairie Winds. He first appears in Finish Line . The diminutive black man made American history as the king of the rockabilly blues as he played the honky-tonk bars up and down the Mississippi river. After the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans, a church program relocated the legend to St. Louis where J Dub and the guys at Prairie Winds adopted him.

Oliver Pudge made his debut in Pabby’s Score and his physique fits his name. He looks like a pumpkin on two toothpick legs and is as soft as the cream in a doughnut. Pudge is an attorney who is easily swayed, inefficient, and essentially a product of a failed legal system. His role in the story is fairly minor but he is a character that I will surely use in future works.

James Ross
Author of Lifetime Loser , Finish Line , Tuey's Course , Opur's Blade , and Pabby's Score
[email protected]
Website: http://www.authorjamesross.com/
Publisher Websites: http://www.xlibris.com/ and http://www.nightengalepress.com/
Blog: http://www.authorjamesross.blogspot.com/
Purchase: http://golftwitt.com/46ey

Opur is the main character of my fourth novel. The young boy is dropped off at the golf course for summer lessons and his very first swing broadcasts his gift to the head pro. The ball clangs off the 100-yard marker and the lad is deemed a prodigy. We follow his journey to discover himself by way of his talent throughout Opur’s Blade . The story is as much about teen strife as it is the adventure and desire planted in all of us that drives us to overcome obstacles. Opur’s path eventually takes him to The Classic--The Masters--America’s golf pinnacle. But, golf proves to be only a sideshow considering the other events that unfold.

Ostrahemial Puld is a black evangelist preacher that I created in Tuey’s Course . He relocated to the St. Louis area from the banks of the Red River in Arkansas and Oklahoma. We find the local pulpit is merely a conduit for his true desire, which is to spread the gospel via satellite TV. Praise the Lord!

The main character in this same novel is a man named Tuey O’Tweety. His professionals aspirations are continually hindered by the powers-that-be at City Hall. The harassment by these elected officials becomes too much for the impoverished minority businessman. He reacts in ways that make sense to him but are radical to the mayor and aldermen. With a growing sense of solitude, depression follows. How will Tuey O’Tweety handle the pressure?

Finally, Owen Purler is the name of both father and son in my fourth book, Opur’s Blade . Owen, Sr. is an over-the-road owner/operator of an eighteen-wheeler who is away from home for weeks at a time. Not surprisingly, Owen, Jr. finds himself in need of a better and more present father figure. The head golf pro at Prairie Winds Golf Course enters the picture and their relationship flourishes. Will Owen, Sr. abandon his son forever, feeling that his abandonment is justified by this new replacement? Read the surprising outcome.

James Ross
Author of Lifetime Loser , Finish Line , Tuey's Course , Opur's Blade , and Pabby's Score
[email protected]
Website: http://www.authorjamesross.com/
Publisher Websites: http://www.xlibris.com/ and http://www.nightengalepress.com/
Blog: http://www.authorjamesross.blogspot.com/
Purchase: http://golftwitt.com/46ey

Before I focus today's post on two important topics beginning with the letter "N," I wanted at least to share one character associated with the letter as well.

The father of the title character in my fourth novel, Opur's Blade , is nicknamed Nada. Owen Purler, Sr. is only a teenager when he impregnates his high school girlfriend, who is upset by his lack of motivation and chides him about his excessive beer drinking. She insists that if Owen doesn’t change his ways, then he won’t amount to anything in life. In a moment of anger leveled at her unborn baby's father, she blurts that he’ll be nothing--Nada. And the nickname stuck.

Nada becomes an over-the-road truck driver and eventually files for a divorce after he falls for a younger girl from Russia during his travels. One unfortunate result, as is so often the case with divorce, is that Owen strands his son during a critical time. Nada never disappears entirely, though, and the storyline eventually comes full circle.

Now, on to two issues are important to all authors, I believe--names and networking.

Naming characters gives me about as much pleasure as dreaming up plots. I love to create memorable men and women to occupy the pages of my novels. I want them to be so off-the-wall that any reader will forever remember their actions. One of the ways to etch that creation in the reader’s mind is to dream up a name that is so catchy and impressive that it is instantly unforgettable. If you've read any or all of my books, I would love to hear if one of my characters stuck with you in a particular way.

And, every writer who wishes to share his work must become familiar with networking. Our world has changed. It used to be that an author sought an agent who then opened doors to publishing houses. The Internet has changed that. Now anyone can get his manuscript published. That’s the easy part.
Driving sales is where the hard work truly lies. Through the use of keywords, fresh content (such as that provided by this blog challenge!) and social networking sites, authors have the opportunity to spread their work and go viral. It takes patience and organization but getting the message to readers is an important step in the sales process, and the efforts online can be quite rewarding at very little cost. 

If you are a writer, what has proven to be your most effective networking outlet?

James Ross
Author of Lifetime Loser , Finish Line , Tuey's Course , Opur's Blade , and Pabby's Score
[email protected]
Website: http://www.authorjamesross.com/
Publisher Websites: http://www.xlibris.com/ and http://www.nightengalepress.com/
Blog: http://www.authorjamesross.blogspot.com/
Purchase: http://golftwitt.com/46ey