EENY MEENY Book Review

Bone-Jarring * Brutal * Intense

Great piece of crime fiction by M. J. Arlidge. 
Not your usual fair (Cliche I know, but it's true)– Detective Inspector Helen Grace pursues a twisted serial killer. The story setting is the English coastal city of Southampton. Grace is a tough, determined police officer who rides a motorbike and prefers to travel through life alone; she nevertheless is beset by personal demons. The killer is kidnapping pairs of victims and torturing them in ways that to tell you would be a spoiler. The identity of the predator unveiled only in the last ten percent of the book comes entirely unexpected.

Much like an out of control car careening towards you on a rainy night, some aspects of this story can be seen coming; nevertheless, they were unique as fingerprints. Piece by jagged piece added up to a chilling razor-sharp tale, and the story never lagged. The cold brutality of the action was felt in every letter of sparing descriptions which were never gratuitous. At times, my stomach lurched at the vivid depictions. The only distraction or complication I felt was a purely American one, the British idioms lent realism but confused me more than once.
Great story.

The Day The Mockingbird Died

Harper Lee, author of the nearly ubiquitous modern American classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, died Friday, February 19, 2016. But, of course, you know this already – unless you live in a cave – without a cell phone.

This article is not meant to be an encyclopedia of facts, for that you can go to Wikipedia.  Still, I would like to throw out a few astounding facts.

If you went to High School any time since the 1960s, you could hardly escape without reading her iconic book, or at least, cheating and stealing the Cliff Notes. I missed out only because school seemed uninteresting and nefarious activities were the bigger draw at the time. I did read it later in life.

A 2008 survey of secondary books read by students grades 9–12 in the U.S. indicates the novel is the most widely read book in these grades. My granddaughter read Mockingbird when she was fifteen-years-old (now you know I'm an old codger), and she can engage anyone in a compelling debate on the merits of Harper Lee's first and almost only book. It is her favorite book of all time, and she is a voracious reader.

Miss Lee's second novel, Go Set a Watchman, was written in the mid-1950s and published in July 2015 as a "sequel" though it was later found to be Mockingbird's first draft.

As an Indie Author, this next one kills me, not as funny haha, but WHY-NOT-ME (I know the answer shush): Harper Lee won a Pulitzer for her first book. Granted, she deserves it.

Mockingbird, since 1960 has sold at least a million copies a year.

And, if all that is not enough, read the following paragraph from Wikipedia on the novel's contribution to the success of the Civil Rights movement. That alone makes Harper Lee's image worthy to be inscribed on Mount Rushmore:

The novel is cited as a factor in the success of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, however, in that it "arrived at the right moment to help the South and the nation grapple with the racial tensions (of) the accelerating civil rights movement". Its publication is so closely associated with the Civil Rights Movement that many studies of the book and biographies of Harper Lee include descriptions of important moments in the movement, despite the fact that she had no direct involvement in any of them. Civil Rights leader Andrew Young comments that part of the book's effectiveness is that it "inspires hope in the midst of chaos and confusion" and by using racial epithets portrays the reality of the times in which it was set. Young views the novel as "an act of humanity" in showing the possibility of people rising above their prejudices. Alabama author Mark Childress compares it to the impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a book that is popularly implicated in starting the U.S. Civil War. Childress states the novel "gives white Southerners a way to understand the racism that they've been brought up with and to find another way. And most white people in the South were good people. Most white people in the South were not throwing bombs and causing havoc ... I think the book really helped them come to understand what was wrong with the system in the way that any number of treatises could never do, because it was popular art, because it was told from a child's point of view."

I finished reading/listening to her second novel Go Set A Watchman (published fifty-five years after her first) on the same day she went off into eternity, and only learned the sad news of her death.


Parked outside of Starbucks, I was scrambling in the console for a napkin and a pen before looking online for a bit of text from Watchman (so I wouldn't have to scribble or type it myself).

The text that HITS me after listening to Doctor Finch slap Jean Louise (Scout from Mockingbird) hard enough to draw blood:

I never struck a woman before in my life. Think I'll go strike your aunt and see what happens. You just sit there for a while and be quiet.- Chapter 18

Now that's a line that reaches up, grabs you by the shirt collar and slams your head into a wall.
Bravo to the author. I'm not advocating violence against women, but that's a great line.
There's a lot of controversy surrounding Lee's second novel, and some people are whining that Atticus Finch, a pen and ink icon for good in the Twentieth Century, is discovered to be a racist (not a bigot but a racist–Read the book or get a dictionary). I saw a tweet saying that was a violation akin to Spielberg doing a sequel and having ET punch Elliot in the face. Perhaps.

Anyhow, Miss Harper Lee is a gift that will endure. As a writer or reader, you must, or I'll slap YOU to see what happens, admire her for earning a Pulitzer on her first book changing our world for good then publishing another fifty-five years later before riding quietly off into the sunset.

May we enjoy her gifts for years to come.

I am in awe.
Peace,
M

No More Mister Nice Guy and The Big C

I look back with my jaw hanging wide open and must conclude that my Novel knew I was sick long before I or anyone else did. And, that leaves me to reason that there is a mysterious magic within the stories we write. No matter the genre or subject.

We would do well to look for the magic within what we read and write and learn to tune our ear to its enchanting song.

Sometime in 2010, I had a great idea for a story which, as most of mine go, was intended to be short, the story not the idea, but rarely if ever do they end up that way. My words whether spoken or written have trouble staying confined to a box, and writers block is a malady I’ve yet to experience. The only way to keep my head from exploding is to write or speak the ideas that are always threatening to boil over.

Writing, for me, works better and offends the least people.

I’ve instructed my relatives that my headstone should read, Just One More Thing… including the ellipsis. Being such a loquacious individual, I love the ellipsis; It allows me continuing speaking long after I’ve shut my mouth. I could go on…

In 2010, I began work on a story about an Irish Civil War Soldier, Mike MacKenzie, and by mid-2011, I had the wireframe of a finished novel, No More Mister Nice Guy. Mike, who had started as the protagonist soon, took on a supporting role.

In the story, Mike emerges unscathed from a horrific death at the Battle of Antietam1862 and becomes a timeless Priest or Chaplain, who walks the battlefields of the Civil War up through the wars of today. Even now I am unsure exactly what Mike is, a ghost, a spirit, or an immortal, even though he operates as all of these things at one time or another during the story.

What Mike is for sure is a helper. He shows up where people are most desperate for a miracle, some he offers that supernatural help, others receive only words of advice that if heeded will turn the tide of battle and ultimately save lives. Some listen, some don’t. Those that refuse his help live the remainder of their lives in bitter regret.

Instead of blathering on about Mike, here is a significant portion of Chapter Nineteen from my novel, No More Mister Nice Guy, the beginning of Father Mike MacKenzie or Lucky Mike as some call him.

Antietam

A Union Army cannon fired into an already mangled cornfield where southern soldiers were making their advance. The unique whistle announced that everything nearby was about to be ripped to bloody shreds, and there was nothing anyone, but Almighty God could do to stop it. The shell, a case shot, looked like two three-pound coffee cans packed with lead balls, nails, and gunpowder, and it landed with a thunk, sticking in the mud at the feet of a young recruit named Michael Patrick MacKenzie.

Michael looked down at the unexploded shell and froze. His brain crackled like ice when hot sweet tea spills over it and, for the longest second of time, the shell just lay there. With a glimmer of hope, he prayed it was a dud, but explode it did. In a rainbow spray of orange, red, and gray matter, it spewed a rolling cloud of smoke and dust. Faithful to its promise, it tore everything within a hundred feet into ragged little pieces. The soldier’s nerves, raw and already jangled to numbness, were thrust once again into the burning coals of war.

The survivors reluctantly rose from the blood-spattered dirt. Four of their comrades lay in tatters, dead; tiny curls of smoke issued from crescent-shaped tears in their lifeless bodies. And, as the dust cleared, an unlikely apparition appeared from the cloud.

Stunned and breathless, soldiers stood and stared with disbelief at the phantom in a gunslinger’s duster. Caked with gray dust, fragments of metal, and human remains, Mike stood unscathed except for one crimson cut arcing smoothly around the soft part of his left cheek. Blood strained to drip from the slice.

With his cap in one hand, brushing the grisly dust from his clothes, Corporal Memphis Hughson looked up into Mike’s face and, with his head cocked to one side, said, "What ‘n tarnation are you, boy?”

Mike was unsure how to answer that question and stood expressionless, his gaze fixed on the horizon as if expecting some grand apocalyptic event. Other men close enough to have witnessed what happened remained speechless, afraid to move. Some fought back tears until they could taste the salt stinging their throats.

Mike MacKenzie, the usual joker wise-ass of the group now had a face set and rigid, the look of living granite. His once muddy brown eyes were now a deep crystalline blue.

Death had been cheated big time, and Mike was unsure how he felt. He knew that he had been in the midst of an explosion, but the sound didn’t register – only the quick blowing out of a lamp, his – and then, nothingness. Hard to describe. It was nothing, but he still had an awareness of the war raging around him, only muted and seen through a cloudy haze. His former fears and concerns for the next moment in the battle, his own survival, and that of his comrades, had been dislodged.

If he had a mirror and dared look, he would have seen a reflection somewhat like he remembered, but now with grizzled leathery skin and the stoic look of granite. His once hazel-colored eyes were now frosty blue. He had gone in fresh-faced, scarcely out of his teens, and awoke moments later, looking as if he had witnessed decades, maybe centuries of struggles and wars. His once paramount cares, worries, and doubts had been canned as his mother did peaches; boiled, vacuum-sealed, and put high on a shelf out of the way, isolated from what he now sensed was his prime mover and reason to live. He owned it, but it needed time to develop fully. One minute it wasn’t and the next, it just was.

The blues of the crisp, clear sky, even though fouled with acrid smoke and the smell of death, were more brilliant than he could ever remember. The green grass stained scarlet in so many places, stood up as if singing, and the reds... Well, the red was blood, and it was everywhere. The blood burned its signature deep into his mind and far down into the depths of his soul. The blood of men being needlessly spilled was the carrier of life, every drop more precious than all the gold in the world. He barely comprehended the grieving pain that now threatened to tear him in two.

The new version of Mike MacKenzie stood frozen and looked out at the small crowd of disbelieving eyes that peeked from faces caked in grime. His voice boomed with anger that made them flinch.

“Let’s finish this war today and get all this killing behind us!” A pure and righteous indignation cried for justice and screwed its way down into the soul of every man within earshot.

Lieutenant Marcus Kirby spoke up with a drawl so slow that everyone leaned towards him, hoping his words wouldn’t drop to the ground before they reached their ears.

“Mike’s right; let’s get all this killing past us.” And with that, he raised his bloodied white-gloved hand and waved it forward, leading them right into the nucleus of the battle. “The sooner we fight, the sooner we’re done or dead.” They all charged with renewed vigor, except Mike.

Mike Mackenzie laid his guns and cartridge belt on a nearby stump; his saber he shoved in the dirt with such fury it rattled. He then walked head-on into the heart of the battle, disappearing into the midst of the maelstrom. That day, Mike tended to dozens of wounded and dying soldiers, and he finished without a scratch, earning the moniker Lucky Mike.

That was Wednesday, September 17, 1862, at Antietam Creek, the bloodiest battle in United States history. No one came out the winner that day, and over 23,000 lives went out into eternity. Sadly, there was no decisive victory.

The tales of Lucky Mike spread like a virus through camps on both sides, but stories being stories, they soon became well-embroidered tales, the stuff of legends. And, as is the way of legends, most fade away into the backdrop of time, except this one.

Truth, he never ducked, he never flinched, and nothing ever hit him. He was often seen emerging from nowhere, walking out of the smoke towards a wounded soldier. Looking after the dying and hopeless wounded, he was known to sit for days with some worried mother’s son; in the end, the only witnesses were those he tended to.

If you’ve made it this far, you deserve the rest of my story and why I think this book predicted my cancer and recovery.

In September 2011 with my first rough draft of NMMNG hanging from the can, I was diagnosed with Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the head and neck. What the doctors found was a metastasization of an original tumor which was never found. Up until then, I had no warning signs beyond swollen lymph nodes in my neck, no other symptoms until the treatment which nearly killed me. The doctors kill you to save you.

Two phrases still echo in my head: The first from my wife. She said as I poked my growing glands, “You should see a doctor about that,” to which I replied or didn’t with a shrug.

The second from my primary care doctor, “Why did you wait so long?”

The standard treatment opens your neck with as much finesse as an autopsy, strips all the lymph systems away, and sews you back up with burlap yarn followed by radiation and chemo. Oh, boy!

I thank the Lord daily for the doctors who suggested deviating from the book and trying radiation and Chemo without surgery. The thinking was that if it didn’t work, they could still do the surgery.

The surgery is VERY disfiguring. It snips nerves and muscles in your neck limiting mobility FOREVER. As for the scarring, think Nightmare before Christmas.

So, down I went waltzing into the pit of perdition. Arrogant as hell and ready to defy expectations, after three weeks of bug spray (Chemo) and radiation I was humbled. As the burning increased, not the mere feeling but actual third-degree burns on the inside of my esophagus, my voice was graced with a sexy whisper, and the hair on the back of my head and from my chin came off in clumps.

The cure arrived with truckloads of misery, and the farther it went, the farther away God seemed.

To this day, I describe it like this:

Jesus: Hey Mike, I’ve got to step out and get a newspaper, but I’ll be back.

Mike: When will you be back?

(Silence, as the door closes. Also, Mike doesn’t know it, but his writing muse has vanished also.)

For a good year afterward, I could not see the evidence of or feel God's presence. He’s God, so I could either be bitter and blame Him, or I could blame Him with the understanding that he is the Ruler of the Universe and big enough to do what he wants.

I kept at the things I knew to do, like praying and reading my bible, but still I could not conjure up his felt presence. I had to trust that he was there and hope He still had my back.

The last thing I’ll say on that sickness is, the all-pervading fatigue is the worst. It’s as if alien starships had sucked every speck of energy out of my psyche and dropped my emaciated body back to earth. Before I got sick, I thought, at least, I would have time to read. That joke was on me. Reading a book took more energy than I could summon.

My days were spent under a blanket watching the History Channel and NatGeo.

There were a couple of pluses:

The Big C was a heck of a diet plan. When your mouth, tongue, and esophagus are so dry and painful that swallowing a globule of spit is akin to climbing Mount Everest in the nude, it is easy not to eat. I went from being a fat guy to a thin guy. And even later after they took the feeding tube out of my stomach, eating was such a pain in the ass, I had to force myself to eat so that I wouldn't die of starvation.

I lost a good forty pounds, and I'm still much thinner than I was before cancer dropped in for a visit. People that haven't seen me for a while want to know my secret. It is not moral strength that keeps me thin; it is mechanics. Food is still hard to swallow sometimes, and random things get trapped where my airway meets my esophagus. I keep the weight off because of problematic eating, not nobility.

Okay Okay, settle down. I know. What the hell has that got to do with my book?

The protagonist of No More Mister Nice Guy, Billy Hartman was just that, a NICE GUY, and he was sick to death of it. As writers, we write what we know, and we project ourselves into our work.

Before my brush with death, so to speak, I had become sick and tired of being so stinking nice. I hated wearing the shirts with the logo of a boot-print on the back that said kick me. I was ready to punch someone in the nose just to lose that reputation. As an aside, at one time, before I gave my life over to Christ, I was a genuine bad guy and thrived on that (bad) image. I would break your face as soon as look at you. Keeping up that image was a lot of work. It's easier to be kind and caring.

Anyhow, in the book, Billy sets out to destroy the image that had been cast for him and it goes horribly wrong. In the process, he is dealt a death blow, and nothing but a miracle will save him. In comes Mike MacKenzie along with a couple of odd beings and they carry him to a MASH unit.

Billy has a miraculous and quick recovery from horrific wounds.

He sets out on a quest to find Mike MacKenzie, and during that search, his life is restored to something real, vibrant, and full. The life Billy Hartman despised gets turned on its head as much or more than the circumstances around him. It becomes everything he ever wanted.

Same for me. The newer version of Mike Matheson is less willing to say yes just to be nice and make you happy. I like that. Also, I have a greater tolerance for negative things in my life and learned rougher but far superior form of grace

As I am sure most cancer survivors could tell you, the struggle and recovery are life changing.

But, unlike anyone I have ever spoke with, they’ve not had their book foretell their future. I didn’t see it right away, but the revelation suddenly came when I revisited the manuscript.

My first novel, No More Mister Nice Guy, has been described several different ways:

C. S. Lewis meets Stephen King.

The Chronicles of Narnia on steroids Rated R.

The Pilgrim’s Progress with whiskey and guns.

There are a hundred other back stories to the book; this is only one of them.

Peace,

M

Current Read Ashley Bell by Dean Koontz

I don't consider myself a big fan of Dean Koontz. Even though my genre tastes swing wide, he has never hooked me until the two novellas, Last Light and Final Hour, precursors to his epic novel, Ashley Bell.

I admit that Koontz's marketing ploy caught me. I was willing to risk $1.99 on the chance I might enjoy them. These two were five stars, off the hook, enjoyable reads. So I bought Ashley Bell when it came out. Ashley Bell is an excellent book, I am a third of the way through, but the novella's trumped the novel in my opinion. Mind you, I haven't reached the end, so I will reserve final judgement until then.

Don't get the idea I am not enjoying Ashley Bell, I am. I'll give my reviews later.

Happy Reading,

M. Matheson

...and the Smell of Old Leather

What is it with the smell of old leather? Do you love it or hate it?
Knowing me as a lover of words, Nichole, one of my five daughters (read 'em and weep (5)) gifted me a new journal for Christmas. All of those daughters are in their thirties and some are watching forty loom ever closer. I have journal's dating back to when most of them were in Middle School.
This new journal is leather-covered and smells grand.

Hi, my name is Mike. I am a journal keeper and leather smeller.
Journal keeping is becoming ever scarcer these days. Perhaps rare, only because they/we are often driven underground by mock and ridicule, seen as nerds choosing hovels and holes over the bright sunlight or hypnotic glare of a big flatscreen TV.
Electronic journal keeping has not won me over to the dark side – yet. Everything else can go electronic, and it has, but you will not get my paper and ink journal until you pry it from my cold dead hands.
Not to worry, I have fully embraced electronics, typing this blog post on my Mac over Starbucks Wifi, checking my iPhone for Twitter updates and feeding Instagram selfies via my iPad. Quick call the shrink; I am one sick puppy. Although, if I am sick, you better bring a big bus; there are a lot of us here.
Perhaps the feeling of legacy or durability drives my desire to see ink applied to paper by my hand. In a dark corner of my needy mind, my hope is that when I am dead and gone, some as yet unborn descendant will be crazy enough to dig through my effects and find a lasting nugget or two from the chronicles of my crazy life.
I love the smell of leather, mostly old leather. Searching the subject on Google, I found much to my disappointment that the smell is from the chemicals used to preserve the animal hide. Up until then, my brimming imagination pictured old pioneers stripping hides from majestic Bison and cattle to provide me with an olfactory treat.
The smell of leather promises danger and adventure, something that I lived a lot of in my younger more infamous days. During my outlaw biker days, the leather jacket was a second skin, and though I hate to admit it – GIANT MAN PURSE. Its pockets were full of carburetor parts, weapons and other illegal substances. Up until I experienced an awakening in Christ, there was even a new Gospel of John tucked away in one of the myriad pockets. The thing (the jacket) weighed a ton, and I loved its smell which was a lethal mix of whiskey, blood, oil, gasoline and sweat.
The odor of leather proffers the dream of big adventure much like reading a crime novel or riding a big motorcycle from the comfort of your living room chair.
Boil it down, and sniffing leather is a lot like reading a book, albeit fiction, but a book nevertheless.
And there you have it.
Peace,
M. Matheson

How Do You Spell Grammarly?

The Big Prize Contest:

Leave a comment at the end and post a link to this blog on your Social Media. In 30 Days I will select one person at random to receive one month of free Premium Grammarly service (a $37.95 Value).

Email me a link to your post to increase your chances of winning.
Contest ends January 31, 2016

M. Matheson, that's me, alias Mr. Skeptical but always looking for a deal and a shortcut. I took a chance on a program called Grammarly. It was hard to believe that a free program could do a better job of checking Spelling and Grammar than good old reliable Microsoft Word.

Such is the future.

How does Grammarly work? (From the company's FAQ)

Grammarly is an online grammar and spelling checker that improves communication by helping users find and correct writing mistakes. It’s easy to use: 

• Copy and paste any English text into Grammarly’s online text editor or install Grammarly’s free browser extension for Chrome and Safari.
• Grammarly’s algorithms flag potential issues in the text and suggest context-specific corrections for grammar, spelling, and vocabulary. Grammarly explains the reasoning behind each correction, so you can make an informed decision about whether, and how, to correct an issue.
• In addition to the online text editor, Grammarly also offers a free browser extension for Chrome and Safari, which corrects over 150 types of errors. Grammarly for Chrome and Grammarly for Safari bring Grammarly’s powerful algorithms straight to you wherever you are writing online, including Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Tumblr. You can correct mistakes in your text with a single click.

My description/review. (Mildly more entertaining.) Like your High School English teacher or that smoking hot College Professor, Grammarly follows you wherever you go with a ruler in her cute little hand ready to smack you on the back of the head. Only instead of leaving you shriveled and cowering Grammarly shows you the error or errors of your ways.

Anything that you write in your web browser, emails, social media posts, and even this blog, Grammarly runs her fingers through its wordy hair looking for disgusting little nits. Nits that may make you look stupid or more stupid, present company intended.

The free version corrects grammar, spelling, and contextual issues. Even the Pro Version won't write for you or create prose out of thin air, but it does recognize the puking passive sentence.

The Pro version works overtime for you and has settings to differentiate between modes of writing from personal, business, or novel writing. You can set it to irritatingly high levels or plain passivity. What it doesn't do is pester you with every missing period or doubled space. After all is said and done, she leaves you with your ego intact.

I drove the free version for several months until I got deep into the third edit of my second novel, Flatline. The offer was good with varied plans from monthly to yearly subscriptions. The yearly is by far the better deal, but you didn't need me to tell you that. If, within seven days, you don't think it is a great value, Grammarly offers your money back no questions asked.

That deal is hard to beat, a real win-win.

My Conclusion: If you do any writing online, you can seriously up your game by subscribing to Grammarly. It is a solid FOUR Stars, and I rely on it daily if not hourly. They have a very responsive customer service team.

Do not forget to leave your comment for the Big Prize Contest.

We're not Murderers We are Killers. There's a Difference.

The following excerpt is from Flatline my next book, a full tilt running crime novel in which the heroes of the story are not the good guys. It's a wicked twist on the Robin Hood story. Our protagonists, who are not very nice men are preparing for their first sortie into the streets of Recife, Brazil. Their mission is to kill the murderers of street kids. 

Troy is the retired motorcycle gangster. Enrique is a sixteen-year-old boy who he rescued from a contract hit that he performed. And, Hercules was their bodyguard but is now their great friend.

July was my original target for completion, then October, but the characters just wouldn't stay in the box. I am on the second revision/edit and hope to be published by the end of January. March at the latest.

~~~~0~~~~

That information added to intel provided by Commander de Lima helped them develop their first hard target.

It was ten o’clock on a Tuesday night. The weather was warm, and the stars were fuzzy points of light thanks to the smog of the city. At their clandestine safe house, room 107 in the Hotel Veraneio, Troy spread the old map and went over their positions and instructions for the fifth time. Inventorying their weaponry, ammo, and surveillance gear for the first strike, they felt like exterminators riding out to rid the city of an unseen plague.

Four Remington Compact Sniper Rifles were broken down into small custom-fit rucksacks. The rucksacks went into backpacks similar to what a school kid would carry and then all four packs were stowed into a single duffel until they reached the site. They tested their earwig communications. When Troy had been teaching him how to fight and use guns, Enrique never imagined that one day this would all come to life.

“Boy! Get those dreamy thoughts out of your head!” Hercules snapped. “You need all your wits about you, or we'll be dumping your carcass in the water along with those murderers.”

“Ain't we murderers Herc?” Enrique rocked on his heels thinking he might have bested the large man.

Hercules fumed and stamped, and the sound reverberated off cheap walls. Even the concrete underfoot rattled as if it might crack from his undecipherable bellowing. “No!” he shouted. “We're not murderers.” He jerked open the threadbare drapes and pointed his finger out the window and into one of the largest cities in South America. “Those baby killers out there, they are the murderers! We're killers. Get that in your head. There's a difference. God doesn’t murder; he kills.”

If you'd like to leave a comment and find the form tedious you can comment on my twitter feed @mikeyznsacto or Facebook M. Matheson

Okay, I'll admit it; this may be a bit of a rant, but if you will take the time to read it, you may get a laugh or two along with some tips on Twitter.

And, like the commands in God's book, if you will follow them your Twitter-life will get better. So, whether you are a believer or not, strap your seatbelt tight and let's go.

ONE

Thou shalt use a profile pic

Show some respect for yourself and your own dignity, if you have any.

Am I the only person whose nerves chafe at the sight of that pathetic looking egg?

Would you take anyone serious if your only image of them was a white two-dimensional egg hemmed in by a colored box?

Think – why are you on Twitter in the first place?

At the bare minimum, you want to share trashy tweets with your old college pals. In that case, do you really want them seeing you without your yolk? Take five minutes and show them what a badass you are (if you are a guy). Steal some pics off the internet like I did these.

If you are a girl make it sweet, sexy or both, just not trashy.

You have something to promote or share. Everyone does. Out of the 974 million existing Twitter accounts, there is someone interested in what you are selling or giving away, even if it’s only your opinion.

If you want a better than 1:974,000,000 chance of gaining followers that are interested in you or your product, 

GET A DAMN PROFILE PIC.

When I am sorting through the people that have followed me and deciding whether they are interesting enough to follow back,

I immediately exclude profiles with no pic.

Even if it just has to be a picture of your cat, dog, or giraffe in the newest sweater you knit for them,

I will consider following you. 

But if there is no profile pic, your race is over. You never made it out of the gate.

---

TWO

Thou shalt show your Bio

Write a Bio.

Write a Bio.

Oh, did I repeat myself?

Make yourself or your product sound interesting even if it’s concrete railroad ties. You only have 160 characters to do it.

No profanity. Put it in your posts, seeing it in your bio makes me wince and pass you by. I am not alone.

Tell the truth. Stretch the hell out of it all you want to, just don’t break it.

Tell us who you are. My Bio says more than it says. I’ve worked a long time on it and am still tweaking it to perfection.

I have lived as an Outlaw, but also a missionary.

Throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, I was a motorcycle outlaw living on the fringes of society. From 1990 up until a few years ago, I was a missionary to the inner city and I traveled to other countries as an evangelist.

Today, I have published one book and write stories, all fictional tales that draw pictures of truth.

I am a social media curator guru. I currently curate twelve accounts. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

GURU is a stretch, but I have done well.

Include relevant well-known hashtags.

Use only hashtags that you deserve or have a right to.

Include a link or two pointing to your blog, website, Facebook, Smashwords, a link to your product.

---

THREE

Thou shalt make a discernable header pic

Make it sharp, make it fit. Make me sit up and take notice.

Don’t cut off people or animal’s heads and other body parts, unless, of course, it is relevant to your genre. I.e. horror or zombie stuff.

Use a high-resolution photo or graphic. No pornography or anything close. No profanity. It’s a turn off even for people that use lots of it. Seeing expletives in a header or bio makes us wince and pass you by.

This template is 730 x 205, but I’ve found the using a 3:1 ratio on a higher resolution image and respecting the invisible areas will give you better results.

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FOUR

Thou shalt Tweet MORE of your own stuff.

Leave more than a breadcrumb trail of original posts.

Here’s the deal. You have been kind enough to follow or retweet my post, so I go to your timeline looking for something of yours to retweet. In your last 100 posts, all I see is retweets of other posts. I really would like to promote your stuff. Really.

Don’t make me work so hard to find your original tweets.

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FIVE

Thou shalt not automate your timeline

If it’s too easy or too cheap…

Sure it’s easy to turn over your account to a bot that retweets the tweets of people who interact with you, but it’s phony. It looks phony, and it smells phony.

Don’t use automated services such as Round Team. Everyone knows it and if they don’t, every so often there is a tweet that says, “So and so is sitting home watching TV while our computer tweets all the stuff you’re responding to. So and so is a big phony.”

What kind of friends do you want? Ones that have no choice because you hired them or people genuinely interested in you?

I have a high respect for the people I meet on Twitter.

My profile has a high percentage of organic followers that I grew by my own actions. They are appreciated and in turn I am valued by them.

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SIX

Thou shalt not buy followers

Need I explain? See Commandment Five.

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SEVEN

Thou shalt respond and do it quickly

This is the surest way to grow your account. As your account grows upwards of 10,000 followers it becomes a lot of work to follow up and reply to them all. Every day I set aside time to get to as many as possible. I also have tricks I use to make the chore easier.

I have been rewarded by over 10,000 followers and a Klout score of 61. 63 puts a person in the top 5%. Klout is the measure of how well people interact with your account.

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EIGHT

Thou shalt keep your posts fresh

If you are selling something, intersperse your promotional tweets with items of interest, quotes, news, photos, and special events. The pros say to use a ratio of 80 interesting posts and 20 promotional posts. The 80 can include retweets.

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NINE

Thou shalt utilize the ‘Pinned Tweet’ for your own damned good

Promote your best stuff at the top of your timeline. On your tweet, click the three dots to open up a menu and select pin tweet.

Change it regularly.

Not using this feature is the same as shooting yourself in the foot.

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Ten

Thou shalt use images in your posts and format them correctly

Any image as long as it’s sized to the correct ratio of 2:1will show up in its entirety in the timeline. Any other size looks stupid and only shows a partial picture.

The best size image is 1024 x 512.

I make sure that after my text in the post I have 31 characters remaining; 24 for the image and a seven-character margin so when the post is retweeted the post won’t be truncated.

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Finally

These are all things I learned along the way. They are what I consider the big ones. Profiles that violate these commands appear like …

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