Wednesday
Night Blog #1
July
30, 2014
By
Tom
DiCaprio
Here we
go everyone the first of a series of Wednesday Night Blogs that I promised that
I would write starting tonight. I’m
going to get this started by talking about how I first got into writing. It began in August 1994 when I read Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy when it was
first published. I was so impressed with
Debt of Honor especially with its
ending that I first became interested in writing. It was also a great way to while away the
waning days of the summer of 1994. Fast
forward to 2005. This was when I saw a
segment on CNN’s Wolf Blitzer
Presents. He discussed the
likelihood of a plot for a dirty bomb attack at the upcoming second inaugural of
George W. Bush. Now I had an idea for a
novel. For the next several years I did
so much writing that I ended up with bits and pieces of six different novels
with the first one Entebbe completed
on August 23, 2012. I think it was the ten year anniversary of Dan Brown
completing The Da Vinci Code. It was an amazing read. Anyways, the editing of Entebbe has since become a long and drawn out process. In fact it’s now rivaling production of a run
of the mill Stanley Kubrick movie. At
least the editors convinced me to cut down on the 500+ page novel. Since I’m on my novel writing sabbatical until
November 1 when National Novel Writer’s Month begins, Entebbe will be put on hold for a little while more. Since then I have written Black Friday in November 2012 and it was
published on October 2, 2013 aka the day that it was announced that my favorite
author/literary idol Tom Clancy had passed away; Cyber Monday which was completed a year ago, but has yet to be
published; Ruthless which was written
during National Novel Writer’s Month back in November 2013 and has since been
published on March 14 of this year aka my birthday (Best birthday present by
the way!!!) and Deception which was
finished this past April and it will be published on August 8. Recently I have been suffering from writer’s
block as well as a lack of focus when it comes to writing hence my hiatus from
it. So far I’m having a lot of fun while
getting some housework caught up.
This
section for the next two weeks will be a discussion about a novel that I have published.
The fun part will be what to replace
this section with on August 13. This should
get very interesting to say the least, but I will start thinking about it on
August 7. As for Black Friday, I came up with the idea after watching a news segment
about the chances of a terrorist attack at the malls. On Halloween 2012, I had a very rough day and
I needed to come up with something to do for fun. I discovered National Novel Writer’s Month (NaNoWriMo)
by accident when I was checking out the First Friday’s Rochester website to get
some ideas about which galleries to check out.
Needless to say that I stayed up until midnight and began writing immediately
when NaNoWriMo immediately began. From
midnight to 1:30am I began writing Black Friday while playing the Interview with
the Vampire soundtrack for the Umpteenth time that evening. Great movie by the way and I highly recommend
it. Well it commenced a fourteen day run
where I finished writing Black Friday. The weather was so bad that I wasn’t working a
lot and therefore had a lot of time on my hands. I spent most of the time at Dark Horse Coffee
writing Black Friday. Dark Horse
Coffee is very author friendly and I became sort of a celebrity there during
that time. Black Friday is about a plot for a terrorist attack at the malls on
the day after Thanksgiving. Its main
character Ian Daley was haunted by the death of his wife on 9/11. He joined the Department of Homeland Security
in an effort to prevent another attack from taking place. Now with a presidential recount and a series
of chatter along the lines of the events leading up to the September 11th
Attacks, Daley becomes suspicious that another attack is about to take place
and the intelligence community is once again failing to connect the dots. Meanwhile Daley is worried that his twin
daughters who are shopping at the malls may become victims of the attacks
should they occur. Daley then goes on a
mission to try to prevent the attacks from taking place. It has since been published and I went to New
York City for Pitch Fest in October of last year to talk to some Hollywood
producers about turning Black Friday into
a movie. I had a great time but there
won’t be a movie in the foreseeable future. *Sigh*
The
following November, I began to write Ruthless. It was in part inspired by two conspiracy
theories about the JFK assassination which I thought made sense to me. With the 50th Anniversary of the
Kennedy Assassination taking place last November, I decided to write a modern
day version about the 1960 Democratic Presidential Primaries with explosive
results. The two main characters New
York Governor James Frederick Curry and Texas Senator Zeke Roy Jackman are the
two front runners for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. Jackman was the presumptive favorite to win
the nomination until the Iowa Primary.
This evokes memories of Lyndon Baines Johnson being the front runner
back in 1960 only to lose the nomination to John F. Kennedy and Hillary Clinton
going from the favorite to winning the nomination in 2008 to losing the
nomination to Barrack Obama. Meanwhile one
of the characters in Ruthless blackmails
the other which sets off a chain reaction that lasts for the next twenty five
years. The ending of Ruthless promises to captivate the
reader while making them think in the process.
I highly
recommend that you check out both novels.
They are memorable reads to put it mildly.
Now that
I’ve discussed my writing for the week, the blog will now become an interesting
one. I promised that it would be writing
and more. Here’s where the more comes
in. This week is a favorite time of the
year for me. Thursday August 31 is the
MLB Trade Deadline. This deadline is set
so teams can trade players without waivers.
In the past the MLB trade deadline was about veteran superstars who had
seen better days are traded to a contending team in order to provide leadership
while giving the team a spark. Usually
players in the minor leagues are traded for the aging veteran players. The Philadelphia Athletics (Now known as the
Oakland Athletics) of the late 1920’s and early 1930’s began the tradition by
trading for aging superstars in an attempt to win the World Series. They were successful during that period
winning the World Series in 1929 and 1930.
Ty Cobb was traded from the Detroit Tigers to the Philadelphia Athletics
during that time. These days although
some aging star players/veteran players are traded, the non-waiver MLB Trade
Deadline is used exclusively for trading free agents to be so that the team who
would be trading the players gets something for the traded player instead of
getting nothing should they become free agents and sign with another team. Minor leaguers and young players on MLB
rosters are traded for the players who have seen better days as well as free
agents. Today Justin Masterson was
traded from the Cleveland Indians to the St. Louis Cardinals for a young minor
league outfielder who seemed to be lost in the shuffle due to Oscar Tavares who
is the Cardinals top minor league outfielder/top prospect overall in St. Louis
as well as being among the top prospects in the minor leagues. Maybe Jon Lester and John Lackey will be
traded from the Red Sox in a similar Jeff Samardija and Jason Hammel like
trade. Trading two top pitchers from the
same team to another team may be the trend this year. Who knows the Mets may trade Bartolo Colon
and either Jon Niese or Dillon Gee (Maybe all three since their pitching in the
minor leagues evokes memories of the great Mets pitchers/prospects of the 1980’s. What a golden age for the Mets!!!). David Price could be traded from the Rays and
the Phillies could trade Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee, Jimmy (J-Smooth) Rollins and
Chase Utley or even Marlon Byrd. The
deadline ends at 4pm tomorrow so I will be following it like a NHL fan
especially in Canada follows the NHL trade deadline. It’s like a religion in Canada although it’s
the second favorite sport. That honor
belongs to lacrosse which was originated by the Native Americans. Lacrosse was first played to decide conflicts
while the losing team gets executed.
These days the losing team gets an “L” in the loss column. Lacrosse has come a very long way! I admit I’m a lacrosse fanatic. I first started following the sport ten
winters ago when the NHL lockout resulted in the 2004-05 NHL season being
scrapped. Rochester has three Lacrosse
teams. The Rochester Knighthawks which
have won the past three National Lacrosse League championships, the Rochester
Rattlers of Major League Lacrosse and the Rochester Greywolves of the CanAm
league. Since my first lacrosse game in
2005, lacrosse has become sport 1B.
Baseball will always be my favorite sport although it has been given a
1A designation. Hockey has now been
demoted in the favorite sport pecking order.
Although I enjoy basketball, golf is growing on me and football is more
that a sport, it’s become an event it itself.
One that rivals the Christmas Season, but doesn’t surpass it of course.
Enough
on sports for the time being although it segues into my next subject. When I was six I received trading cards as
party favors. I remember receiving Rocky
II cards, Star Wars and some football cards.
I briefly collected Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back cards. It was a come and go phase until 1982 when I
first became a baseball fan. I became a
baseball card/card collection addict.
Now that my collecting has entered its 33rd year, my enthusiasm
for it is greater than when it was when I first bought rack packs of 1982 Topps
baseball cards. The hobby has provided
me with some income along the way while building a good collection. The 1980’s was a boom for baseball cards in
which they rivaled stocks as an investment.
I often think about the players who I collected back then. Besides completing my sets, I collected Mets
cards especially Dwight Gooden, Gregg Jefferies, Mookie Wilson, Lenny Dysktra,
Howard Johnson, Kevin Mitchell and Kevin McReynolds, Jose Canseco, Wally
Joyner, Mark McGwire, Will Clark, Ruben Sierra, Pete Incaviglia, Rafael Palmeiro,
Cory Snyder, B.J. Surhoff, Kevin Seitzer, Roberto Alomar, Ken Griffey Jr, Gary
Sheffield, Sandy Alomar Jr, and Mark Grace just to name a few. It has also been a therapeutic hobby for me
in which my sanity was saved during some very harsh times in my life. In short card collecting is an outlet for
me. I now collect baseball sets, Mets
cards, Miguel Cabrera, minor leaguers/top prospects/rookies and game used
jersey cards, autos and bat cards in baseball while I collect
rookies/game-used/auto cards for all sports.
I even go to Rochester Red Wings game to score autographs from the
players before and after the games (I would be stuck in traffic if I left right
after the game). The Red Wings are the
Minnesota Twins AAA minor league team. I’m
planning on checking out the Batavia Muckdogs a couple of weekends from
now. They are the Miami Marlins Class A
Short Season team. The Marlins have been
known to have one good player after another come up only to be traded since
they can’t afford to keep the players and sign them to long term
contracts. On August 9-11 the Brooklyn Cyclones
(Mets Class A team) will be heading up to Batavia. It looks like I will be neutral during the
series. Looks like I will be doing some
autographing during that time.
It looks
like that it’s time to change the direction to current events. I can’t believe that Ebola is back in the
news. An outbreak in Western Africa has
resulted in Peace Corps workers moving to another area in order to avoid being
infected. As of tonight there have been
800-1200 cases with 456 people dying of the virus and another 216 people being
infected. I hope that the virus doesn’t
spread here. Doctors Without Borders
Director Bart Janssens announced that the virus may be a lot worse than
previously reported given the fact that there are many places in which the
infection has spread, but no one may know about it until it’s too late. This time the epidemic is unprecedented with
concerns that it may spread beyond Western Africa.
The
House of Representatives have approved of Speak John Boehner suing President
Obama by a 225-201 vote. Boehner claims
that the president has abused his executive authority which was done at the
expense of both Congress as well as the United States Constitution. This could lead to impeachment proceeding according
to the Democrats. This has to be the
first time that a sitting president has been sued. If anything I thought that there would be an
effort to sue George W. Bush while he was president. This makes me wonder what would have happened
in a hypothetical presidential election matchup of George W. Bush and Barrack
Obama. Just saying though. This makes me wonder the outcome. I could easily see a third party candidate entering
the race and quite possibly winning the election given the mood of the American
people for this hypothetical presidential election and I stress HYPOTHETICAL.
If the situation
in the Ukraine isn’t bad enough, well the fact that the Ukraine has now claimed
that the rebels have planted mines near Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. This makes an already murky situation even
murkier to put it mildly. Bad enough
Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 hasn’t been found and no one what happened to the
plane as well as where it may be, but the unanswered questions of MH 17? This makes one wonder what is really going on
out there. Could the Soviet Empire be
waking up from a long slumber? All I
know is that this news story should go on for quite a while at the very least.
Enough
on my musings for the week. I just
wanted to take time and just write in general.
I wanted to use this blog to be seen as more than an author. With the fact that I’m taking a break from
writing novels until November, I just thought I’d use this time to keep writing
fun and not turn it into a chore. In a
closing note for the week, one of my friends asked me why I decided to take a
break from writing novels. She thought
that I was having fun doing it. I told
her that I wanted to keep having fun with it.
This is why I made this turn to writing weekly blogs instead of novels
for the next few months.
