Books by Eric Douglas

Thriller fiction and Non-fiction

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Handling reviews: Good and Bad

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I write because I have stories I want to tell. I enjoy it. But when I make something I’ve written public; on this blog, on my website or for sale through Amazon and other retail outlets, there’s always a moment of hesitation. Will people read it? Will anyone like it? I’ll hit the refresh button over and over to see if anyone is reading what I’ve just posted.

That feeling can become an excuse to go back and review or rewrite endlessly. Sometimes it’s tough to break the cycle. You never want to say something is finished because you’re afraid of failing.  If you keep it up long enough, you get used to that feeling and learn that you just have to lay it out there. I don’t write stories so they will sit on my computer hard drive backup (the modern equivalent of a desk drawer). The only way to get over that feeling of hesitation is to publish things. You have to lay it out there and learn from the responses and frankly, you learn more from the bad reviews than you do from the good.

That said, you have to take negative reviews with a grain of salt. My favorite negative review said of Cayman Cowboys that the “plot line was uninteresting and the prose is tepid”. It’s still on Amazon if you want to read it. When I first read that review, I was upset and concerned. Was my writing really tepid?

Later, with a little distance on it, I realized that review told me nothing. It also occurred to me that when a person critiques an adventure novel with a phrase like “the prose is tepid”, they are either expecting an entirely different style of writing or trying to impress someone with their own writing. Either way, I came to realize that you can’t please everyone and you shouldn’t really try. I’ve read (or attempted to read) best sellers that I put down after 50 pages because I thought they were terrible. That’s the nature of creating things.

In 2012, I released three new stories: a short story, a children’s story and a novel. I’ve been pleased with the reviews and the responses I’ve gotten. Of course, I’m sure there are some people who viewed them as a waste of their time and that’s fine.

 

Below are some of the most recent reviews of my latest stories. 

Wreck of the Huron

 

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read!November 6, 2012
Wreck of the Huron is the fourth Mike Scott Adventure. It was good and makes me think I should go back and read the first three. Mike and his cohorts are great characters. But what really makes this fast-paced thriller special is the use of diving knowledge, sunken treasure, and a historical ship wreck – USS Huron that went down 1877 off the coast of North Carolina. The fictional treasure and conspiracy that leads to the sinking of the Huron makes for a great ride for the reader. It’s the “what if” that we all love.
Pam Stebbins

5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining & InterestingNovember 9, 2012
Another easy to read story from a great scuba diving novel author: it’s entertaining and also interesting! In fact, although it is listed as a story for kids… You’ll find it fun to read as well!
Darcy Kieran

 

5.0 out of 5 starsAdventures in paradise, August 10, 2012
Another easy to read story from a great scuba diving novel author: it’s entertaining and also interesting! In fact, although it is listed as a story for kids… You’ll find it fun to read as well!

Shirley Hicks
5.0 out of 5 starsA Fun story to read!!, July 29, 2012
I’m not much of a reviewer, but was a fun story that verges on a very possible reality in the Key’s. I hope to see the characters again, if they don’t already have another adventure in publication. I also normally read my books in a more traditional format, but using the Kindle Application on my I-Pad or my Motorola android Xoom was pretty cool too.

Tim Waldo

I welcome all reviews for my books and encourage everyone who reads my books to write one.

 

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Say thank you to a Veteran

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Over the last six months, I’ve conducted more than 40 interviews with West Virginia war veterans for my Voices of War project. I’ve talked to men and women who served their country at the most difficult times possible.

One veteran was a waist gunner on a B-25 Bomber over Europe. His plane made an emergency landing, sliding onto the landing field in England without landing gear. He climbed out of the hatch and pulled every other crew member out of the burning plane.
Another veteran was fighting in Vietnam when he was called on to save his fellow men in a boat in the rice paddies. When their propeller got fouled, he climbed over the side, in the dark while taking fire, and cleared the propeller so they could get away.
I spoke to veterans who served in Iraq who spent their time on duty manning 50 caliber machine guns on HummVees, scanning the roads for roadside bombs.
They literally put their lives on the line for their country and their fellow soldiers. Everyone I’ve spoken to was fundamentally changed by the experience.  Every veteran I interviewed said they were proud of their service and would do it again if they could or were called to do so. But every one of them was haunted by the experience as well. All but a few struggled when they came home; many drank too much, others couldn’t sleep. War service brought an end to marriages and careers.
I’m working on a documentary that includes the thoughts and memories of the war veterans that I interviewed. The video below is a sample of the project, featuring music from Jeff Ellis singing his song The Line written while he served in Iraq.
 
 
While I specifically interviewed veterans who served in war zones, all veterans have made the same sacrifice; time away from home and family and constant preparation for a time they hoped would never come. Veterans Day is not just those who served their country in time of war, but those who have been willing to do so. The saying goes that veterans wrote a blank check to their country. If it came to it, they would be willing to pay with their lives.
Today, November 11, is Veterans Day. Take a minute to say thank you to a Veteran.
 
If you want to learn more about the Voices of War project, you can do so at these previous blog posts.

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Voting: Use it or lose it

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I am so sick of this political season, I can barely stand it. The negative, false ads with misleading and inaccurate claims (offered by everyone, no one is above the fray). The endless overanalysis of nothing and talking head “pundits” giving their opinions and spin on everything; just sick and tired of it.

At this point, I’m more than happy to sit quietly with my favorite television shows on pause for 10 minutes while we build up credit on the DVR and can fast forward past the commercials.
A week or so ago, I realized that the 20thanniversary of my first trip to Russia was coming up soon and decided to put together an ebook of my blog posts and notes from my travels there (I hope to have it ready by the middle of December). It’s been interesting to review the articles and a book manuscript I wrote in 1995 to see what was going on and what I was discovering.
At the time, Russia was still reeling from the breakup of the Soviet Union. They were holding their first elections that didn’t have a predetermined outcome. The following is an excerpt of what I wrote in 1995/1996.
Alexei Cheremnykh…said he thinks Russian voter apathy is rooted in expectations.
“Americans have always been told they can influence their government by voting. Most Russians are disconnected from their government,” he said. “They don’t think they can change anything by voting so why bother.”
A teacher…Alla Feldman, tried to explain some of the apathy by drawing another comparison to the United States.

“Many times in America, the better educated the voter, the more likely they are to vote,” Feldman said. “In Russia, it is just the opposite. The intelligentsia votes less in elections because they feel they can accomplish less.”

It will take a long time for the inertia of Russian history to be overcome. Only now, in this fledgling democracy, can voters do anything about their government. Most of the voters don’t realize their opportunity and therefore are not using it. The biggest problem with that is if they don’t use their influence, they truly may lose it.
Unfortunately, voters in the United States sound a lot like voters in Russia 20 years ago.
This morning, I scanned through a daily email I get from author Seth Godinon topics like marketing, selling, quitting and leadership. He had some really interesting things to say about voting.
“If you don’t vote because you’re disappointed with your choices, disgusted by tactics like lying and spin, or merely turned off by the process, you’ve opted out of the marketplace.
The goal of political marketers isn’t to get you to vote. Their goal is to get more votes than the other guy. So they obsess about pleasing those that vote. Everyone else is invisible.
Steakhouses do nothing to please vegetarians who don’t visit them, and politicians and their handlers don’t care at all about non-voters.”
His suggestion? “If you don’t like negative ads, for example, then vote for the candidate who ran even 1% fewer negative ads. Magically, within a cycle or two, the number of negative ads begins to go down. If enough smart people start voting again, things will improve, because billions of dollars in political marketing will suddenly be trying to please you.”

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Never Need Another Fix — A Horror Story

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Drew was shaking. His guts hurt so bad he couldn’t breathe and his skin crawled with what felt like millions of ants. He swore he could almost see them moving around.
The sun was setting, but he could barely tell. The sky was still overcast from the freak winter storm that blew up the coast dropping snow at the end of October. He was cold and had lost weight over the last few months. Normally he used a little more meth to ignore the cold, but the storm had kept him from getting out to score some more last night. The need was killing him.
As he trudged down Capitol Street in front of the library, he saw a sign for a Halloween party.

Halloween, he muttered to himself. If people want to be scared, they should see what I see when I close my eyes. That’d scare the hell out of them.

“Did you say something about scaring the Hell out of someone?” a strangely calm voice asked behind Drew. Well, he thought it was behind him. The voice sounded almost as if it was coming from inside his head.

“What?”
“I said, did you say something about scaring the Hell out of people?”
Drew looked around and then jumped backward. The source of the voice was standing directly behind him; almost touching him.
“Nah man, I’m good. I was just talking about Halloween. I said people would be scared if they saw what I saw when I closed my eyes at night. That’s all,” Drew said stepping back. The man in front of him was too small for the voice that boomed out of him. He was barely five feet tall and there wasn’t a wrinkle on his pubescent face. His dark hair was combed neatly. Drew would have thought the man in front of him was only a boy—a student at the local Catholic high school—if it weren’t for the voice. That voice. It sounded almost ancient, yet familiar. The boy/man’s lips weren’t in sync with the sounds Drew heard in his head.
Drew felt the urge to run away, but his feet were fixed to the ground as if they were full of cement.
“I get the feeling you need something,” the voice said. “Can I help you?”
“What I need is a fix. My skin is crawling and my head is pounding. Don’t suppose you could help me out that way, could you?” Drew asked.
“I don’t carry much on me, just a little bit. Just a taste. I don’t have enough with me to do what you need. Take this sandwich and eat it. There is something in there that will put you at ease for now,” the voice continued. Drew had stopped looking at the man/boy’s mouth since what he saw with his eyes and heard in his head weren’t making sense together. “Come to my place just before midnight and I’ll fix you up with as much as you want. You’ll never have to look for another fix again.”
“Where is it? I don’t know where your place is,” Drew replied, but then again, he did know. He had even been to that house a couple times to get what he needed. But no one had talked to him about hooking him up like that before. And he had never seen the man/boy with the voice.
“Eat that sandwich. Get some rest. But show up just before midnight. That is important,” the voice said.
“Man, I don’t have no watch,” Drew said. “Why’s it so important to be there before midnight? I never heard of no meth house with closing hours.”
“Just be there,” the voice boomed inside Drew’s head so loud his eyes went blank for a second and his knees buckled. When he could see again, the man/boy was gone and so was the voice. Drew was on his knees on the sidewalk. He still held the sandwich in his hand.
Drew climbed back to his feet using a park bench as a ladder. He stood there shaking. Looking at the sandwich, he realized he was actually hungry. And then he realized he was more than hungry, he was starving. He looked around to make sure no one was watching him, and more importantly to make sure no one was going to take the sandwich away from him. He took the first bite from the sandwich and felt like he was flying. He felt like he had just taken his first “hit”. He remembered that feeling and had chased it nearly every day since, but hadn’t been able to find it again. It didn’t matter how much of the stuff he took, it never matched the first time.
“Must be some good shit if this is just a taste of what he’s gonna give me tonight,” Drew said to himself. His first instinct was to eat the sandwich quickly, but something made him slow down. He took another bite and walked slowly down the street. He found his accustomed hiding place before he took another bite. Whatever was in the sandwich was lifting him off of his feet and he felt like he was flying, soaring like superman. He could see everything in town clearly for once in his life. He saw families spending time together, kids out trick or treating on neighborhood streets and laughing together over costumes. In spite of the darkness, that part of town looked light and good. Then he saw the darker side of town…where he normally spent his time. It pulsed like a black cancer on the city. The meth houses and people taking prescription drugs. Women selling their bodies for another hit. Drew wanted to fly back to the light parts of town, but he couldn’t. His body wouldn’t work that way. It didn’t want to obey him.
Drew woke up in his hiding place feeling cold and hungry. There was something missing, but he couldn’t quite remember what it was. He saw the sandwich wrapper in his hand—empty—and knew where he needed to go. To the house. The man/boy with the voice had told him all had to do was show up before midnight and he would never have to look for another fix again.
He started walking—heading straight for the “house” in his mind. It wasn’t far. He didn’t know exactly what time it was, but it couldn’t be midnight yet. There was no way it was past midnight. And who ever heard of a meth house closing anyway. Everyone there would be so cranked up they wouldn’t sleep until morning. There was no way they would close up.
It didn’t take long until Drew found the house he was looking for. It looked like a normal house, but then most of them did. Most of the places he went to looked rougher than this one, but it must be a new place. It hadn’t had time to fall apart from abuse and lack of maintenance. It didn’t really matter if they fixed the house up or not. Cooking “meth” inside a house ruined the house forever. The vapors got inside the furniture, the carpet and the very walls. People could never live there again.
Drew walked up the steps to the house wondering about the quiet. A light shown inside and Drew thought he could hear a television playing, but none of the “normal” sounds he heard in places like this. All he could think about, though, was a bigger hit of what he had gotten earlier. He wanted to feel like that for the rest of his life.
At first he knocked quietly on the door. When no one came, he knocked harder. Before he realized it, he was pounding, rattling the glass in the windows. The feeling he had earlier that day, the one before he met the man/boy with the voice, came back even more intensely. His entire body was on fire with the need for another hit. He was shaking, sweating and could hardly see. It was agony, made worse by knowing his salvation—his forever fix—was on the other side of the door.
“Let me in. I need some now!” he shouted.
“I don’t know who you are, but you can’t come in. It’s after midnight. Trick or treat ended hours ago. Now go away,” a voice yelled back from inside.
The voice from the other side of the door didn’t sound like the one Drew heard on the street earlier, but that didn’t stop him.
“I don’t care what damn time it is,” he growled. “Let me in!”
Drew pulled the screen door open and jiggled the doorknob on the wooden door.  “Open this door and let me in!”
“Get away from here. Don’t you touch that door again,” the voice said through the door. “I’m warning you. It’s after midnight, now go away.”
“I’m coming in. You promised me as much as I needed. I won’t leave without it!” Drew threw his shoulder into the door with all of his might. It rattled and he heard cracking noises, but the door didn’t open. Drew was panting from the exertion and pain, but he wasn’t about to give up now. He slammed his body against the door again. More cracking noises. He heard shouting noises from inside, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying any more. His own blood was pounding in his head. All he could hear was his own heart beating, about to explode.
Drew gathered his strength and threw his body into the door as hard as he could. The door flew open so quickly that Drew stood there surprised for a moment. He was shocked to be inside the house. A moment later, he heard an explosion and the next thing he knew he was on his back staring at the ceiling.
“I told you to be here before midnight,” the loud booming voice echoed in Drew’s ears. “You’re late. You almost missed the bus.”
“What bus? What are you talking about?” Drew asked from where he lay on the porch. The face that hovered above him wasn’t the boy/man he saw earlier in the day when he got the sandwich, but the voice was the same. Somehow it all still made sense. The man he saw now was wearing a bus driver’s uniform. He had skin dark as coal with dreadlocks sticking out from under his hat and a bushy gray beard.
“If you’d been here before midnight, you could have had all you wanted, but now, it’s time to get on the bus and go,” the voice said, pounding in Drew’s ears. It was still the same voice from earlier, but Drew realized it had a slight Jamaican accent “You should be ‘appy I come around the block one more time fer you.”
Drew stood up and dusted off his clothes. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t hurt anymore. And the burning need in his gut was gone too.
“At least I’m going somewhere,” Drew said to the bus driver.
“Boy, you was always goin’ somewhere,” the bus driver said. “You’re just getting there a little faster now. Doesn’t look like you’ll be scaring the Hell out of anyone now, though.”
Drew stepped onto the bus and took a seat. He could hear the sound of a police siren behind him as the bus pulled away.
*****
The Charleston police officers took the statement from the homeowner, but it was pretty clear what had happened. The homeowner had fired a shotgun at nearly point blank range into the side of the intruder when the man burst through the door. The homeowner stated he had warned the intruder to go away several times, but the intruder hadn’t listened. The homeowner reported the man kept shouting something about not caring about it being after midnight.
“I recognize this mutt,” one of the cops said. “We got a report about him earlier today. He scared some kid out of his lunch. We looked for him, but he was hiding somewhere.”
“I wonder what made him try a home invasion?” the other cop responded.
“Who knows? You know these guys. When they’re looking for a fix, nothing else matters.”

Snow Day

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I have to admit I still get excited to wake up to snow. It’s a carryover from my childhood I guess, but it is definitely still there.

I remember going to bed, knowing there was a chance it would snow and hoping with every ounce of my being that I would wake up and hear school was cancelled. This morning when my wife told me it had snowed and school was cancelled, I got excited again.

As an adult, I worry about things like safety and keeping the electricity on and if we have enough food to last if we can’t get out for a day or two. That’s the price of growing up. Suddenly, snow days aren’t as much fun as they used to be.

On the other hand, I remember my dad coming out to jump on an over inflated truck tire inner tube to slide down the hill with us. He understood snow could still be fun after all of the responsibilities were looked after.

Sometimes when the snow is really coming down and we don’t have to GO anywhere, we still need to play in the snow.

So, if you’ll excuse me…

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Jumping in leaves: a rite of Fall

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Growing up, my best friend in elementary school lived just down the street. He had this huge tree in his front yard. I will never forget spending a couple hours one afternoon raking the leaves into an enormous pile for our jumping pleasure. In hindsight, we probably spent more time raking than we actually did playing, but I guess that was part of the process. It definitely ended up being hard work; after we were done, we had to pick up all of the recently compacted leaves and spread them on their garden for compost.

Yesterday, one of my daughters saw the field of golden leaves lying on the ground in my front yard and immediately said she wanted to rake them up and play. I had been planning to mulch them up, but said I would wait until she got the chance. When we got home from school today, we immediately went outside and started raking.

In some ways, when we rake leaves and they jump in, it’s a very different experience than what I remember. For my daughters, it is more of a process of jumping in the leaves to get just the right pictures of them jumping in the leaves, as compared to my own experience of raking and jumping for the experience of jumping in leaves. A lot of that is probably my fault because I do tend to pull out the camera whenever they do something picturesque. It becomes a conditioned response to smile and perform for the camera.

Still, I hope they take away some good memories from piling up the leaves in the yard and being silly. Some days, it seems kids don’t spend enough time having fun for fun’s sake.
Now, it’s time to mulch up those leaves. See, I don’t even make them worry about the aftermath…

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