<![CDATA[Official Website of author T.J. Vargo - Blog]]>Sat, 19 May 2012 13:41:04 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[He Swings And Misses]]>Fri, 18 May 2012 08:45:38 -0800http://tjvargo.com/1/post/2012/05/he-swings-and-misses.htmlAnother posting from TJ's wilderness fishing adventure. Here's how it was relayed to me... he enters a fishing tournament for steelhead (some kind of big trout) and spends a long day getting skunked. The guys he's with do okay, but nobody catches a tournament-worthy steelhead. The day stretches on. The fishing party gets tired. Everyone decides to call it a day. But our hero TJ is not one to quit. He argues for and gets everyone to agree to one last drift before they motor home. So they go upriver one last time, cut the motor, and let the current carry them over the swift and dangerous waters of the Lower Niagara. TJ's line arcs through the falling sunlight one last time. He leaves his bail open, letting line slip through his fingers, making sure his lure reaches the bottom where the denizens of the deep water live. He sets the bail and - yes you better believe it - he hooks into a big angry steelhead. You can use your imagination here, but I'm sure there's lots of yelling and splashing as the fish jumps a few times and runs out line. Eventually, TJ battles the beast into the boat. It's a big one. A female that's just finished spawning. Lots of backslapping and congratulations ensue as everyone marvels at the fish. And then they weigh her. The final result is... (insert groans here) ounces shy of the ten pound minimum cut off weight for the tournament. If TJ had caught her with her eggs, she would've surely been a winner, but our hero, TJ the Magnificent, has come up short. Besides the fact that no one died a horrible death, it sounds like something that would happen in one of TJ's novels, doesn't it? Well, the end of the story is that the people's champion has fallen on hard times, folks. But don't stop believing - I'm sure he'll come back better than ever. Until next time, have a good one!
]]><![CDATA[TJ The Great Fisherman]]>Wed, 16 May 2012 08:39:09 -0800http://tjvargo.com/1/post/2012/05/tj-the-great-fisherman.htmlTJ is on his annual fishing trip, so you won't be hearing any of his ramblings for a week or so. He did, however, check in to report that the fishing is good, and sent the pic shown below as proof (that's TJ holding the fish). For those of you that have read his latest crime novel, Tombs, it's interesting to note that the area he's fishing in is taken straight from the pages of the novel. I'll touch base with him throughout the week to see if there are any more fishing stories to report. I'm sure he'll have stories aplenty for this blog when he gets back. Haul 'em in, TJ!
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]]><![CDATA[Anything Is Possible]]>Thu, 03 May 2012 09:32:33 -0800http://tjvargo.com/1/post/2012/05/anything-is-possible.htmlImagine you're blind and you're being held captive in a home which is surrounded by the police. There is a wall around the home. Police patrol both the interior and exterior of the wall. Your family is also under house arrest, and you've been told they will suffer if you don't cooperate. It seems you've been running off at the mouth, criticizing a government policy that forces sterilization on many of your fellow citizens. The government is peeved at you and wants you to shut your trap. You're scared, but you don't want to back down on your beliefs. So what do you do? Being the rascally dog you are, you feign illness and wait for the guards to relax, then sneak out of the compound under the cover of darkness. You severely injure one leg while jumping down from the wall, but you continue on, slogging blindly through the wilderness and swimming across a river until you meet up with some friends who drive you 300 miles to the embassy of a foreign power that is viewed throughout the world as a champion for human rights. Now, finally, you can seek asylum and tell your story to the world in a safe environment. Seems like a great ending to your story, right? Not so fast, my blind, crafty friend. In the real world, the blind guy who pulls off this improbable feat is Chinese citizen Chen Guangcheng. And in the real world, the U.S. ambassador tells us that the legally-blind Chen escaped from house arrest, traipsed across the Chinese countryside and snuck into the American embassy all because he wished to remain in China. In fact, according to the U.S. ambassador, after about a week in the embassy, Chen was "excited and eager" to leave the embassy and be put back under house arrest by the Chinese government. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Who wouldn't be "excited and eager" to be put right back into the exact same position they went through hell and high water to escape? But then again, I guess there's a sliver of a chance that Chen escaped because, um, he wanted to escape. It's possible, isn't it? ]]><![CDATA[Downloads In The Thousands]]>Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:09:10 -0800http://tjvargo.com/1/post/2012/04/downloads-in-the-thousands.htmlI gotta share some news with you. I just got my first quarterly sales report for this ebook publishing adventure I embarked on at the beginning of 2012. It turns out that there are at least 2,300 people that downloaded my novels in the first three months of my great experiment. All I can say is - ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Seeing those numbers shocked me. I've done pretty much zero marketing because I'm in the middle of a brain-melting class that takes every minute of every day, but somehow, someway, 2,300 people found my novels. Seeing those numbers got me hyped enough to Google some of my titles. I'm not gonna bore you with the details, but... screw it, I am gonna bore you. Low Man brought somebody to tears (in a nice way) and was listed as someone else's favorite book. The Devil's Due captured a five star review and was described as "lots of action, twisted horror and suspense," by another reviewer. And best of all, Tombs picked up a five star review and had another reviewer describe the characters as "unprincipled thugs who will steal from anyone, including the Church, and don't care who gets hurt in the process." I couldn't have said it better. Anyhow, if you're someone who downloaded one of my novels, thank you very much. As far as what's coming, I've completed The Expedition and have begun editing.  Not sure how long it'll take to polish, but you can check out The Expedition and all the rest of my novels on my website. I also have a sequel to Tombs in the works, but I'm a little short on time so I'm not promising anything. Take it easy and happy reading - I'll talk to you later. ]]><![CDATA[Is Your Fate Sealed?]]>Tue, 24 Apr 2012 05:58:58 -0800http://tjvargo.com/1/post/2012/04/is-your-fate-sealed.htmlI just saw the CRAZIEST play put on by the wildly artistic folks at the University of Cincinnat's College Conservatory of Music. It was called Arcadia. The plot, in a nutshell, is about two groups of people who live in the same house but are separated by over a century of time. The audience watches as the two groups live their lives, with the modern group of people investigating the previous inhabitants, which includes a young mathematical genius and a literary figure that is a contemporary of Lord Byron. I can already hear you yawning, but wake up - you gotta hear this. The interest for me came from the young mathematical genius living in the early 1800's, and how her creative use of math mirrors the true nature of life. You see, back then, people thought that Newton's Laws of Motion guided everything, with the idea being that if you knew how forces operated on each other, you could use mathematical formulas to determine the future. In a way, this is what Wall Street tries to do now with their algorithms that are designed to trade stocks in microseconds based on fluctuations in the market. And it's what we do every single day as we make choices that we believe are in our best interest. You might help a colleague at work or burn the midnight oil on a project, thinking that your work ethic will pay off with a handsome raise or a promotion. The problem, as pointed out in the play, is that this way of thinking, called "determinism," has a huge flaw. And that flaw is explained by a mathematical theory called "chaos theory," which goes like this - you can try to create order in your life by doing the right thing, working hard, eating your vegetables, and saving for a rainy day, but you CANNOT predict the future. There are billions of interactions impacting your life every moment, from the late spring snow storm that sends your car spinning off the road to your supervisor's painful bout with gout that makes him especially cantankerous when he looks at your latest sales figures, and each of these interactions creates a stew that can make or break you. So, according to the play, we can't pre-determine our lives. But we can live with the best of intentions and be prepared for whatever comes our way - the good and the bad. And I wish you the best, my friend, I really do. ]]><![CDATA[Need A Good Book?]]>Fri, 20 Apr 2012 08:34:17 -0800http://tjvargo.com/1/post/2012/04/need-a-good-book.htmlSome people have asked me for book recommendations, so here goes -

1. If you like gritty fiction with a great voice, try Charlie Huston's "Hank Thompson" trilogy. This is bad boy fiction all the way, with Hank Thompson playing the role of a regular schmoe that gets sucked into a horribly dangerous situation. There's a mix of violence and humor here that's tough to pull off, but trust me, Huston knows what he's doing. Once I started on this trilogy, I couldn't stop.

2. Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" is written like a gem. It's a bleak world Cormac takes us into - one where the whole world has gone kaput in what I'm imagining was a nuclear showdown. The landscape is devoid of life. No trees. No grass. No nothing. And it's in this American dead zone that a father takes his son on a harrowing journey, doing his best to stay hidden from the roving bands of survivors who are desperate for food, and will eat anything and anyone to stay alive. Get buckled in for this one, folks.

3.  Scott Smith has only put out two novels I'm aware of - "A Simple Plan" and "The Ruins," but both, in my opinion, are worth your time. The Ruins has one of the most improbable plots of all time. If I tried to write this, it would've fallen flat, but Smith turns the improbable into very real terror that you'll experience through the eyes of multiple characters. I won't spoil it except to say it has to do with plants that are smart, evil and hungry. The thing that really struck me about this novel is that it doesn't have chapters. It's just one long, continuous journey that squeezes you until you can't breathe. 

So there you go, three authors and four books I think you'll enjoy - happy reading:)  ]]><![CDATA[Great Ebook Site]]>Thu, 12 Apr 2012 06:06:17 -0800http://tjvargo.com/1/post/2012/04/great-ebook-site.htmlI recently found a great site that is interested in only one thing - finding professionally-written, low-cost e-books for your nook! Sounds easy, but believe me, there's a lot of low-cost books out there and finding the professionally-written ones is no easy task. If you're interested, check it out at:

http://bargainbooksforyournook.com/ ]]><![CDATA[All Novels Now Free on Smashwords]]>Fri, 09 Mar 2012 10:35:08 -0800http://tjvargo.com/1/post/2012/03/all-novels-now-free-on-smashwords.htmlMy two horror novels and my new crime novel are now available for free on Smashwords. You can download my novels by clicking here.

Happy reading! ]]><![CDATA[Mmmmm... air.]]>Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:22:52 -0800http://tjvargo.com/1/post/2012/02/mmmmm-air.htmlI'm always on the lookout for new products that are created specifically to screw the consumer. The recent leader of the pack is the "Hershey's Air Delight." Being one of the world's most recognizable purveyors of chocolate treats, you would think Hershey's would be interested in making better chocolate. Thicker chocolate. A more luxurious chocolate that would make a person's taste buds stand up and say howdy. But that's why you're not a big chocolate candy bar executive. You see, today isn't the day of better products, it's the day of better profit margins. So what do you do if you're a chocolate maker? You inject air into your chocolate bars, market the empty spaces in the chocolate as "chocolate bubbles" (I'm not making this up), and sell air for the price of chocolate. Mmmmm... air. ]]><![CDATA[Random Text]]>Sun, 05 Feb 2012 06:53:03 -0800http://tjvargo.com/1/post/2012/02/random-text.htmlI'm working my way into book two of Tombs and I need a break. I open the file for the first book of Tombs, scroll to somewhere in the middle and highlight some random text, which reads: 

Curtis took a step toward Julia. When she backed into the wall, he raised his
hands. “Look, everything’s cool. I won’t touch you. I won’t come any closer.” He
eased away, putting space between himself and Julia, folding his arms as he
leaned against the kitchen counter. “Just start at the beginning and don’t stop
until you reach the end. You’re gonna be fine.”

 She talked and he listened. It wasn’t long before he felt his blood boil and the pain in his sinus grow to a supernova. He looked at the man on the floor.

This guy was in for one long night.

I think, "I have a style, but it's still changing."

I get back to work, cursing myself for thinking about style. Style isn't something you think about - it's something you are.   ]]>