For this math teacher, writing a novel was 'Natural' - Post Bulletin

Here's the story about my novel.


For this math teacher, writing a novel was 'Natural' - Post Bulletin

Post-Bulletin Monday

Look for an article regarding Chasing a Dream in the Rochester Post-Bulletin on Monday. I'll link it here once it shows up. Until that time, be sure to read the review that I linked to previously. It's a good one!

Chasing a Dream review

Check out mlbreports who just posted a review of my book. They did a great job and were too kind.

http://mlbreports.com/

P-B Mention

Chasing a Dream got a small mention in the Rochester Post-Bulletin yesterday here:

http://www.postbulletin.com/news/stories/display.php?id=1517625

Just a recap of the story that was in the Spring Valley Tribune. I was scheduled to do a Q and A with a reporter from the P-B, but haven't heard back on that yet. I'm not sure if that blurb will replace the Q and A or not. I guess we'll see.

Book signing aftermath

I had a great time at the book signing last night! I'm amazed at the response I got and the number of people that were there. The 12 books that I brought weren't nearly enough. I needed five times that amount! So, they're on order. I was fortunate to have some great questions asked to keep the conversation going. You can't get much more than 15 minutes out of me without questions - I just don't have that much to say. It was fun seeing quite a few former students/parents/colleagues. Thanks for all the support!

Book Signing Day

Just a reminder that I'll be signing books at the Spring Valley Library from 6:30 to 8:00 or so tonight. I'll be giving a short little talk about my book and the book writing process at 6:30 and then will take any questions that come up. There are going to be treats!

Snow

I hear people say it feels more like Christmas now that it's snowing. I say I don't care. Make it disappear. We were working on a record stretch of days without an inch of snow, and I was hoping it would last all winter. Actually, one day of snow is fine. Now it just needs to all go away. Unfortunately, it seems we get a day of snow and then we get a nice 10 degree day to follow it up. THAT'S the part I don't like. I say bring on the snow. As long as it's followed by a 75 degree day. That would be sweet. On a related note, my feet are cold...

Twitter

So, I've joined the social media world and have started paying attention to Twitter. Right now my followers outnumber my blog subscribers, but not by much! And, I don't think the Spam girl and the Ohio Wendy's person really count as followers. So, feel free to follow me at CJBoerger. I know, a very creative twitter handle. My favorite thing to do so far is post replies to the famous people and see if I can get something funny enough or informative enough for them to repost. Is that why people like Twitter? What's the draw anyway? I do get a lot of Detroit Tigers information on there, so I guess that's nice...

Rochester Post-Bulletin

Just got contacted by the P-B yesterday. Look for a little something about my book in there one of these days. Once I find out the specifics I'll share it with my growing number of blog readers. I don't know that it will be much, but who knows.

By the way, welcome new blog readers. Feel free to look from my old posts below if you're bored. There's really not much there, but hey, if you're bored it shouldn't matter. Mainly is blog is just a source for any news that comes up with my book.

Spring Valley Tribune Article

http://www.hometown-pages.com/main.asp?SectionID=11&SubSectionID=94&ArticleID=46389


Hopefully I sound ok!

The grass is always greener...

...in my yard this year than year I can ever remember on December 4th. I'm starting to wonder if I should pull the mower out of the shed and give it a spin around the yard. We are closing in on 2 months ahead of when we've been getting the first shovelable snow over the last couple of years. I'm not complaining. For a while I thought the snow would win and I'd have to get a snow blower. It was crazy. Now, I've got the snow right where I want him. The only problem is we haven't gotten much rain this fall either, so our pond is looking pretty dry. If it continues I might have to get my hose out and fill it back up. :) Actually, maybe there will be some neat fossils on the bottom of that pond. Might have to go take a look back there sometime. There might have been a golf course in this area at one point years ago. Maybe I can find an Arnie Palmer original...

Spurs vs. Tigers

Wait a minute. The NBA is upset that the Spurs rested four of their players last night. Jim Leyland does that every other Sunday. Even if you were to say that they play more games in baseball, it's just twice as many games. So if Popovich rests his guys once that's like Leyland resting his guys twice. He's done that a lot more than twice. And, lets be honest here. What's more taxing, running up and down the court for 40 minutes or playing a 9 inning game?

Newspaper Interview

I'm interviewing with the local newspaper this afternoon about my novel and upcoming book signing. I thought it would be fun to say something completely off the wall and see if it shows up in the paper. Any ideas?

That reminds me of a story my brother Jason used to tell when he was working on the tour boats in Alaska. Jason and the rest of the crew would give the captain obscure words to sneak into his spiel over the loud speaker, and then they'd check them off. I guess the captain rattled them off in no time at all. Hilarious idea. Maybe I should do that when I'm teaching.

Frog - green. Cee Lo - Green. HAHAHAHA

Tough to beat a little Muppet action!

Hmmm... Not sure that that is going to work so you might just have to go here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__gxog_3xcQ&feature=relmfu

Holiday Power Rankings

'Tis the season, so here we go. Your updated 2012 holiday power rankings.

1) Christmas - There's really no argument here. Christmas is like the Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls. As long as MJ's playing(Santa), it's just no contest.

2) Easter - Did you know that Easter/Good Friday isn't a federal holiday? Just a state holiday in several states. I'm still counting it because I normally get Easter Monday off too so it feels like a holiday to me. A clear second fiddle.

3) Thanksgiving - Now things are tightening up a little bit, but the extra black friday off puts Turkey Day in the three spot. Stuffing helps, too.

4) 4th of July - Summer. Fireworks. Parades. Stewartville 5k run. What's not to like?

5) Memorial Day - The unofficial beginning of summer, and you know how this blogger likes his summer.

6) Labor Day - A final nice, warm weekend before summer ends.

7) New Year's Day - Gets screwed over by its proximity to Christmas. If New Year's was like in February or March it would climb the rankings. Bad time slot - like being televised opposite Seinfeld.

8 tie) MLK Jr. and Prez. Day - I get an alternating one of you off each year so you two tie. Deal with it.

10)Veterans Day - Again, no day off. But, the it being for the Vets keep it out of the 11 hole.

11) Columbus Day - What have you done for me lately Christopher?

That's it. Discuss...

The stomach flu...

...is no fun. I'm closing in on 40 hours without eating anything. I wonder how long I'll be able to go. Coffee doesn't seem to help. I know, I know, caffeine is bad for you when you're sick. But, coffee is also magical so I assumed it would make me better. No dice. I'm supposed to run a 5k in 24 hours. Can a guy run a 5k without eating for 3 days before running it? Can a guy type a coherent blog post with the flu? Probably no to each...

Mark your calendars!

I will be hosting an author's talk and book signing on Wednesday December 12th at Spring Valley Public Library from 6:30-7:30. More details to come as the time approaches.

Review

I've been looking for a review for Chasing a Dream for a couple of weeks now, and it looks like one's coming soon. A popular baseball book reviewer just posted on his blog that his review of my book will be coming soon. No inclination either way if he enjoyed it or not so I guess we'll see. If it ends up being a good review maybe I'll post it on here. If it's not good maybe you won't hear any mention of it. :)

Along those same lines, if you've read Chasing a Dream (and you don't have the same last name as I do) you can write a customer review on my page here - I believe that Amazon has been removing reviews of relatives to keep the review process fair. But, maybe a non-relative will stumble upon this and post a review.

Downeaster Alexa

With all of this storm talk on the east coast I find that Billy Joel is stuck firmly in my head. All day long I'm "working my fingers to the bone" in my mind. So I decided to stop fighting it and am listening to it over youtube as I write. I have a feeling that it's going to be a Billy Joel kinda day. Because you know what's coming next - Allentown. Who knows where we go from there.

In novel news, Stewartville Public Library and St. Paul Public Library now have copies of Chasing a Dream available. Get on the waiting list soon.

Book signing

First of all, I better make sure I don't type it as a book singing. I just do that. Part of me must prefer to sing than to sign. Every time I write sub notes for school I have to double check that I'm not assinging homework instead of assigning it. I'm sure the sub can figure out what I mean, but I don't like stupid little mistakes. In fact, this paragraph above took me twice as long as usually because I'm so hung up on checking the order of my "gn". There are probably 17 other grammatical errors in here because of my concentration on the "gn". Oh well....

Back to the point, when people find out I wrote a book the first question 90% of the time is if I'll be having a book signing. Yes, there will be one at some point, hopefully soon. However, if you want a book signed and you know me, just let me know and I'll sign a copy for you. Even if you don't know me I can get one signed and mailed to you, it just will cost a little more for postage. But, for some people, that little scribble seems to be important. Makes their heart sing I guess.

Getting a review

My next task in this literary adventure is getting a review for my book. As strange as it may seem, most people don't seem to want to take a chance on a debut writer. I've been in contact with a few different individuals who hopefully will take the time to read through my book and write a few. In fact, if anyone out there reading this would like that task give me a shout-out and I'll get you a book!

Still climbing

We are up to #2 in Free Sports Fiction! Not very far from #1. We were listed on one site, but the others that I inquired about have yet to advertise my book. It's tough without any reviews. Maybe those will come...

Climbing the ranks...

Well, we're now up to #4 in Free Sports Fiction on Amazon. Still a lot of time left on the free promotion. Hopefully a few of the sites that I sent information about the book will post for me and drive up the numbers. I guess we'll see.

Free Kindle Promo!

Well, the free Kindle promo starts tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if the promo increases my book sales or not. The interest in my paperback seems to be building. It sounds like it's going to start infiltrating the local libraries soon. What's next? I guess we'll see...