AuthorJim Flynn is a humorist, writer and novelist. He is available for speaking engagements. To contact email: [email protected] Archives
March 2025
Categories |
Back to Blog
 There's a new kid on the block. And his name is JR Johnson.
He's pictured here, after he got beat up, but before he got his nose broken by the Russian with the crowbar. I thought about what I had written on this very blog a couple weeks ago. How I mentioned Breaking Bad, The Americans, Longmire, Occupied, Bosch, Person of Interest and some others. Guess what? None of the above are novels! When you learn at an advanced age to write a novel there's no shortage of advice. Some of it is contradictory. Self proclaimed experts don't even agree on what the definition of a novel is. The Hero's Journey. Save the Cat. The Nutshell Technique, The Anatomy of Genres, The Story Grid. I could go on, but I won't. Let's just say I have more than enough plot structure ammunition to defend myself in case I get stuck in a Boredom Competition on an airplane seated next to the librarian who wants to tell me all about the Dewey Decimal System. I could drone on about this stuff long enough to have the Dewey Decimal woman begging the flight attendant to change her seat. I was getting down to the end of my latest story and realized: It doesn't end here! It's not a novel. It's a long form tv show. So--I've decided: I'm a storyteller. And I'm going to present this story structured like a long form tv show. What does that mean to the reader? The first book is just about ready. The new title of the first book: Dead Men Don't Write Checks. The first book is going to be shorter than the previous novels; more like one season of a long form tv show. And there's going to be an audiobook version. And at least two sequels. Know anybody at Netflix, Amazon Prime, Paramount Plus? I've got a pitch for them. Comments or questions: [email protected]
2 Comments
Back to Blog
 You've got to pursue your passion.
Different people have different passions. This week I went to New York with my daughter. Fashion is her passion. Pictured are her Doc Martens custom glitter boots that she wore along with her handmade jacket. The jacket wasn't as flashy as the boots, but quite stylish, and way different than the run-of-the-mill black North Face parkas that so many commuters of both sexes wear these days. Combine that image with my daughter's 6'3" height and we had many people look at us. Correction: People looked at her. I was invisible. When we got home I thought I had missed out on the opportunity to bring her to a bank. Could have parked her in the middle of the bank floor and robbed all the cash. Nobody would have seen me. Oh well, maybe next time. Speaking of cash: A friend of mine told me about a recent plane flight on which a pleasant middle aged woman sat beside him. Turns out she was a librarian with a burning passion for: The Dewey Decimal System. Told him about it for a couple hours! "Really?" I asked. Really. She was so enthusiastic he didn't have the heart to stop her. I asked him how many decimal places did she get into, but it turns out he wasn't paying close enough attention. What a missed opportunity! That conversation started me on an online quest for more knowledge on the Dewey Decimal System. You know how starting a project like that can spiral you down an endless rabbit hole? I had to stop myself after a while, but I will share this: The Dewey Decimal System is owned by a non-profit corporation called the Online Computer Library Center, or OCLC, headquartered in Dublin, Ohio. I'm not making this up. The OCLC charges over 30,000 libraries around the world to be members. I looked up the salary of the CEO of the OCLC. He makes over $2.2 million a year! Not bad for a librarian; someone who doesn't play second base or hit a golf ball at the professional level. That's about $42,300 per week. Who knew? Well, it's possible the guy has a lot of expenses---overdue library books and such. Maybe he uses thousand dollar bills as book marks. And let's not forget the decision making pressure cooker of stress the fellow is faced with: whether a book about World War II should be classified as general, 940.53, or if it contains info on espionage, maybe 940.5481. Where, oh where, to draw the line? I'm not an expert on non-profit accounting, but those organizations have to pay out enough in salaries so they don't show a profit. Sounds like a pretty good gig. Anyhow, it sometimes pays to pursue your passion. I'll be publishing my new book pretty soon, and if successful I hope to avoid being a non-profit corporation this year. The Dewey System should catalogue it at 813.54, Modern American Fiction, published after 1945. questions or comments to: [email protected]
Back to Blog
In The Cone of Silence3/1/2025  Remember Get Smart?
Agent Maxwell Smart used to get into The Cone of Silence with his boss at the spy agency so their conversations were kept secret. Pictured is the smaller version of The Cone, used when the bigger version was deemed not secure enough. How did the actors do this without laughing? I know it must have been many takes before they got it right, but still...that's what I call acting! It's time for me to go into the Cone of Silence about my new book, The Final Password. It's in the finishing stretch. I won't mention it again after this until it's coming out. Some of you may remember that I finished an early version about a year and a half ago. I didn't think it was good enough, so I did Page One rewrite, which is just what it sounds like. I used a different process to do this one. Example: I use Beta Readers, people who look at early drafts to make comments. But this time I used different people, who hadn't read the previous JR Johnson books. This is a darker JR. He's still funny, but he's not the same. Toni Anne is in the book, so is Barbara Jean. As I wrote I imagined this was a long form TV show, like Dexter, The Americans, Longmire, Bosch, or Breaking Bad. Would I watch a show based on this book? That was my goal. Notice I didn't mention Yellowstone. JR makes fun of Yellowstone in The Final Password. I guarantee you'll laugh. Unless you're a big fan of the Dutton family, in which case I may get some hate mail. Coming soon: The Final Password. Comments or questions: [email protected]
Back to Blog
A Little Country Place2/22/2025  This is Alexandre Dumas' country home. It's called Monte Cristo, built after the fabulous success of the novel The Count of...guess where.
I ran across the photo and thought that maybe I'd build a little country place like this after the upcoming success of my next book The Final Password. Didn't know much about Dumas. Just thought he must have been very wealthy from his publishing income. Did a little research. Not so fast! Dumas did make a lot of money on his books, but was a wild, extravagant guy who owed money to all the banks, had scores of mistresses, partied like it was 1999, and as my grandmother would have said: spent a dime for every nickel he made. He eventually defaulted on this home. So I decided not to build a copy of this French chateau in Northwest Connecticut. Thinking more along the lines of a three way attachment for my tractor. Coming soon: The Final Password. JR Johnson as you've never seen him. questions or comments to: [email protected]
Back to Blog
Licensed to...2/15/2025  I was wondering about male characters for my new book, and the idea of James Bond came to mind. It got me thinking: Did you ever notice James Bond has no friends? Not one. Then again, James Bond is licensed to kill. And James Bond likes to play golf. Maybe a friend took way too long to line up a putt. Bang! How about this: Maybe another playing partner, Nigel Haversham, who Bond has discovered is a double agent, was standing next to the 150 yard marker, but made a big deal about using his electronic range finder-and took his sweet time doing so. Bang! Bang! (okay-I know it's more like Thump! Thump! because 007 always uses a silencer) Bond might finish the round, go to the clubhouse bar and have a martini. The bartender would ask: "Where is Nigel Haversham sir?" Bond would say: "Finally he's under par...six feet under." Cue the James Bond Theme Music, and cut to a shot from a helicopter of Bond driving an Aston Martin convertible on a twisty road. BREAKING NEWS: THAT WOULD MAKE A GREAT OPENING SCENE IN THE NEXT BOND MOVIE. That leads me to a recent podcast I was on. It took me a while to get booked on the very popular golf podcast, my appearance will be released in late March. The books discussed were Hit Your Second Shot First, and The 10 Greatest Golfers of All Time. The interviewer had read the books, which is not always the case for a podcast. But he was a very serious golfer, and obviously didn't think all my stuff was funny. For example: He wasn't keen on the idea of being allowed to beat a fellow golfer to death with your putter. I told him Hit Your Second Shot First wasn't for everybody, but The 10 Greatest Golfers of All Time appeals to a broader audience. We'll see how it comes out. If the podcast is entertaining, I'll give you a link. The 10 Greatest Golfers of All Time is getting some recent interest Click link to see on Amazon www.amazon.com/dp/B0C5S7Q58F 
Back to Blog
It's a Big First Step2/8/2025  I promise--this will be the last in the "Guy Jumping Off Series." of blog posts.
But after the Agony of Defeat guy last week, someone wrote in that I should watch the video of Felix Baumgartner, the guy who held the world free fall record in 2012. The photo above is a screen shot right after he stepped off at 124,000 feet! A big first step. He gets small real fast. It's worth watching. Felix has apparently retired from jumping off high things. If I was Felix, I'd get a basement apartment and sit in a Barcalounger all day the rest of my life. Felix's free fall broke the sound barrier-he hit over 800 mph. and began spinning out of control, head over heels--well, to use the technical terminology: ass over teakettle, before regaining stability and pulling the ripcord on the parachute. Can you imagine wearing just a spacesuit, going 800 mph, and tumbling? I can relate a bit. It must be similar to hit the "Upload to Publish" button on Amazon, when you give the final approval to publish your book. Into the great unknown. It's been a good week for writing-bad weather here in Connecticut. Much progress on The Final Password. To see Felix's jump, here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz2F_S3Tl0Y&t=22s Stay tuned. questions or comments to: [email protected]
Back to Blog
The Thrill of Victory...and2/1/2025
Vinko Bogatag. There's a household name. Well, not really. But if I say "The Agony of Defeat" it brings up a mental picture, doesn't it? The Vinkster is the ski jumper at beginning of The Wide World of Sports!
The photos above are Vinko coming down the ski jump--then crashing. I watched the video several times before I noticed the second guy in the photo on the right. Bogatag is crashing in the center of the frame, but the dark image on the right is an official who had been standing at the take off point. When Vinko began crashing the official assumed the fetal position to avoid becoming collateral damage. The Vinkster barely missed him. When I mentioned The Agony of Defeat a couple weeks ago in the blog it drew several comments and questions, so I did a little research. -Vinko Bogatag is a Slovenian. -His highest world ranking as a ski jumper was 57th. -He broke his ankle in this accident, and had some other injuries, but after recovering continued to ski jump! -Vinko's incident was filmed in 1970, a time with no world wide television or internet, so Vinko had no idea he was famous in the United States. -He was not paid anything by ABC. They had telecast the original completion and had the broadcast rights. -ABC did invite Vinko to the 20th Anniversary Celebration of Wide Word of Sports in Chicago. -In Chicago, Vinko's car crashed on the way to the event, but he wasn't hurt. -Vinko first began to realize he was famous when he walked backstage to prepare to be introduced and Muhammad Ali asked him for his autograph. -After the event Vinko returned to Slovenia and resumed his quiet life as a landscape painter. I've given it much thought but can't come up with a moral to the story, but I have a couple observations: 1) Could ABC have been any cheaper? They couldn't send this guy a couple hundred bucks every time they showed him crashing? It was the reason people tuned in. C'mon--this is the network that paid the kid who played Urkel. And...as reluctant as I am to say it....ABC paid Howard Cosell. 2) If I had any knowledge of how to make Deep Fake videos, I'd make one of Howard Cosell crashing off a ski jump. Sure to go viral. Be honest---how many times a day would you watch that one? Breaking News! This might not be of interest to blog readers in France, California or Australia, but for you locals: Last week I mentioned a biker bar on Rt 44 in New Hartford. A prominent New Hartford native indignantly pointed out that the biker bar in question is actually in Barkhamsted. I promised a retraction, which I hope heads off a possible lawsuit. Working on the JR Johnson novel. The title is going to be The Final Password. Coming soon. I did a podcast with a guy named Hersh Rephun a couple months ago that just came out. Click here to watch on YouTube if you're interested: https://youtu.be/RN-zHSXsIgY Questions or comments to: [email protected]
Back to Blog
That ain't Celsius, either!1/25/2025  That was the temperature at around 5 am today, Tuesday, January 21st in Colebrook, CT.
It had been a mild winter up until then, so in the words of underrated poet/guitarist Joe Walsh: "I can't complain but sometimes I still do." For you red-blooded Americans who disdain the Metric System, that converts to -21.2 Celsius. Using either system, today's temperature is well above Absolute Zero, minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit, the point at which all nuclear motion stops and matter would cease to exist. I bring that up because: Am I the only one who has noticed that the national news features weather stories a lot more than it used to when I was a kid? And they like to scare people. Admittedly I was kid a long time ago, but still. When I was a kid they used to have stories about revolutions in Ceylon and stuff like that. These days the news people are worried about ratings, so Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) is out, and whether Taylor Swift's lipstick matched the color of the Kansas City Chiefs helmets is featured. Aside: I am now officially tired of the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce romance. Lots of people have a significant other. I'm also tired of Travis Kelce's brother. If I want to see guys who look like him, there's a biker bar on Rt 44 in New Hartford. Also included on the over exposed list is Peyton Manning and Eli Manning. Although I do admire Peyton Manning forcing ESPN to let his dorky kid brother tag along, I won't be watching them coach flag football at the NFL All-Pro extravaganza. Back to the weather: The national news wants to scare people to get higher ratings so they have come up with new terms: It's cold today. It was this cold thirty years ago, but today is a: Polar Vortex! Didn't have Polar Vortex's back in my day. We just put on our Bronco Nagurski long underwear and carried on. And it's not just cold in the Eastern half of the U.S.: 87 million people are At Risk! At risk? Of what? At risk of it being winter? Al Roker loves to tell me I'm at risk, and so does Jim Cantore. Another 453.37 degrees colder and all matter will cease to exist. That's when I'll consider myself At Risk! Another new term the TV guys use at any opportunity: Atmospheric River. That means it's gonna rain a lot, not that Bill Gates has finally perfected his Secret Weather machine and is able to raise the Mississippi River 30,000 feet in the stratosphere and dump it on a state he doesn't like. Well, maybe it's just the cold weather that's got me cranky. Good day to stay inside and write my next book. Note to language nerds: I know that the plural of vortex is vertices, but it seems a little high falutin' for this audience. Questions or comments to: [email protected] 's
Back to Blog
Spanning the Globe1/18/2025  Did you know you can promote a book across the globe without ever leaving your desk? Podcasts have made it possible for me to connect with readers from Australia to India to Canada—and everywhere in between. Remember the opening to Wide World of Sports? Jim MacKay said "Spanning the globe...." then it ended with everybody's favorite part...the guy falling off the ski jump. Mr. Agony of Defeat.
No danger of that in podcasting. It's odd though, sometimes the production qualities in say, India, are fantastic, it sounds like we're in the same room with no breakup in audio or video. Other times podcasts from Illinois sound like they were recorded on eight track cassettes then streamed from Neptune. Podcasting has given me a fascinating window into how my books perform around the world. For instance, Australia has consistently been my second-best market...ever since Be Sincere Even When You Don't Mean It. That book sold more copies in Australia in 2024 than in the U.S. And every month I get some royalties from Japan. On the other hand, I can't give the books away in the UK...For some reason, my sense of humor doesn’t seem to click with readers in England. Maybe I should brush up on my Monty Python references—though, truth be told, I’ve never quite gotten the hang of British humor! And Ireland’s a tough nut to crack for me—though I did have an interesting podcast experience out of Dublin. Let’s just say the host and I had very different senses of humor! I don't send out links to most of the podcasts in the last couple of years. The hosts tend to ask the same questions, and as charming and witty as I am, I tend to give the same answers. I don't want to wear you guys out. I'll schedule some more podcasts when I'm about to release the fourth JR Johnson book: The Final Password. Should be out in a couple months. Starting to work on the book cover---with Sean, the artist---from England! I can't even get him to read any of the books. Have you listened to any great podcasts lately—or are there any you’d recommend I check out? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Click below to get in touch: [email protected]
Back to Blog
Code Name: Salamander1/10/2025  After consulting with a marketing expert and doing some cogitation on my own, I have outlined a plan of battle for 2025.
And don't kid yourself; it is a battle for peoples' attention. A quote from the soon to be published revised edition of You Look Good for Your Age: "But there’s a growing problem with being a writer—people don’t read books much anymore. Because they can’t pay attention! Scientific studies show that the average attention span of a middle-aged American these days is about the same as a salamander’s. And we’re not talking Mensa level lizards either, we’re talking fiftieth percentile salamander." First to appear will be the fourth JR Johnson novel. Working title: The Final Password. Next will be the paperback and ebook revised editions of You Look Good For Your Age. Third: the audiobook version of You Look Good.... Further details soon. questions or comments to: [email protected] |
RSS Feed
