Category Archives: coming of age

Download Tookie Before Tim for FREE

19 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by in Asperger's, autism, coming of age, Finding Mr. Wrong, Only Tim Sent Flowers, red hair, women's fiction

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tookie before tim fb bgReaders have had questions about Tim and Tookie’s early lives, particularly hers, because they are complicated characters who were impacted by their childhoods. Tookie Before Tim is intended to answer those questions. It might also encourage some people to read the Tookie series. This little ebook tells the life stories of the title characters from birth up to the fateful day on which they first met. Only Tim Sent Flowers starts where this book leaves off.

Asperger’s was unknown when Tookie was a girl and, when it was finally identified as a syndrome on the autism spectrum, it was believed to be a strictly male issue. Girls weren’t believed to have it. So, it never occurred to Tookie’s parents or teachers that she might be on the autism spectrum. Thus, she has had to proceed through life unaware of the possibility.

Today and tomorrow, I’m giving it away FREE to anyone who wants to download it. It can be read on the Kindle device or the Kindle reader available for computers.

You can get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Tookie-Before-Tim-George-Kaplan-ebook/dp/B07M6SP29Q/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=tookie+before+tim&qid=1555712575&s=gateway&sr=8-1-spell

If you like it or if it increases your interested in reading more about her, email me at GeorgeQKaplan@gmail.com. If you feel like it, send me a blurb.

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Get Your Free Copy of Tookie Before Tim

24 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Asperger's, coming of age, humor, Jersey girl, New Adult, Only Tim Sent Flowers, red hair, women's fiction

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After releasing Tookie Before Tim, I realized I’d left out an important segment in her life: her time in Milltown before meeting Tim. So, I’ve added a chapter and reloaded it on Kindle. I’ve also created a PDF version for those who’d like to download it. However, I don’t have one of those fancy websites that support downloading files. The easiest way to get a copy is to email me at GeorgeQKaplan@gmail.com and I’ll send you your free copy. If you feel like it, send me a blurb.

Thanks,

George

before tim cover mud

Free Ebook

04 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by in Asperger's, autism, coming of age, humor, Jersey girl, Promiscuous, red hair, women's fiction

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before tim cover mudYesterday, I uploaded a small ebook to Kindle under my name rather than Black Opal Books, the publisher of the other Tookie books. The reason I did this is that I intend to give this short ebook away as much as possible, something that would be unfair to my publisher if they had invested in it. Tookie Before Tim tells the life stories of the title characters from birth up to the fateful day on which they first met. Only Tim Sent Flowers starts where this book leaves off.

Readers have had questions about Tim and Tookie’s early lives, particularly hers, because they are complicated characters who were impacted by their childhoods. This little book is intended to answer those questions. It might also encourage some people to read the Tookie series.

I put it under the KDP Select program because more people will be able to get free access (I think) to it that way. Its Amazon listing states, “$0.00 kindleunlimited.” Kindle Unlimited is an ebook subscription service that costs subscribers $9.99 a month and (according to Amazon) provides free access to over a million titles.

The Amazon listing also states, “Borrow for free from your Kindle device. Join Amazon Prime.” Apparently, Kindle Unlimited is one of the things paying $99.00 a year buys, in addition to free shipping. So, if you’re an Amazon Prime customer, you’ll be able to read Tookie Before Tim for free so long as it’s in the Kindle Select program.

KDP Select also allows authors to give away their ebooks five days out of each ninety-day enrollment period. I intend to take advantage of this feature and will announce the free days a week ahead to give all who aren’t Kindle Unlimited customers the opportunity to read Tookie Before Tim for free.  Click here for Amazon listing.

I will also make ARCs available to those interested in reviewing it. Email me at GeorgeQKaplan@gmail.com if you desire a review copy.

Always a Bridesmaid

28 Thursday Jun 2018

Posted by in Asperger's, autism, coming of age, erotica, Jersey girl, Only Tim Sent Flowers, oral sex, Promiscuous, red hair, serial monogamy

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Being an unknown writer poses numerous challenges these days, chief among them is getting people to read your books. One way of doing that is to enter contests, some of which review the book you enter. That is something. That my books usually make the finalists lists for their categories feeds my optimism that one of them will eventually win something. Even making the cut as a finalist gets the book some exposure, if only to other contestants and the reviewers. And there is always the hope a reviewer is someone important who might see the genius in the book that other, lesser, minds have missed.

When an email from Beach Book Festival arrived in my in-basket, I perked up. My Tookie books would be perfect beach reads. So, I entered the first one, the one Midwest Book Review* raved about, Only Tim Sent Flowers. Selecting a genre is always a challenge, especially since these contests don’t standardize the choices. I picked General Fiction, mostly as a default, and shifted my focus to other things.

Outlook has a nasty habit of shunting emails off to the spam folder almost randomly. This “feature” caused me to miss several important messages before I became aware of it. Now, I make a habit of checking the spam folder for good messages—except when I’m overloaded. While making a routine scan early this week, I was pleasantly surprised to find a message informing me that my book had made the winners’ list, meaning that it was either a winner, runner-up or honorable mention. A quick check of the BeachBookFestival.com revealed that Only Tim Sent Flowers came in second. Seeing eight other books listed as honorable mention gave me some consolation: my book was at least in the top 20%.

Contest officials wouldn’t tell me how many books were entered in my category but did say only 5% place. I chose to ignore the horse racing meaning of the term and interpreted place as meaning “getting placed on their winners’ list somewhere. That makes me feel better.

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The Wedding Ring Effect

30 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by in coming of age, humor, women's fiction

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wedding ringA recently released study by researchers from the Universities of St. Andrews, Durham and Exeter found that women consider men to be more attractive if they are desired by other women. This is particularly true if the men are already in relationships. Whether “This is because he is perceived to be more kind, faithful and a better father” came from the women in the study, the researchers or Sarah J. Young, the author reporting on the study, is unclear.

A previous study conducted by Oklahoma State University found what some call “The Wedding Ring Effect,” that by being in a relationship a man has already proven he has at least some desirable characteristics. In that study, 90 per cent of single women were interested in men they believed were taken, while only 59 per cent thought these same men were attractive if they were thought to be unattached. Hmmmm.

So this is news? I observed this phenomenon in the late 1960s when I was finally in a relationship. Girls had never considered me particularly attractive. But when they saw me with Zelda, some flirted with me and asked me to dance with them. Since this behavior was in stark contrast to how they treated me pre-Zelda, I couldn’t help but notice the difference. Sadly, I didn’t capitalize on this change and continued seeing Zelda. But that is an entirely different story.

The lesson in this for men is to latch onto a girlfriend of some sort, even if you’re not wild about her. Being able to tolerate her long enough to find someone you consider more desirable is enough. Depending on how attractive other women consider your stepping-stone girlfriend, you may need to repeat this process a time or three to find your Miss Right.

 

 

Rave Review

18 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by in Asperger's, coming of age, Fiction writing, Jersey girl, New Adult, oral sex, Promiscuous, Uncategorized

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A most pleasant surprise arrived in my inbox this morning. Midwest Book Review has reviewed Only Tim Sent Flowers. Not only did they review it, they raved about it:

http://www.midwestbookreview.com/sbw/jan_18.htm#fiction

The Fiction Shelf

Critique: An imaginative, entertaining, fascinating read from beginning to end, George Kaplan’s “Only Tim Sent Flowers” is an extraordinary novel by a writer with a genuine flair for novelty and narrative driven storytelling complete with unexpected twists and turns. While unreservedly recommended, especially for community library Contemporary General Fiction collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that “Only Tim Send Flowers” is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $2.99).

 

 

 

 

Tookie Entertains Family Gathering

24 Friday Nov 2017

Posted by in Asperger's, coming of age, Jersey girl, karaoke, masturbation, Only Tim Sent Flowers

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A fellow writer who critiques my books before I submit them to the publisher unwittingly let Tookie entertain her family’s Thanksgiving celebration:

At Thanksgiving, we decided to sing karaoke. So, my husband grabs my laptop and hooks it up so that the lyrics playing on my laptop show on our HUGE living room TV. Only the last thing I was looking at on my computer was your Tookie chapter.

So, as soon as he hooks it up, BOOM. Tookie, doing all kinds of penis stuff to Reggie, in huge bold print, right on the living room TV in front of my whole family lol! I wasn’t paying attention, so it’s up there for a few minutes, and my cousin and a female friend are like, “Uhhhhhh…” I’m cracking up.

I explain who George Kaplan is and why I’m reading this on my work computer. I dig out my copy of Only Tim Sent Flowers and I’m like, “Check it out. He’s really creative and his heroine is hilarious. I’ve learned so much reading his stuff. Like, in the ’70s, IUD strings hung out of the vagina (my stepmom nods in agreement). And last week I learned what a rusty trombone is—-DON’T GOOGLE THAT.”

We’re all flipping through the book and discussing the plot. My friend opens to a page where Tookie goes into deep detail about using cucumbers, carrots, Coke bottles* and more, to masturbate and she’s reading this out loud to the room and everyone is dying. People are taking pictures of the book cover and looking up the book on Amazon. I think I just sold like ten copies of your novel today lol!!! I thought you’d get a kick out of that story.

I never thought I’d be hanging out with my dad, talking about Tookie and the sexual revolution. But today was the day lol! They thought the book was hilarious and witty and I told them I laugh every single time I critique one of your chapters.

* Tookie considered testing the possibility that using a Coke bottle as a dildo could do her serious physical harm too risky to try.

 

 

Softcover Release & Trailer Are Out Now

03 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by in Asperger's, coming of age, erotica, Fiction writing, humor, Jersey girl, Only Tim Sent Flowers, oral sex, Promiscuous, red hair, women's fiction

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OTSF front cover w outlineI had planned on writing about the effects of marijuana on fertility, a topic of some importance to both men and women of child-creating age, but the print version of Only Tim Sent Flowers was received yesterday, pushing the sexier topic off until next time.

A little before 7:00 p.m. yesterday, a Saturday, I saw the familiar brown UPS truck pull up my driveway. Surprised to see him at that time on that day of the week, I trotted out to greet him, thinking someone must have sent some financial papers requiring a signature that I wasn’t aware was coming. It turned out that he had the shipment of books I had ordered from my publisher, Black Opal Books.

Seeing the surprised expression on my face, the driver said, “Saturdays are a regular work day now.” It seems that UPS has contracted to deliver Amazon Prime packages within the shorter timeframe that comes with paying for that service.

But you say that I bought the books from Black Opal Books and not from or through Amazon. That is entirely correct. What has happened is that UPS hates to operate inefficiently. That means if they are running a truck on a route to deliver some Amazon prime shipments, they don’t want to send out a half-full truck. So, they also deliver any packages they have on hand for people on the route instead of waiting till Monday. I was the beneficiary of this policy.

This was good timing because I had been working on a book trailer and had it almost ready to make public. Because of a recent hardware failure that forced me to acquire a new computer that runs Windows 10, something I had been avoiding for years. One of the numerous shortcomings of Windows 10 is that the Moviemaker program has been eliminated. So, I had to acquire and learn a new program.

For reasons too complicated to go through here, I got Pinnacle Studio 21. It is harder and more complicated to learn and use than Moviemaker but has some nice features. The one I like, but don’t understand, is Scorefitter. I’ve only used it once, for a soundtrack in the book trailer for Only Tim Sent Flowers. Check it out and tell me if you like it or not. It can be found at: https://youtu.be/vAHvbJ7MEac

 

 

Coming of Age Novel Released

20 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by in Asperger's, coming of age, erotica, Jersey girl, masturbation, Only Tim Sent Flowers, oral sex, Promiscuous, red hair, women's fiction

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The second edition of Only Tim Sent Flowers, the first of the three-volume Tookie series (so far), is being released this coming Saturday by publisher Black Opal Books in both ebook and print formats. Heavily revised to focus on Tookie’s coming of age, this version should appeal to younger (meaning over 16) readers in and about to enter their New Adult period as well as traditional readers of books with female protagonists. Told in first person POV (Tookie’s perspective) from an intelligent high-functioning Asperger’s who lives in her head, she shares her innermost thoughts (that she seldom reveals to others) with the reader.

Books may be pre-ordered from Black Opal Books and Amazon.com. Those interested in writing reviews can contact the author at GeorgeQKaplan@gmail.com.

Manuscripts for the second and third titles in the series, Finding Mr. Wrong and Tookie Goes Undercover have been completed and were recently sent to the publisher. No release dates have been set. With that writing, editing, rewriting, editing, etc. complete—at least until a publisher’s editor gets her hands on them—I should have time to tend to my blog more faithfully, especially since the newspapers have been filled with so many topics with potential.

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