Today’s guest blog post is brought to you by multi-genre novelist and interviewee Kenneth S Murray. Kenneth is also offering a giveaway as part of his blog tour (details below).
Picking The Correct Book Title
For all of you ‘wannabe’ writers, I learned that you must pick the correct title for a book. I self published a novel, The Coal Mine Caper, about robbing the United States gold depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky. But that title didn’t tell the story, so before I put it on the e-Book sites, Kindle, Nook, and Kobo, with my three other novels, I changed the title to Fort Knox Heist, and that name on the cover overlays bright, shiny, gold bars.
The story is original. I didn’t want to write about another bank robbery, an armored truck theft, or a jewelry job. So I thought, “What would be the mother of all heists?”
Of course; robbing the most famous gold bullion depository in the world. And during World War II, the British sent the crown jewels, and many extremely valuable documents to the United States to store in the gold vaults at Fort Knox.
Another reason it’s a very safe place is the fact its next door to a huge U S Army base that housed armored divisions until recently, and has a great museum dedicated to General George S. Patton with a collection of army weapons, tanks, etc. along with a big picture of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and lots of German guns and tanks too.
And …… I was almost arrested when I went there to due my research and get facts about the area. I flew into Lexington, Kentucky, rented a car and went to the beautiful rotunda library at UK. I majored in geology in college and I knew there were a lot of caves in that area, the most famous and biggest in the world is Mammoth Caves, only twenty miles from the gold depository at Radcliff, Kentucky.
Also there were many coal mines dug during the Civil War in that area, and many were ‘slope’ mines. The coal seam was just thirty or forty feet underground, so miners dug a sloping shaft to it. So you see where my thought process is going.
I drove to see the gold depository. Its on a hill, with all the trees cut down to have an open field of fire from the four machine gun guard towers at each corner of the big fence.
I was driving up Bullion Boulevard and there were some orange traffic cones blocking the road up to the building. Well, I’m a writer, on a mission so to speak, and I drove around the cones and continued up the hill.
Suddenly a big, black SUV with gold piping came roaring down hill, swung through a curve, and came to a halt sideways, blocking my car. The doors flew open and two men, the size of pro-football linemen stepped out. They had on black uniforms with gold piping, and carried some big automatic weapons at the ready. They were guards in the oldest police force in our country, formed in 1792 – The Mint Police. I decided that I must have done something that they definitely did not like. They stopped opposite the driver’s door and stayed about fifteen feet away; holding the weapons across their waists, ready to loan me some bullets that I did not want to receive.
After I put the window down, they asked me to step out of the car, which I did, and then asked me why I went around the orange cones. Well I decided to take a positive position. I said, “I’m an author. I am writing a novel about …. —- aahh, errr, ahem. I almost said, robbing Fort Knox. I don’t believe that they would have received that information with any sense of humor, so I finally just mumbled, “about Fort Knox — and I want to get up to the parking lot, take some pictures and get a close look around.”
The two guards lowered their weapons to point at the ground and said, “You can thank Osama Bin Laden for not being able to do that. Ever since 9-11, we have allowed no one
from the public to get any closer to any of our gold depositories around the country. One guard pointed at my camera. He asked, “Have you taken any pictures yet?”
“No sir.” I thought calling him ‘sir’ was in order at this point; I didn’t want to be taken some place and interrogated for six hours or so. One guard suggested that I take a tour through the army museum instead. I thanked them; quickly turned my car around and left.
NOW – you readers with more backbone or guts (intestinal fortitude),
Would you have argued with them a little?
Maybe called them dumb, bonehead cops?
Would you have shot them the bird as you drove off?
Or what action, if any, would you have taken??
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Thank you, Kenneth. That was great!
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Kenneth S. Murray lives with his wife Beth in Winter Park and has sons and daughters and three grandchildren.
A graduate of the University of Virginia, he served in a top secret cryptographic unit of the U. S. Army in the Pentagon during the Korean war organizing intelligence from codes deciphered by the National Intelligence Agency. He moved to Florida in 1958, retired early and for the past fifteen years has been writing novels and poetry.
Kenneth’s latest book, The Second Creation, weaves together two stories; a life ending comet strike on earth, and inter-galactic war within the Realm of the Galaxies.
Research by Sandia National Laboratories Comet Impact Simulations brings incredible reality, and biosphere life begins a new human story.
Dunge Katorsay, an Apostle of the Anti-Christ, leads his forces from the Draco Constellation to defeat the realm and become its chairman.
Brian Hudson and Charlotte Tennyson are introduced as earth embryos. Both are born years later on another planet.
Charlotte is captured by Draco forces; her memory copied into her physical clone, who returns to Brian to spy on the realm. Charlotte’s bisexual tendencies were revealed, and she is kept by Dr. Sorsin, the lesbian bio-engineering genius.
The ending above the earth, as their forces collide, is a horrific battle between the Anti-Christ and the second coming of a God child.
You can find out more about Kenneth and his writing at:
- www.KennethSMurray.com
- http://twitter.com/KenMurrayAuthor
- www.facebook.com/KenMurrayAuthor
- Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Second-Creation-ebook/dp/B00DTW5TL6
- Barnes & Noble BN.com: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-second-creation-ken-murray/1115952150?cm_mmc=AFFILIATES-_-Linkshare-_-TnL5HPStwNw-_-10:1&r=1
And as part of Kenneth’s blog tour, there is the opportunity to win…
- First Prize: Kindle Paperwhite
- Second Prize: $50 Amazon Giftcard
- Third Prize: $25 Amazon Giftcard
via : http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code/Y2ZkMWRlMjgzM2ZkMWM4ZTE5MGFhYzhiMGY3M2M4OjI=/
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If you would like to write a writing-related guest post for my blog then feel free to email me with an outline of what you would like to write about. Guidelines on guest-blogs. There are other options listed on opportunities-on-this-blog.
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We look forward to reading your comments.
Morgen 'with an E' Bailey 
Hello Morgen,
On behalf of Kenneth and Book Marketing Services, I would like to thank you for hosting Kenneth today on Morgen Bailey’s Writing Blog. It is a great pleasure for him to appear on your blog and write a post for your readers. If anyone has any questions and/or comments they would like to share with Kenneth, please leave them in the comment box. He will be by later in the day to respond to everyone.
Please remember to enter the giveaway to win one of three prizes. First prize is Kindle Paperwhite, second prize is a $50 Amazon Gift Card and third prize is a $25 Amazon Gift Card.
Join us tomorrow when Kenneth will be the guest of The Canticle http://www.writermike.com.
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I visited the Gold Depository at Fort Knox some 40 years ago and actually was allowed inside, on official State Department business I was the desk officer for Hungarian Affairs, and came to inspect the Hungarian crown and regalia, then under official safekeeping (they are now back in Budapest). The exterior is just as seen in “Goldfinger,” since the film crew took many exterior photos. They were not allowed inside.
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Hey Bill – Thanks for the story about your visit to Ft. Knox. We take life for granted here in the states. Two summers ago, we were in Budapest for three days before our river cruise. We had a young guide who said his parents didn’t tell him he was Jewish until his 19th birthday. My wife asked him if he belonged to the beautiful temple we exited after the holocaust museum visit. He looked at us carefully and said, “My mother, father, brother and I don’t have our names on any list anywhere.” That tells you a whole lot about living in a small country that’s been invaded by the Nazi Germans and then by the Russian communists who ruled until President Reagan finally helped to break up the Russian occupied countries in Europe.
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One of the saddest silent comments on the Jewish Templom in Budapest (which was largely restored by Tony Curtis in memory of his father) is that there were so many copies of holy writ remaining … far more than there were congregants.
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Thank you very much, guys, for being here and commenting, and of course to Della for arranging Ken and I to get together, more than once.
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Sometimes research isn’t easy…
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