What is it all about?

 

Everything is supposed to start with a “Mission Statement,” so here goes . . . my mission is to be entertaining, informative, educational and, on occasion, humorous. Drawing on many years of experience in sales and marketing, there will be bits of information dredged from my memory, of sales techniques, sales approaches, closing the sale and the like. There will also be responses to news items and how they fit into the general topic of sales, marketing and general business in today’s business environment.

 

There are additional experiences I will share, things that amused me, excited me, scared me, but nothing that bored me. My experiences with internet dating, particularly with meeting, romancing and marrying a Russian architect living in Moldova, will be chronicled in these pages. I am also an accomplished cook, the hero of our Church fellowship hour because of the hearty, thick, delicious soups that I provide a couple of times a month. Expect a recipe or two over time.

 

I may also stoop to promoting my recently published novel, Before His Time: The Spirit Warrior, a story of adventure and survival set in pre-Columbian America. I may also share my essay on dating European women, “A Russian Woman,” the story of my romance with Tanya-the-Beautiful.

 

For years I have been involved in fitness and health. I “pump iron” five times a week at a local YMCA and I trained in the martial arts for many years. I have written a number of articles on various aspects of fitness training and karate, excerpts of which I will share.

 

Your comments are encouraged. I will endeavor to respond to all with dispatch. Oh, the title, The Rave Blog? My younger brothers called me Dave-The-Rave behind my back (or risk my wrath) for more than twenty years. When I learned of it, I attempted to nullify their humor by adopting “The Rave” as my signature on notes to them and ultimately the rest of my extended family. My nephews still refer to me as “Uncle Rave,” a parody of our great uncle, David MacKay, a crusty Scot farmer known affectionately as Uncle Dave.

 

The biographical sketch that accompanies my literary queries is as follows:

 

My name is John David Fenner, but family and friends call me David or Dave. I have been writing for all of my adult life, beginning with business correspondence; business and sales plans, proposals, evaluations, marketing plans. As an avid reader, I was always interested in creative writing, which led me to take the Famous Writer’s School fiction writing course in the 1960s.

 

Throughout a long and varied business career, I always found time to write; magazine articles, short stories, essays and finally a novel of adventure and survival that was recently republished in hardcover after two years as a full size paperback. As my commercial career wound down, I turned to writing copy; content, articles, blogs, e-books, web pages, landing pages, direct response sales letters and anything else that would pay the mortgage. To polish my craft, I completed the American Writers & Artists, Inc. course for copywriting.

 

More than 250 of my articles on a wide variety of subjects have been published through brokers. I have authored and ghost written several successful e-books and I currently write blogs for several clients. I am an American, born in a small village in Western New York State, but I have lived throughout the USA and have traveled extensively in my long business career. My vernacular is American English, though I have published articles in Australia and Great Britain (I’m adaptable).

 

My experience includes: Business ownership and management, law enforcement, the travel industry, the martial arts (karate & judo), health and fitness, diet and nutrition, hunting and firearms and I am a certified car-nut about everything automotive. I am familiar with a variety of building trades and construction materials, both commercial and residential.

 

I am reasonable, but not cheap, I adhere to schedules and I’m very prolific (and darn good).