WHO I AM
Hello! Larry Nocella here. I don’t know how to live this life and not be fascinated by everything. I am infinitely inquisitive.
WHO IS THAT BEANIE-COPTER GUY?
That is my alter-ego as The Beanie-Copter Philosopher. Someday I’ll get around to writing the manifesto, but basically, I find most “philosophers” to be overly serious and uptight, resulting in cruel, cold, inhuman, un-fun approaches to life. Whenever I get philosophical, I recall that picture and I am reminded to be humble. It’s hard to be overly serious when that’s your photo.
The history behind it is long ago I was invited to a Halloween party. I find assembling a costume annoying, so I threw together a bunch of clashing colorful clothing and when people asked, “What are you supposed to be?” I would obnoxiously shout back, “I’m an eyesore!” Feel free to use this idea next Halloween.
Recently, I’ve modified the Beanie-Copter image to a modern, friendly emoji-icon type image like this.
WHAT I DO
Mostly write. It helps me clarify my thinking. I dig stories, made up or otherwise. Also enjoy teaching, sharing knowledge and observations, helping others get where they want to and cheering them on.
Writing
I read mostly non-fiction, as I find it more fascinating than the way most people write fiction. Sorry. That’s why I try to write fiction, to show a better way to do it. Or try anyway. I’ve written some books.
GameDev: Video Game Development
I’ve designed some games using the amazing no-code Construct 3 tool. Here are my favorites. You can play them now completely free, no login required, no data saved or stolen. I made some small pizza money from these when Facebook was hosting a game center for indie devs, but that went away quickly. So when you play. note the Facebook features won’t work.
SHEEP SHIFTER: Angry-Birds-Style puzzle game with cute animals. Forty challenging levels with solutions on YouTube.
PRESIDENT MAN-BABY! You are the president. Fight facts with tweets and blow kisses to Russians while you’re stealing cash. But be careful! If you are exposed to too many facts, or don’t keep the Russians happy, you’ll cry and it’s game over!
VoiceDev / AlexaDev
I’ve developed Alexa Skills with Javascript and the no-code tool Voiceflow. The Alexa skills are slowly fading as I tire of maintaining them to keep up with new hardware/software updates. Here’s a couple of my favorites:
Best Picture Oscars The Last 30 Years: A trivia game where you have to name the Oscar winner. No longer updated.
Quick German: Super fast, easy, no-frills translator from English to German.
FUN HIGHLIGHTS / RESUME-TYPE THINGS
Between King and Koontz
April 3, 2019 — My collection of short horror stories appeared between horror author giants King and Koontz for a brief time. It was cool.
Runner-up $10,000 Atticus Prize for forward thinking
I was a runner-up for the Atticus Prize, a contest of forward thinking held by the largest advertising agency family in the world, WPP. It was a delightful writing challenge, and I felt my practice at speculative science fiction helped. Read about it here. (The site isn’t always reliable so it’s also here.)
THE DAY JOB
By day, I’m a digital marketing guy. I help marketing teams with the technical aspects of their online marketing campaigns. I actually kind of like it as boring as it may sound. I like the tech parts, and helping non-tech people understand things to reach their goals.
I am currently super-duper-happy with my employer and can’t imagine how I found a place I actually like, despite my natural aversion to anything labeled “work.” I believe in work-life balance, but I like connecting professionally also. I should note there is a firewall between my opinions as an individual and my work a the day job. My opinions are mine and mine alone and not representative of any company or employer, past, present, or future.
If so inclined, let’s connect on Linkedin!
CONTACT
Contact (at) LarryNocella (dot) com – Feel free to get in touch. I’m always up for hearing from fascinating people like you, working on cool things, and helping others with their projects or whatever you’re up to! While I’ve gone the self-publishing route for my first several novels, I’m curious and eager to try the traditional publishing route. If any agents or publishers wish to get in touch, please do so.
AUTHORS SEEKING BOOK REVIEWS
I was open to reviewing other independent author books, but in a hilarious cascade of events, I’m banned from reviewing on Amazon. Sorry, kids!