ANNOUNCEMENT!!! 'Rockapocalypse: A Boy's Tale' is under contract!

I'm happy to announce that my first book, 'Rockapocalypse: A Boy's Tale', is under contract with Written World Communications! I'd like to thank everyone for their interest and support over the last year and a half. Now you get to read it! I'll know more about the publication date as we progress in that direction.

What I'm up to these days...

Half way through edits for Rockapocalypse with my publisher. Also, I've finished a second book entitled 'Cold Currents', a mystery/thriller set in the South. I'm hoping this is my year to go into print. I'm sorry this blog hasn't been updated more often, and I sincerely thank everyone who has followed it. I'm working on another blog with Weebly that will combine the contents of this site and my Wordpress blog. I hope to launch that soon!

Darn! I forgot I had this blog here!

Not really... just been so doggone busy. In fact, I'm heavy into learning all about ebook conversion software. Why, you ask? Because like it or not, the doors are blowing off the traditional publishing model. Ignore it if you want. It's a quick fix society...has been for years. I've played by the rules, played nice, followed the guidelines, waited patiently.

Nobody has ever said, "You suck as a writer! Don't quit your day job...", so I've maintained the course. But I can't ignore the technology, the tools that are available in a free society. Or the growing tide of self-pub mania. Oh, I've not completely pulled out of the trad-pub realm, just keeping my options open. It's like this...if I came to your playground with my dodge ball and I saw you and your friends playing like a bunch of octogenarians wearing depends and sporting walkers, the dust collecting on the ball as it sailed through the air in some odd (and very slow) time warp, and was told I would have to be voted in to play, I would go form my own dodge ball game. I wouldn't care if yours was the Queens dodge ball league and had been around for 150 years. It's that simple.

My first book has undergone a metamorphosis that would put The Fly to shame. I've done all I can do with it, but it will be published. I will not surrender. My second book is coming along nicely and I just did a line edit on the first 200 pages. I've also "sold" a story to a literary publication that will be in print by January and I'm fishing around another short story as I write this. See? I have been busy!

Here's the deal with the trad-status, per say. I'm working with a trad-publisher to get my book in print, but when, no one can say. There is NO contract, just a "gentleman's agreement". I will not live forever. For the life of me, I cannot understand why traditional publishing takes so long! I know the ins and outs of the process, but there seems to be a floating lag factor that cannot be nailed down and stomped like the turtle-paced, snail headed monkey that it is. We've come too far to be operating like scribes from the 16th century. That's why I'm learning ebook stuff. Enough is enough. Sure, I know if I go that route it will be a struggle, but it will be a struggle that I have control of. It will be a struggle that will keep me engaged in the process and not sitting around waiting for the turtle-paced snail head to tell me what's going on.

Well, that was refreshing. Just needed to get that out.

A moment in my mind...

When I was ten, Nana took me to see a piano recital. I hadn't wanted to go, but she insisted.

It was awful.

The tink, tink, tink, the swelling and falling of sound. I wanted to jump up, rip off my summer dress and dance like a Russian Cossack in my knickers and sock feet, all the while screaming Spanish curse words.

But one glance at Nana told me this would not be a good idea. So I suffered.

For art, no less.

*** Another character has surfaced in the author's mind. Will she be heard?