Happy Mothers' Day.
Speaking of mothers, my wife continues to improve. She seems to get a little stronger every day. She's eating better, too. Hopefully she'll be pretty much problem free on our vacation.
On the writing front, Just Lucky, Book 2 is, I believe, ready to go. Alexis Allinson, the head of Gnome on Pig Productions, sent me the proof copy, just as it will be presented for sale, after any errors are corrected. I found two in the Table of Contents, but that's all.
I suspect that after we release it, readers will discover a goof. But maybe not, and anyway it won't be because we didn't take our best shot at perfection.
I received an outstanding pleasant surprise yesterday on my Facebook page. Let me give you some background: Larry and I and about a dozen other rabid Denver Bronco fans participated in a Usenet News Group for the Broncos...this was before various other forms of social media. All the NFL teams had a newsgroup for fans. It was not unusual for fans of one team to visit other teams' NGs and comment. A little more than half the time, the visitors' comments were positive or neutral, or "talking trash" in a friendly way. Visitors from the three division rivals—KC, Oakland, and San Diego—were usually polite. Some weren't. The real reason I developed a strong dislike for the New England Patriots was because their fans, those that visited, were almost universally rude, braggadocious, and generally obnoxious.
Larry is a teacher on Oahu. We have never met personally, but have an acquaintanceship that precedes our Face Book friendship. He posted a review on my time line which I offer up here:
I read between 10-20 books each year, and if this non-fiction/history/biography guy reads fiction at all, it's usually from the "classics" or "literature" list in my head. Until now!
Finished Just Lucky and totally dug it! A great read, Fred! Well done! I look forward to catching Bk 2 this summer.
And I'll keep them displayed prominently around the house so I can point them out to visitors and crow, "You want an entertaining read? Try these! Great characters exercising traditional themes with lots of action...yeah, I know the author, too. Great guy! And a Bronco fan!"
He included a selfie (I presume) of him giving a thumbs up with the book obscuring the lower half of his face.
As you can imagine, I thanked him profusely and complimented him on his good taste. I'm still tickled.
And I received another positive review on May 5th. Red Headed Book Lover Blog gave a glowing review of Witchery—five stars. You can read it here: wp.me/p9ghAg-3EH She would also like to review Just Lucky, Book 1, and I will submit that to her for review soon.
I finally finished the edit-for-length of Saving Atlantis. From 106,000 words it is now down to 88,000. It hurt. It hurt bad. Stephen King said, approximately, that when the time comes, you must cut out the unnecessary words. It feels like killing your children, but it's got to be done.
The story is no longer as good as it was. But it is now more saleable, and that's the point. It doesn't matter how good the story is if no one will read it.
If I use up the supply of reputable agents without success, I may choose to self-publish. That is still an option, but one I resist simply because it requires an outlay of dollars that I can't really afford.
We shall see.
On the reading front, I finished Insomnia. The ending surprised me a little, though by now King never surprises me a lot. Now The Waste Lands will be my reading at work. I don't know what I'll read at home. Maybe nothing for next week. But that's me, and it will be (if it works out that way) a big exception to a pretty firm rule.
As for all of you, please continue to read voraciously...my writing or someone else's.
Thank you for reading this, and, as Red Skelton signed off his weekly show, "May God bless."
Speaking of mothers, my wife continues to improve. She seems to get a little stronger every day. She's eating better, too. Hopefully she'll be pretty much problem free on our vacation.
On the writing front, Just Lucky, Book 2 is, I believe, ready to go. Alexis Allinson, the head of Gnome on Pig Productions, sent me the proof copy, just as it will be presented for sale, after any errors are corrected. I found two in the Table of Contents, but that's all.
I suspect that after we release it, readers will discover a goof. But maybe not, and anyway it won't be because we didn't take our best shot at perfection.
I received an outstanding pleasant surprise yesterday on my Facebook page. Let me give you some background: Larry and I and about a dozen other rabid Denver Bronco fans participated in a Usenet News Group for the Broncos...this was before various other forms of social media. All the NFL teams had a newsgroup for fans. It was not unusual for fans of one team to visit other teams' NGs and comment. A little more than half the time, the visitors' comments were positive or neutral, or "talking trash" in a friendly way. Visitors from the three division rivals—KC, Oakland, and San Diego—were usually polite. Some weren't. The real reason I developed a strong dislike for the New England Patriots was because their fans, those that visited, were almost universally rude, braggadocious, and generally obnoxious.
Larry is a teacher on Oahu. We have never met personally, but have an acquaintanceship that precedes our Face Book friendship. He posted a review on my time line which I offer up here:
I read between 10-20 books each year, and if this non-fiction/history/biography guy reads fiction at all, it's usually from the "classics" or "literature" list in my head. Until now!
Finished Just Lucky and totally dug it! A great read, Fred! Well done! I look forward to catching Bk 2 this summer.
And I'll keep them displayed prominently around the house so I can point them out to visitors and crow, "You want an entertaining read? Try these! Great characters exercising traditional themes with lots of action...yeah, I know the author, too. Great guy! And a Bronco fan!"
He included a selfie (I presume) of him giving a thumbs up with the book obscuring the lower half of his face.
As you can imagine, I thanked him profusely and complimented him on his good taste. I'm still tickled.
And I received another positive review on May 5th. Red Headed Book Lover Blog gave a glowing review of Witchery—five stars. You can read it here: wp.me/p9ghAg-3EH She would also like to review Just Lucky, Book 1, and I will submit that to her for review soon.
I finally finished the edit-for-length of Saving Atlantis. From 106,000 words it is now down to 88,000. It hurt. It hurt bad. Stephen King said, approximately, that when the time comes, you must cut out the unnecessary words. It feels like killing your children, but it's got to be done.
The story is no longer as good as it was. But it is now more saleable, and that's the point. It doesn't matter how good the story is if no one will read it.
If I use up the supply of reputable agents without success, I may choose to self-publish. That is still an option, but one I resist simply because it requires an outlay of dollars that I can't really afford.
We shall see.
On the reading front, I finished Insomnia. The ending surprised me a little, though by now King never surprises me a lot. Now The Waste Lands will be my reading at work. I don't know what I'll read at home. Maybe nothing for next week. But that's me, and it will be (if it works out that way) a big exception to a pretty firm rule.
As for all of you, please continue to read voraciously...my writing or someone else's.
Thank you for reading this, and, as Red Skelton signed off his weekly show, "May God bless."
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