My Books In Print, Bob Seger, Muhammad Ali

Lettahs From Maine, Mowa Lettahs From Maine, and Children of Mother Earth are finally available in print.  I'm very excited about it, the covers look really cool.  I don't know how many will sell on Amazon.  I'm hoping to get a few bookstores to carry them.  My ebooks continue to sell, especially Lettahs From Maine.  And as soon as I have the cover photo, I will be publishing my next book, Bobby's House.  It's my best so far.

I'm listening to Bob Seger right now.  His songs always remind me of summer, like something you'd listen to while heading to the drive-in.  Well, at least that's what I'd listen to.  Certain music is seasonal for me - Seger in the summer, The Doors in the fall, etc.  I can't think of anything good in the winter.  Everything sucks in the winter.  And some music is good during the day, like Oasis, and some I prefer at night, like Springsteen.  Weird, I know.

I'm reading Muhammad Ali: His Life And Times, by Thomas Hauser.  I think it is my favorite biography.  I read the book years ago when it first came out and I think it is just as good now, almost twenty years later.

Print Editions of Lettahs and Mowa Lettahs

I've decided to put Lettahs From Maine and Mowa Lettahs From Maine out in print.  They are doing pretty well as ebooks but I've had a few people ask for them in print.  So, to please my enormous fan base, I've taken the big step.  I ordered my proof copies this morning and they should arrive in a week or so.  If everything looks okay I'll put them out.  I did it via createspace, which is the least expensive way to do it, no money down and they print to order.  I won't make a lot of money, the price for each of the print editions will be only $4.99 and I only get a small percentage of that, but I'd rather just get the stories out there and hopefully a few people will read and enjoy them.

I put Children of Mother Earth as a free ebook for two days this week and about 180 copies were downloaded, it reached #40 in Action-Adventure catagory.  And now it's not selling at all.  Glad to see things are back to normal.

Sam and I began writing his next story, tentatively titled Superheroes Saving The World Green Lantern.  Quite a mouthful, but I'm sure it will be exciting to all six year old boys.

Michelle and I celebrate our wedding anniversary today.  5 years.  I think we'll go walk around and find somewhere to eat at the beach tonight, the weather will be beautiful for it.  Honestly, as long as we don't have the kids with us, I don't care if it's pouring rain and we just go eat chinese food.

Mowa Lettahs From Maine & Superheroes Are Saving The World

This morning "Mowa Lettahs From Maine" became available for the kindle and nook.  I'm very excited, I think it's really funny and I hope others will feel the same way.  I plan to have a series of Lettahs From Maine books - Lettahs To Celebraties, Lettahs To Politicians, Lettahs To The Editah.  We'll see how it goes but I have ideas.

This weekend I'll begin editing "Bobby's House", which I think is the best thing I've ever written, and hopefully I'll publish that sometime in August.  I almost wrote Awgust, I'm still in Lettahs From Maine mode.

And Samuel has finished writing his first story, "Superheroes Are Saving The World!!!!".  It is very good and someday, when he is a famous author (which he already believes he is), it will be a collectors item.  Or so I hope.  Next week, we begin work on the next one.

The Auctioneer, Mowa Lettahs From Maine, The Beach

I finally finished the first draft of "The Auctioneer" today.  It's shorter than I'd hoped, about 75,000 words, but I usually add on my subsequent drafts so by the time it is completed it should be about 90,000 words.  Most people take out words and whole sections and plotlines when they revise.  I do some of that, but I also tend to add a lot more, like doing the framework for a new house and then adding all the finish work  It's a strange way of doing things, I guess, but it works for me.

And "Mowa Lettahs From Maine" should be ready to publish within a week or two.  The stories are coming easily, the only problem is the cover.  I'm contemplating putting it out in print as well as digitally, but I'm unsure about how to do the cover.  So most likely I will just publish it as an ebook, like the first one.  "Lettahs From Maine" continues to sell, slow but steady, so I'm hoping the new one will do as well.  I have ideas for more of the Lettahs From Maine series (yes, it has somehow become a series) so stay tuned.

Thinking about going to the beach tonight.  I usually play with Sam for a little while, then go for a walk or sit in my chair and read.  Seth used to love the beach, but now  he is too cool to hang out at the beach with his parents.  I'd say I was never like that as a teenager but, of course, I was. 

Almost as exciting as finishing the first draft of my story: I have a couple of tomatoes growing in my garden.  I'm a wicked fahmah, yessah.

Batman and Kindle

The first draft of The Auctioneer will be finished this week.  I'm very excited because I plan to set it aside and immediately go to work finishing Mowa Lettahs From Maine.  My goal is to have that one published as an ebook by the end of June, so I'll really have to push.  I've been writing a lot lately, especially at night after Sam goes to bed, and I think I'll be able to do it.

Sam has been watching the 1965 Batman movie, with Adam West.  He watched it about 5 or 6 times last week and loved it.  There is nothing better than watching a 5-year-old figuring out the jokes of such a classic, campy movie and laughing his head off.  His favorite may be the name of the person who bought a submarine from the Navy - P.N. Gwin.  Sam just thinks that's so funny - "Get it? P.N. Gwin?  It's Penguin!"  He's walking around saying things are purrrfect, like Catwoman, and quoting other parts of the movie.  The kid's going to be a comedy writer (I hope).

I got a Kindle from the library last week.  It's ironic that I publish ebooks but have never used a Kindle or Nook. I love the smell and feel of books and it's hard for me to let go of that - kind of like going down with the ship, I suppose.  But now I think, why can't I have both?   On the Kindle I am reading "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and really enjoying it.   Who knows, I may end up buying myself one for Christmas.

School's Out

School's out.  Sam is already done, and Seth's last day is tomorrow.  If I happened to be unsure about that, all I'd have to do is turn the radio on the classic rock stations and listen to Alice Cooper tell me School's Out three to five times a day. 

An editor wrote to me last weekend about a short story I submitted to his magazine.  He wrote that they would consider publishing my story if I made a few revisions, but judging by the list of suggestions I may need to start over and write an entirely different story.  I'm going to try to do what he asked, though.  Maybe he's right and it will make the story better.  I doubt it, but maybe.

Lettahs From Maine continues to sell.  I have to say that I'm very surprised and very pleased.  I wonder how Mowa Lettahs From Maine will do when I publish it this summer.  I should probably focus on finishing it before I worry about things like that.

Writing Again

I am not going to finish my Auctioneer first draft by the end of May.  Not even going to come close.  But, I do have a good reason.  I hurt my shoulder and was unable to write for two weeks.  I began to write again a few days ago, a couple hundred words a day, and put down a thousand yesterday.  I'm paying for it today - I can barely turn my head.  But it felt so good to write, I'll try to get another few hundred words down today. 

My writing was nothing out of the ordinary, but the setting was.  I write on my laptop in the same chair every day,  but I'm unable to do that right now because the chair hurts my shoulder and neck.  So I wrote on the living room couch with the seat reclined, in sort of an awkward position that only hurt a little bit.  Instead of playing the cd player that sits near the chair in my office, I used Michelle's ipod (and Hello Kitty headphones) and listened to The Beatle's White Album.  Maybe I'll do the same thing again today.  I may need to buy my own headphones.

The new goal, knowing that I will have to work slower in the forseeable future, is to finish "The Auctioneer" by the end of June and have "Mowa Lettahs From Maine" finished and available as an ebook by the end of July.  I had planned on having my next novel, "Bobby's House" available as an ebook by July but now I'm shooting for August.  So it should be a fun, busy summer.