Not All Who Wander Are Lost

I'm at t-minus three days and counting to starting the new school year. It wasn't as prolific a summer as I'd hoped. I had great big plans. I was going to finish up FLAMES OF THE FALLEN and make a huge dent in REDEMPTION OF THE FALLEN. Yeah. No. Flames got a little out of control--ha! No pun intended. So, it's the next book I'm working on. I think. It was supposed to be another novella like SHADES OF THE FALLEN. However, I had a brainstorm and it's growing up before my eyes. Ah well. I also really enjoyed my summer. We went to Florida for two weeks and I got to spend a ton of time in Walt Disney World, which is one of my favorite places in the universe. My dream is to some day be able to be a snow bird. That requires selling a lot more books. Is it funny that I can't seem to concentrate on anything this week? This is my 20th year in the classroom and some things never change. I never can the week school starts. I start thinking about everything I need to...

Usually, I'm of the opinion that any publicity is good publicity. However, I'm a little bit annoyed at the moment. I've spent the last hour looking up my own books online. I've found five websites where you can download my books for free. I sent three cease and desist emails to get them removed. The fourth I can't find any contact information at all and the fifth one is the one that really peeved me. First of all, in order to have my copyrighted material removed I have to provide the specific download links they have, must send it from a company email (yahoo, gmail, etc will be rejected) and then prove it's my work. PROVE IT'S MY WORK!!! Yeah, that last part is the one that burns me. How the hell do I prove it's my work. Show them the agonizing screen shots of a work in progress? Show them a link to the publisher's page where my picture and my name are right there? I've been published since RIBBONS OF MOONLIGHT, I think that was 2008. I'v...

I can't do anything half way. Ask anyone who knows me well. I'm kind of an all or nothing kind of person. I either love something or don't care about it at all. I either commit to a frightening degree or I will avoid, avoid, avoid... About two months ago I decided that I needed to do something to get healthier. I was running up the stairs at work and was winded. Well, that's not good. So, I start trying to figure out what I can do. I stumbled across an ad on my Facebook feed--posted there by a union friend of mine--that a local gym was offering a six week weight loss challenge.  I thought about it. I scoured every inch of the gym's website. Twice. I looked up their classes. Then I looked up what the heck Tabata was because I've never heard of it. I talked to Brian and then I pulled the trigger. So, yeah. That's where I've been these past two months. Oh, and finishing up the school year which anyone knows--8th graders in May? Not pretty.  So, I sta...

You know what they say about the road to hell, right? Well, my daughter's new school, just like the old one, has an auction as their big fundraiser. Every family is required to either donate something to the auction or they're "asked" to purchase a certain amount of raffle tickets. Well, I thought I had a great idea for a unique raffle item. I'm working on a summer solstice novella. Though, if the beginning is any indication it won't be short enough to fit into the anthology and I'll look to publish it on its own. Anyway, that's not the point. I figured since I was working on it now, I would auction off the opportunity to create a character. I created a character sheet, gave a copy of book one, so they could see what they were getting into. I figured there are going to be hundreds of people at this thing. Someone will think this is a good idea and think it's kind of neat to be able to create a character. Well, my grand notion got exactly two bids...

Whoa. It's been a while, hasn't it? I have no excuses. There have been multiple times during the last couple of months that I've thought--I really need to do another blog. Then I just didn't. Don't know why. I don't know if there were just a mental block or pure bone-deep laziness. Maybe a combination of both. I read something both disturbing and interesting yesterday. A writing acquaintance of mine put out on her blog that she was retiring. She loved to write, loved to create worlds and characters, but no matter that, she was tired. Tired of piracy that robbed her of her minute royalties and tired of feeling like she was talking to the same three or four people who interacted with her various pages. I admit, it's daunting. I've thought about it myself. Perhaps that's a little of what was behind my blog neglect. If I didn't do a blog who was really going to notice? I'm a few days away from a new book going live. FIRST OF THE FALLEN--the n...

Warp speed ahead! Alright, I know Star Wars is what's all the rage right now, not Star Trek, but I couldn't think of an appropriate Star Wars term. Maybe something along the lines of, "Someone turn off the hyperdrive!" We seem to be going Ludicrous Speed! Got a little bit of Spaceballs in there to round everything out. No, seriously, when did time fly so quickly? I remember when I was my daughter's age time seemed to slow down around Christmas time. I remember my brother and I having days to inspect, weigh and practically sniff the presents under the tree. Tony always had the dilemma on whether or not to open the largest present first or heighten the anticipation by leaving it last. Me? I was always looking for the books. My 8 year old has been dancing, literally dancing, around the house this week singing about how long Christmas is taking to get here. I actually thought that when I had the week before Christmas off I'd be able to savor the anticipation a l...

The snow is already up to the tops of my boots here in the burbs of Chicago. I have a snowman I can look eye to eye with in my front yard and yet it's not even Thanksgiving yet. Welcome to the Midwest! It should be 50 by Thursday so all the snow will turn to leafy brown sludge rimed with ice in the mornings. However, it's the time of year we all turn our minds to our blessings instead of the irritations of things like the weather. I find it interesting that every November my Facebook wall explodes with people telling the world what they're thankful for. Every day for the entire month until we get sucked into the wonderful world of Christmas shopping and elbowing people out of the way for the newest creepy Elmo toy. Don't get me started on that elf on the shelf thing. (Shivers) I swear those things are plotting against us when we're not looking. Back to thankfulness. I decided to not participate in the public declaiming of thanks this year. I have in the past, bu...