Category: career

I finished The Spanish Bride yesterday.  Two marathon sessions, Saturday and Sunday, got me through the last four chapters.  The last two ended up needing major reconstruction.  About a week or two ago I realized I needed one more plot thread, which required me to bounce back and forth throughout the body of the novel to insert the necessary connective tissue.

But it’s done.  Donna will go through it once more for nits to pick, but that should only take a week or two, then the last pass to straighten out typoes and such, and off it goes to my agent.…

It’s Hallowe’en.  It was supposed to be cloudy today, but the morning light is beautiful.

I have an office in the basement of my house, with three windows at ground level, situated in such a way that a great deal of daylight floods in.  Three walls are covered by books.  My work area contains three computers—this one on which I’m writing a Distal Muse entry, my main writing computer (which is attached to the internet in no way), and my old 386, which had been my writing computer for years.  The only reason I replaced it was because my old HP printer died and all the new ones use USB ports instead of the massive pin-register cables. …

The other day I received an email from Delos Books, an Italian publisher, informing me that they have accepted a short story of mine. This is a resale and is, in fact, the first such I’ve made to a foreign market on my own. The story in question is Flesh Trades which appeared originally in Tales of the Unanticipated, the fall/winter 95/96 issue. Ten years later I’ve managed to resell it.

I should have been pursuing foreign sales all along, but it’s one of those details that, until you get comfortable with it, you just tend to neglect. Besides, it can be confusing.…

Tomorrow morning at a little after seven in the morning I will be getting on a plane and a couple hours later getting off it at Reagan International Airport in Washington D.C. As president of the Missouri Center for the Book I’ll be attending the National Book Festival this weekend. The following weekend, I’ll be back in town at The Big Read in downtown Clayton Missouri, also with the MCB.

I thought I’d take a few moments here to let you (my hidden and presumed Reader) know what’s been going on. At least two people who have signed the new Guestbook asked about future book projects, so…

Right at the moment, Nothing Is Happening.…