Me completing a page of my graphic novel, Hidden Kingdom.
I finished a novel this last week. But my health is poor, and there is definitely no guarantee that I will have a chance to complete another. So, what if that was my last novel?
To be clear, I’m okay with whatever comes next. I am not afraid to die. I don’t regret anything I have ever done in my life. And if I have a stroke or a heart attack (myocardial infarction is too funny of a phrase to use here, so don’t read inside the parentheses) tomorrow, I will be satisfied that my life is complete. I have written good books, and I have done good work.
But I do still have novels written in my head. One of the oldest completes the character arc of Milt Morgan (See portrait on the left, and you are allowed to read inside these parentheses.) The story is called The Wizard in his Keep.
It is the story of Milt as an adult, a lonely, unmarried, and unloved man, taking the newly orphaned kids of his childhood friend’s sister and spiriting them away to a secret world, and his friend, Brent Clarke, the FBI agent, Tracking him down to retrieve the Clarke’s kin.
There is also a novel in me about the grown-up adventures of Sherry Cobble-Clarke. It completes her story. She is trying to connect with her new stepson while having to bring her new husband together with her two twin daughters, Tandy and Mandy Clarke.
It is a novel called A Field Guide to Fauns. And it is set entirely in a nudist park.
I am also underway with the third book in the re-write of my sci-fi comedy novelAeroQuest.
But whatever else I can get completed is gravy on the meatloaf that is my literary legacy. Who even knows if anyone cares? But I will do what I can do, and then the best that I can do will be did and done.
“The Wings of Imagination”Bird-brains speak outYes, this is in the air. See? No space suits.Travel by “airship”If we cannot fly, at least our spirits doTravel by bubble-blowing, gum-chewing goldfish.We all have wings… sometimes.
My book advertised here is the best book I have that hasn’t gotten a single reader yet. I am trying to promote it by giving out free Kindle e-book copies for free this weekend. That tactic is supposed to generate readers and reviews. So far, two days in, only one free book has been selected by anybody on Facebook, Twitter, or here on WordPress. I mean, even clicking on a free book and then never reading it helps me as a marketer. But I am not getting any of that.
I did better with Recipes for Gingerbread Children, especially the first two days. But I admit, even though it shares a time, parts of a plot, and characters with The Baby Werewolf, it is a better book.
But tying the two books together has no visible effect.
I will, however, keep trying. I have other good books to promote as well as this one. Perhaps people are too afraid of werewolves to buy it, even for free.
Click on this if you’d like a free e-book. Every single one clicked on helps.
My book is free this weekend in e-book format. This book is a werewolf story, a murder mystery, a comedy, and a slice of life in the lives of the kids who make up the softball team and liars’ club that is the Norwall Pirates.
Arkin Cloudstalker and his friend Lazerstone walked into the starport center in the planet known as Ibiguy. This stop on their journey had been a necessity brought on by lack of supplies and fuel aboard the little scout ship they now flew. It was only one small needle-like wedge of mechanical parts to use in the quest to puncture holes in the fabric of space and re-unite Cloudstalker with his Lady Knights.
Swirls of orange dust flew about the grand concourse in this starport. It was a parched and cracked desert world, this Ibiguy. It was one small discordant note in the symphony of space and time. It was also a hardship to travelers. There was no water and little hydrogen in this system to use as fuel for starships. It had to be purchased at the starport in order to move along to the next stanza in their travels through the star lanes.
Many alien eyes pondered the odd pair as they walked through the starport. Birdlike aliens, wedge-headed aliens, oceanic aliens wearing suits filled with salty water, and star-fish shaped aliens known as Sparkies. This world, rarely used by Galtorr Imperials, had become a haven to those who were persecuted, especially those known as Un-Humans because their make-up was not humanoid. Freaks, too, who had slipped away from their forced servitude, found sanctuary in this place. For obvious reasons, the starport had only planet-bound elements, a downport. There was no space station or space port in the system.
“I don’t understand,” said Arkin, inclining his cowboy-hatted head towards Lazerstone, “why are they watching us?”
“I sense anticipation. Their pulse and surge rates are all slightly elevated, indicating anxiety of some sort.”
“Yes, I feel it. Can you tell what might be causing it?”
“Is there an angry cyborg in your past?”
“What?” Arkin’s eyes grew round and fearful.
“There is a being re-animated with artificial energy flows behind us. He is seventy-two per cent metallic and eight per cent polymer. He has been trailing us since we passed through the first security gate.”
“It’s Ace Campfield.” Arkin tried to pretend that the music of the universe was not pounding out an eerie tuba score that made the heart rate climb dramatically.
“We know he’s there,” cautioned Lazerstone. “I can see him even when he’s hiding because I don’t rely on eyes to see. It gives us a tactical advantage.”
“Tactical advantage?”
“I can’t read minds, but I know he’s got a small plasma weapon that he is firing up for use. We can attack first.”
Arkin began to sweat profusely. He only narrowly escaped the bounty-hunting Mechanoid the last time. This would have to be a fatal confrontation, one way or another.
“He’s hideous in a way,” commented Lazerstone. “He is a creature who’s not fully alive and certainly not dead. His cold heart seems to be without feeling.”
“You’re going to say it again, aren’t you?”
“What? Fascinating?”
“Yes, that. You got it from ancient holovids, didn’t you Mr. Vulcan?”
“Yes. It’s a good word. But I am not Spock.”
“Fascinating.”
Arkin pulled his gauss pistol and dove to the right. Lazerstone dove to the left. They both rolled and came up pointing their weapons at a surprised Ace Campfield.
“What? You will shoot me with those things? A speedy slug thrower and a finger?”
“Yes,” said Arkin, pulling the trigger. The gauss pistol launched its accelerated slug at mach 4 and Lazerstone simultaneously launched crystal shards from the end of his finger. The slug tore through Ace’s cranium, breaking circuitry and slagging connections. The crystal shards flew past the rotted head and plunged into the ground in five places.
The face of Ace Campfield wrinkled upwards into a skeletal grin of pure mockery. “Didn’t feel a thing!” He raised his plasma handgun to point it at Arkin’s white face.
Out of the ground surrounding Campfield, five crystal arms rose out of the dirt like a scene from a George Romero movie. Each grabbed the bounty-hunter, pulling at him from a different direction.
“What the…?”
Ace’s arms and legs splintered as the five new Lazerstones stood up, rending him limb from limb.
“Curse you, you alien scum!” cried the limbless torso that was previously Ace Campfield.
“Sorry there were only five of us to answer the call,” said Lazerstone, “but there’s a limited amount of harmonic quartz on this planet.”
Arkin smiled and nodded at his friend. “Fascinating!”
He had so many expenses, he didn’t know what to do.
Of course, I am not complaining.
Even though it’s a tennis shoe and not a cowboy boot.
I have got an ice cream truck outside. Sponsored by Hot Wheels.
And now that I have a substitute teaching job, I almost have more money than bills… well, some months… maybe.
But I still can’t afford ice cream. Or insulin.
But my neighbor lives in a house made of eggshell. And he has cancer. But he gets visits from the Partridge Family in their funky school bus. It is better to live on a shoe-string budget than an eggshell budget. But we all have our troubles. Which Aetna will never willingly pay for.
Except for the rich guy who lives on Mel Gibson Hill. He has no troubles.
He has plenty of money.
And he is the reason the rest of us are poor.
Because he pays for politicians to give him tax breaks on all that money that never trickles down the hill.
But life is good in Toonerville Town.
Unless that shoestring comes undone.
And then it takes lots more hard work to tie it up again.
I have been running free-book promotions on Twitter and Facebook with limited results. But people are reading my books. Now that I will soon have 14 books published and available on Amazon, I can run one free-book promotion per month, as the author’s right to run that sort of promotion without paying for it renews every three months for each individual book.
This month I am promoting The Baby Werewolf for the first time.
Here’s a run-down of the previous promotions.
So, as a reminder, the next promotion I am trying this next week is for the novel The Baby Werewolf.
Because I was a teacher, I have a thing about kids, and making pictures of kids.Some kids, of course, tell lies… a lot. Or maybe all kids…
But kids have an inherent beauty.
And kids are naturally innocent and good.And they are naturally imaginative and individually unique.No matter what culture they come from…Or what color they are…They are worthy of making pictures of… And they are worthy of love.
My new novel, finished the first time the day before yesterday, is not what writers call a rough draft. My writing process consists of doing rough draft, revision, and proofreading chapter by chapter. Or, as I call them, canto by canto.
It was written following an outline that existed first in my imagination as it was played out like a television show, dreamed up episode by episode knowing what would ultimately happen by the end of the story.
So, the process about to begin is not a second draft. It is not a revision-step either, though minor revisions may happen in the final pass before publishing. It is merely a final proofread where the story is reread as a whole, and given necessary corrections of typos and boo-boos. As a writing teacher, I have seen too many young writers skip this final, critical step. They don’t go back and read the whole thing as one piece of writing, stepping back far enough to view the work of art as a whole. How can any good writer only read the thing through as he or she writes it and figure it is good enough as it is? It may be that, but it is probably not.
Adjustments will occur for me because this new novel uses characters from a series of novels in which time passes and people change. Those adjustments are what you can safely call revisions. The character of Milt Morgan is appearing in the novel as a narrator. He has appeared in the story cycle three times now, in three different novels, and this is the first time he is ever used as a first-person narrator. He has changed and grown up a bit from novel to novel. This time he is no longer a virgin. He has freed himself from the cycle of abuse that he and his older sister both endured from alcoholic parents. He has a deeper understanding now of what magic really means and what meaning it gives to his life to call himself a wizard. But he has yet to come to terms with how lying and fantasizing about life can lead to consequences. That part of his future story will be tackled in another story that is a novel in my head, but not yet written out in novel form. That is a future writing project called TheWizard in His Keep. So, I must check this novel to be sure that all the pistons in the engine of his personal story arc firing properly in this book to ensure that it carries him forward into that new adult character he must later become. Those pistons in the engine are what revision is really all about.
Characters will die in this novel, as they do in almost every novel I write. Usually at least one bad guy, and one good guy. Of course, the doomed ones are not fated to change in this book. The story is set. I won’t be surprised by a death in this story the way I was with Snow Babies, and The Bicycle-Wheel-Genius. Of course, this story is about Immortals, and it is possible that a character dies in this book who doesn’t stay dead.
The final pass through The Boy… Forever will not be a rewrite either. Rewriting is what I am doing to AeroQuest where whole chapters (cantos) are added and left out, New characters are created. Old ones are deleted. And the plot changes in how the details come together. And though the main plot points remain, spread over four books instead of one, they are reorganized and better fleshed out.
That book is becoming books. The original and the rewritten are quite different from each other. For one thing, the new versions will make use of my cartooning skill and allow the books to be far more illustration-filled. Rewriting is a total do-over.
So, my baby book is still not quite ready to be born. But it is a complete book. Only the messy business of giving birth remains.
Catch a Falling Star 
Living on a Shoe String
There was an old man who lived in a shoe.
He had so many expenses, he didn’t know what to do.
Of course, I am not complaining.
Even though it’s a tennis shoe and not a cowboy boot.
I have got an ice cream truck outside. Sponsored by Hot Wheels.
And now that I have a substitute teaching job, I almost have more money than bills… well, some months… maybe.
But I still can’t afford ice cream. Or insulin.
But my neighbor lives in a house made of eggshell. And he has cancer. But he gets visits from the Partridge Family in their funky school bus. It is better to live on a shoe-string budget than an eggshell budget. But we all have our troubles. Which Aetna will never willingly pay for.
Except for the rich guy who lives on Mel Gibson Hill. He has no troubles.
He has plenty of money.
And he is the reason the rest of us are poor.
Because he pays for politicians to give him tax breaks on all that money that never trickles down the hill.
But life is good in Toonerville Town.
Unless that shoestring comes undone.
And then it takes lots more hard work to tie it up again.
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