In case any of you have been hiding under a rock and don’t know, in addition to all of the things she does around the house, from installing microwave ovens and splash guards to hanging window blinds, putting together bar stools, and gardening, Miss Terry cooks, too. And that’s what she did most of yesterday, […]
I spent most of yesterday updating the subscriber list for my author’s newsletter, adding about 100 new subscribers, and then mailing the newsletter out to them. I also deleted three e-mail addresses that bounced when I sent it out a couple of days ago. Then I spent some time talking to a couple of author […]
I spent so many hours making corrections to chapters I narrated in my new John Lee Quarrels book the last two days that my eyes hurt. But I got most of the chapters done and gave them to Terry to edit and proofread. Once she was done with that, I made her corrections and then […]
We awoke yesterday morning to the sound of our neighbor Jesse Bolton putting the hurricane shutters on our windows. Yes, it’s that time of year again. June through the end of November marks hurricane season here on the Florida coast. Last year Jesse installed the hardware for the clear polycarbonate hurricane shutters and put them […]
Thank you to everyone who sent e-mails and messages after reading yesterday’s blog, hoping I was feeling better and more like myself. When I woke up yesterday morning I was still pretty out of it, and I actually fell asleep at the kitchen table after eating a late breakfast. But I decided that that wasn’t […]
Well, it took longer than expected, but I woke up to a message yesterday morning that the printed edition of The Hard Years, the fourth book in my Tinder Street family saga, is now available on Amazon. Better late than never, right? Meanwhile, I sent four more chapters of Pucker Factor, my next John Lee Quarrels […]
Last week my buddy Jesse and I decided that yesterday we and our ladies would take the pontoon boat out on the Intracoastal Waterway for a day of cruising and fishing. But since the wind was blowing at about 15 miles an hour for most of the day, and the high temperature only got up […]
Yesterday was another day spent working on my new Tinder Street book, The Hard Years. I know some of you are probably tired of hearing about it by now, but that’s what’s taking up most of my time these days. I started the day by making corrections to several chapters that Roberta had sent me […]
If I had to describe our decorating style, I guess I would call it eclectic. Someone once told me that’s a fancy word for totally unorganized, but we like it. And whatever you want to call it, we do like the way our house looks. It’s a combination of beach and nautical themes mixed in […]
In yesterday’s blog, I said that if the stars aligned properly I hoped to finish my new Big Lake book by the end of the day. I don’t know if it was because the stars didn’t cooperate or because those darn characters of mine wouldn’t cooperate, but either way, they made a liar out of […]
The other day someone referred to Terry and me as enjoying our retirement here on Florida’s Central Coast. We both had to laugh at that because even though we are of an age to draw Social Security and get Medicare, we are far from retired. When our insurance company refused to cover treatment for Terry’s […]
After posting two recent blogs on my writing and self-publishing activities, A Day In The Life and The Mechanics Of It All, some readers had questions that I thought I would answer today. Q. How many copies of your own books do you keep on hand, and when you order copies of your own books […]
Yesterday was a busy day for me. My third proofreader, Roberta, sent back the last chapters of my new John Lee Quarrels book, Ka-Bar Karma, and after I made all of her changes and tweaked a couple of things that seemed a little flat, I printed out the entire manuscript for Terry to start proofreading […]
In response to questions about my writing, I posted a blog titled A Day In The Life a while back describing a typical day in my life as an author. That blog led to other questions about the process that goes into it all, getting a book from concept to finished and available for my […]
Before I do anything else today, I do want to remember the tragedies of September 11th, 2001. I don’t think any of us will ever forget where we were when we heard the news about the first airplane hitting one of the Twin Towers. We were in our motorhome in Traverse City, Michigan, where Terry […]
Our first chore yesterday was cleaning the pontoon boat. I had already hosed it down thoroughly with fresh water when we got back from our little excursion on Sunday, but the inside had a lot of spots where salt water or salt air had gotten onto the dashboard and seats, and they need to be […]
After reading yesterday’s blog, I got private messages or e-mails from at least half a dozen people who wanted to know how our first night on our new Denver Mattress went. When I laid down, I didn’t experience the almost immediate backache I have been getting, and when I rolled onto my left side to […]
When we turned on the news yesterday morning, we learned that Joe Biden had been officially named President-elect of the United States. I know for many Americans that was wonderful news, and for many others, it was not what they had hoped for. Either way, it’s a new day and a new start for our […]
Yesterday afternoon I finished The Good Years, book two in my Tinder Street historical family saga. I started working on it on July 16 and it came in at 103,289 words. Now on to the proofing/editing stage. Things should go quicker with this book because we tried something different this time around. During the writing […]
Have you ever eaten alligator? I have heard people say that the idea of eating a reptile is enough to make them gag, but the way I look at it, if gators eat people, turnabout is fair play. I have eaten it many times and it’s usually been pretty good, although at a couple of […]