Writers don’t get to talk about their work much. (Go ahead. Try to interject an anecdote about “character development” or “plot logic” into a conversation. Watch how bored civilians get. And how quickly.) But what else can a writer even talk about? I mean, this is me. This is my life. It’s what I do. If I remove myself from the conversation, I’m left just smiling and nodding.

Fascinating, yes. Uh huh.

Connections are… difficult. You can see people staring at you, but you can’t really see them. You’re really trying to work out that awkward bit of dialogue in chapter fourteen.

Interesting lifestyle choice.

I figured, maybe if I gave all my readers a heads up all at once…

Okay then. At this point, I’m desperately and completely consumed by “Tremble.” No, it’s not a drug. Not exactly. It’s the working title for my new novel. And it is of course killing me. After the last one, I thought I’d write something, you know, easy. Lots of action. An actual monster. Basic situation: a gang of characters barricaded in an old dark house, just trying to survive the night. Hell, just trying to survive. Then I got this really clever idea. Really really clever. I know, I thought to myself, I’ll make them all trash characters. You know? The sort that get disposed of early in a horror movie? Yes, that’s the way to go.

I must be out of my mind. Was I concentrating on unlikable characters to keep myself from becoming too close with these persons? Why did it never occur to me that – hey – these are my people? Suddenly, I am totally involved in their struggle.

Like I said, it’s killing me. It’s also taking me a lot longer to write than it should. There are a few reasons. I started a major editing assignment. Then I let myself get talked into writing a short story that floated off on a tangent… and then another tangent… and then…

And then there’s THE PINES and THE SHORE, two-thirds of my trilogy. For years, they’ve been comfortably ensconced at 47North (with the final part of the series at long last appearing at Uninvited Books). This didn’t seem to bother any of the editors at 47North, but it was sort of driving me a little crazy. There’s a reason I’m bringing this up now. After just a few months of my nagging them, they’ve agreed to release the books. So here I am, finally (finally!) consumed with rewriting and editing and working on the layout and cover (to match THE STREETS). Will they eventually be sold as a boxed trilogy set? It could happen. Will there be signed hardback collector copies? There’s an awful lot of work involved in this.



(Oh, and by the way, my novel THE STREETS is currently available for reviewing at Netgalley. It’s free, but if you’re not a member you’ll need to create a profile. The link for my book is here: https://www.netgalley.com/widget/open...)

A whole new website for Uninvited Books is also being developed. I’m excited.

That’s pretty much it with me, though it feels a lot busier. Oh, wait, the first foreign language version of one of my books is approaching as well. My novel WILLY is being released by Good Kill Edizioni (Rome), the editor of which called it “awesome.”



All right then. I’m pleased.

Back to work.