Look what ELSE I found

Actually, it's more like look WHO else I found. Back when I was first able to quit my day job and try my hand at writing for a living, I got the chance to do some short stories for a company called Foggy Windows Books. Don't try looking for them because they went out of business and I'm pretty sure they haven't come back. Anyway, the editor who worked with me was Russell Davis and he was actually the first editor I ever worked with.

Well, another friend of mine recently pointed me in the direction of a good western blog called Westerns For Today. Wouldn't you know it? It's run by Russell Davis. He's a great guy and his blog has a lot of reviews (including one for yours truly). I put a link to his blog on the side of this page, so pay him a visit and tell him who sent ya.

Look what I found

I was looking online for the release date of my upcoming entry in the Ralph Compton series and I found something even better: the cover! Usually, the editor sends me a copy of the cover, but sometimes they just come out on their own. This was a very pleasant surprise and I am really happy with it. Take a look for yourself. Pretty cool, huh? I particularly enjoyed this book because it’s an idea I’ve had kicking around in the back of my skull for quite a while. It was an idea that never quite fit into any of my own series and I rarely get to do standalone books. This was an opportunity to finally get this story out there. Personally, I’m glad to see that title on a real cover. It was just one of those titles that I’ve been itching to use. The book comes out on April 1st (no, that’s not an April Fool’s joke…I hope that doesn’t jinx anything). Hope you like it.

Appearances, etc.

As you might have noticed on my main web page, I’ve managed to set up a few appearances. The most recent is a book signing at a Borders here in Omaha. The last one I had here was great, so this should be a fun one. Also, I was approached by someone from the Public Library in Gretna, NE about speaking to their Adult Summer Reading Group. I’ll be discussing THE ACCOMPLICE as well as other writing stuff so that should be fun. The funny part is that I’ll probably need to flip through that book myself before I go since I wrote it close to two years ago.
The Western Writer’s Convention is coming up in June and that’s always fun. It’s in Scottsdale, so that should be a great road trip! Hittin’ the trail.

In other local news, it’s COLD!! Today, it’s in the negative degrees with a wind chill of negative 25. YOWZA!!! It’s good weather to write in, but not much else. I think there’s a family of squirrels frozen to the side of my car.

Bucking the Tiger

The second book in THE ACCOMPLICE series hit shelves today. Actually, it hit shelves in some stores last week, which was a full week early. Since I'm not J K Rowling or John Grisham, the release dates don't mean a whole lot. Also, I don't really care if they hit shelves early or not. As long as they get there, I'm happy. Now the next step is that they leave those shelves and are purchased, so you guys need to get out there and do your part!

I've already mentioned I'll be setting up a signing or two, but that won't be until April when all three of my most recent masterpieces (ok, maybe that's a stretch) hit stores.

In other news, The Assassination of Jesse James hit DVD. I didn't see this one in the theater because it looked BORING. It may be accurate (or not, I don't know) but "boring" doesn't work for any movie no matter what genre it is.

By the way, if you see a lot of spelling errors on this blog, it's because the spell check is broken on Blogger.com. I know, I know. I'm a writer and should also need to know how to spell. I do know how to spell, but I don't feel the need to line edit a blog post when I've got other stuff to write. I'm thinking about moving over to Live Journal, but I'm used to working on this. If this site would get their stuff together, I could just settle back into my nice little rut.

5 Stages of Editing

I published this on another blog, but thought you guys would get a kick out of it too. Maybe some of you can relate. If not, you're lucky.

Stage 1 ) Anticipation - “I can barely wait to see what my editor thought about that manuscript! It’ll really be great to get back to work on it and move this project along. YAAAYYYY!!!”

Stage 2 ) Denial - “What are all these marks doing on my manuscript? I guess the editor needs to earn their pay somehow, but it should make them happy if I work in a few of their
suggestions.”

Stage 3 ) Anger - “What the HELL?? Whoever scribbled all over my goddamn work must be ON SOMETHING!! What is this GARBAGE? If THEY’RE so smart, why don’t
THEY WRITE THE F’ING THING???”

Stage 4 ) Depression - “Oh my God. These suggestions are right. They’re all right, which means I was all wrong. This editor was right all over the place and I just suck! Why am I doing
this? How do I get paid for this? I suck!”

Stage 5 ) Acceptance - “You know what? Most of these suggestions are good, so I’ll use them. The ones that aren’t so great, I’ll just STET and move on. His is why there are buildings full of editors in New York. I come up with my part, they do theirs and a book is born. What was I going on about before? Jeez! I sure won’t go through all this next time.”

Yeah, right

---Although the speed of going through these stages might have varied from book to book, I still went through them while writing every book that's on this site and plenty that aren't. Unfortunately, my wife has to go through this too, but it's more entertaining for her. You know, like watching reruns.

Eventful couple of months

I was just in a Borders today and saw the second ACCOMPLICE on the shelves. And here I was told it was supposed to be out on the 5th of February! Imagine my consternation. Seriously, it was a nice surprise to see it out there and facing cover-out on the shelf. By the way. . .anyone who reads this can feel free to put my books with the front cover facing out on any shelves you may find them. Even after doing this for about ten years now (still a pup I know), I still get a charge out of seeing my new books on the shelves and cover out is the best!

The 5th BOOT HILL is due out toward the end of March and my second foray into the Ralph Compton series will be released on April 1st. Hopefully the whole April Fools thing doesn't amount to any bad karma. I've already posted cover shots of the first two and will put a picture of the new Compton cover up as soon as I get it. That one is titled, THE DEATH OF A BAD MAN. It's a story idea I've been kicking around for some time. It's simple, classic, but never really fit into either of my other series. Fortunately, I was able to put it to use in this Compton book. I hope you all like it.

I figure I'll arrange a signing or two once all three books have hit store shelves. It's always more impressive to have more than one new book at that table to keep me company. Once I get something arranged, I'll post it on my site and hopefully a few of you folks will stop by to say hello.

Back to some editing right now. I'll poke my head in here again before too long.

The trail into '08

Well, the holidays are over and they turned out pretty well for me. My wife and I stayed home, which is actually something new since we've traveled to see family for the holidays every year since we've been together. Even the years when we lived closer to family, we still didn't spend Christmas at our place. So that was nice, but next year it will be good to see everyone else again.

As for some new stuff book-wise, here's a look at the cover to the next MAN FROM BOOT HILL book. I could not be happier with how well this turned out. I know I say that about all my covers, but this is another one to add to the list. I especially like the darker color, since it matches the tone for the book. I don't want to give anything away, but things are never really light and breezy for Nicolai anyway. This one comes out in April, I think.

Also, next month the second book in the ACCOMPLICE series comes out. I talked about that one already when I posted that pic, but I'm anxious to see how well this one does. Doc really starts to hit his stride, so I think everyone should be pleased.

Not much else to report on for now. Even though there is a writer's strike going on, I'm not one of the members of any picket line. My friend called me up to complain about all the reruns lately and I told him, "I'm not in Hollywood!" Of course I felt for them when this all started and I'll always be behind the practitioners of my craft, but now I'm just getting sick of reality TV and game shows. Oh well. Just like Clemenza said in the Godfather, "This sort of thing's gotta happen every now and then, kid. It clears out the bad blood." It was something like that, anyway. Since there's nothing on TV, I might as well pop in my Godfather DVD to double check.