Saturday, April 28, 2018

Writing, BlogTalking, Coolwalking, Smoothtalking...Yeah, Right!

Well, let’s try a new font while I sort through a bunch of activities, things, semi-accomplishments and observations, as I come out of realizing that my body is growing old.

Not me, mind. Just the vehicle I’m traveling around in. As the parts start to age, I find I’m dealing with the realization that upgrades and tune-ups may no longer be an option.

My hands are definitely becoming an issue. My touch-typing is not what it once was, and I feel like my brain and body need to be in tune and in sync in order to work. If not, my fingers are all over the place, and the muscle memory is not quite as good.

Finding out also that I have to really focus to keep on point. Certain tasks require it, and I’ve been able to focus my mind on them, and accomplish them pretty well.

Other things, not so much. I have too many things, interests, and I have to figure out how to manage them.

Case in point: I end up doing a lot of small projects, such as writing for Broadwayworld.com, PopImpressKA Journal (more on that in a bit), and now contributing to Plaisted Publishing House.

Okay, have I namedropped enough?

Then we have the radio fun and merriment. Radio PA continues apace, and going well; my stability is pretty much predicated on that. Not a job, again; but also my last stop in the business.

Now I’ve gone on at length about The Music Club, on Radio-Airwaves Station, which is still a hell of a lot of fun, and keeps me up on the new music that interests me.

I have also been tabbed by my publisher, Brown Posey Press to host a talk show.


My first show...here on the site you will find shows from the varied imprints of Sunbury Press Books, and it’s getting easier for me to get back into to swing of hosting such a program.

Now, getting my fellow authors to do the show...well, it’s a help and a boost to the sales, believe me.

I made a trip to Carlisle today in honor of the Indie Bookshop recognition day. Whistlestop Bookshop is right in town, a neat little place with exceptional taste.



The cat's name is Mulan. 

I’ve spent the past several months working the owner to get my books in there...or a signing, or something.

You have to keep working it...Jeff promises to check my work out.

I was there today as my old friend T.M. Becker celebrated the release of her book, Full Moon Rising, on Prospective Press.




Tsiph (her full name is Tshipuneah) is a lady I met eight years ago through a writer’s group. She was working on this story way back then. I know the feeling of working, editing, writing, rewriting, and waiting years for your opportunity. Very happy for her.

Can’t wait to start reading this. And you know, reading other people’s books is a must as an author. Been trying to expand out on that, and I have to with the Blog Talk program. Sharon Marchisello’s work is out of my field, Going Home was not unlike my latest work, Live from the Cafe. Going back to the hometown, to find what’s changed and what has not was Luc and Emily’s MO, but for different reasons, and two people not expecting to see one another again.

I’ll be interviewing Robert Barsky, author of Hatched, also of the Brown Posey imprint next week. I think that will be a fun interview. I try to make them fun, two people talking about books and stuff, and that makes it work.

I am also open to those from outside the imprint. Tsiph wants to do it.
      
We also talked about finding places to sign and sell, and it gets harder than ever. Even indie bookstores aren’t always so interested...to be fair, time, space, resource, I get it.

But like Tsiph, I can do a signing and not be in your face and in the way. Damn thing works, and you can make it work.

It has boosted interest in this, HINT HINT HINT...


I guess for me I am still finding my audience. I know my voice is finding its way to the page, and in a manner that is necessary.

Three books down, and the first of the Sweet Dreams Series will go later in the year. Searching for Roy Buchanan is the subtitle, and I’ve talked a lot and at length about it.

More editing, and I’ll be seeing my cover artist in May, hopefully; more legal stuff to do, more of too many things to do, and the knowledge we cannot quit this thing.

I do not quit.

Notice that yet? Yeah, I’m stubborn as fuck, but if it’s worth doing, you do it.

This is.

Now, back to health briefly...spending a bit more time at home, partly due to feeling like I have to get back to it. Lived here two years; not much has changed in the home, but I will be making a few minor changes as time goes by. It’s most comfy here; and regardless of where I live, I prefer and can handle it.

Also have to decide whether or not a certain Rx is gonna keep being used. I did something to my back over a week ago, and spasms were pretty bad.

I have seen the chiro, seen the doc, changed my sleeping position, etc. Now I do have a lovely muscle relaxant, but I can’t use it before work.

But two days of it, and I know what it’s done. I am alert, but it drops me back a gear, and I do not like it. I think the rest for a couple days outside the job was good, but I’m feeling better, and I just don’t want to go a full month of this shit.

People who really need it? I get you. The opioid epidemic here in PA is pretty bad, but I think we know where we can point the finger. Not at the victims of this, either.

And for those of you who ask:


Kao is adjusting well. She is a little monster. She “garbages,” which my mother used to castigate our old Beagle Rufus for doing. I’ve made it so she can’t really do that, and Kao has managed to get along with the others.

She is a quirky cat; doesn’t like getting picked up, and petting her is when she damn well feels like it.



Now what else?

Well, the feeling I have of not being able to relax, yet knowing I need to. I have a string of books that while not ready, are close to it. I could put one out a year for a very long time, but I think a bunch won’t see the light of day in my lifetime.

But I plan to hang out in this body for a while, so...get used to it.

I think as an excuse, I find other things to finish, or do, to avoid whatever unidentified thing exists that I don’t want to do. I still have no idea what that is.

Oh yes...I have a photo shoot tomorrow, courtesy of my longtime friend Alice. These are for this little publication:


Pretty cool, eh? Well, I have written a short piece on my good friend Gene Dante for the upcoming magazine, which can be picked up physically or online...the art world collides with fashion and so much more.

So much more to do...reading...been working on a number of books, and getting through them. Isabelle Allende’s The Japanese Lover was interesting; not a fan of hers, but this one worked out nicely.

The Gift of Rain...this is fucking brilliant. Tan Twan Eng’s historical novel of pre, during and postwar Malaya from a British mixed-race young man (and old man’s view). Detailed, graphic, violent, and unflinching.

We can only hope to write like this.

Not sure why, but I gave Amy Tan another chance. The Bonesetter’s Daughter was not as great as many made it out to be, just hard to follow. But The Joy Luck Club, despite jokes some have made...not done yet, good, but still a focus thing I have not been able to figure out. But the characters are very well done, and crafted nicely.

Tsiph’s book goes up top with all these others. As for the SDS, I am slowly probing the areas that need to be, to get it a bit better, and to also figure out how to promote again, and to do it right.

I also finished a manuscript, or the second draft, of a YA work, The Feels. It’s got a way to go; but I am now seeing there is a real, dual line of my writing.

The SDS is one line, and that contains, ready for this, two other trilogies written, and a book that could be three!

WTF, right?

And...the string of stories that are of a different vein. Serious ones, but also stories that find a way to celebrating a youth that I never celebrated.

So we’ll see where we go.

As usual, I’m a man in a hurry, but whatever. It’s how I’ve always been.

Peace, Out. 

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