December 29, 2020

Finished the first edit of PP and the RQ. Some new material added, but in general the text reads well. Another edit to polish and then it will be time to publish.

December 15, 2020

The first draft of PP and the RQ is finished. Editing and more editing will start in a couple of days (or sooner).

November 26

 PP and the RQ has passed the 200 page mark. More animals are in the fray. The Dragon Trio is still threatened, but at least they are prepared for battle. Sheriff Dudley's deputies have been dragged into the struggle and have acquitted themselves well. Another third and the first draft will be finished.

Progress

Peter Piper and the Rattlesnake Queen is well on the way with over a hundred pages written. The original estimate for publication is still doable, either towards the end of 2020 or early 2021. As usual, I've designed the cover for the next book in the series: Peter Piper and the Revolt of the Wraiths. Number 3 will give me something to do in 2021.😀

October 8, 2020

"Peter Piper and the Coyote King" is out in both paperback and ebook formats. It's been suggested that this book is the American "Harry Potter." Why is that? Adventures in a fantasy land (Faunia) with all the perils inherent in an escape drives the story from day to day. All the animals in Faunia want to dethrone King Coyote, but they need more soldiers in their armies. The three kids that are lead actors in the story have certain qualities that make them desirable for soldiers in the coup de guerre armies. 

The end of this book leads naturally into the second book of the series "Peter Piper and the Rattlesnake Queen." The second book is already started and will be published either late 2020 or early 2021.

August 31, 2020

First edit of "Peter Piper..." is one-third complete. Plenty of suspense for the reader and pleasing to the writer. Ideas for the follow-on novel come at various times. Don't want to be in a great hurry to finish as that's usually when less than stellar writing occurs.

August 1, 2020

Ended July on a very positive production note: 33K words on the Peter Piper story. The plot has thickened with reality intermixing with fantasy. Peter and his friends are now in very real danger from some of the fantasy creatures.

July 2020

As I thought about a novel that would incorporate both contemporary and fantasy aspects the characters and plot appeared to come together, although most of the plot is still in the thinking stage. The working title of the new novel, which may or may not make it to the published book is "Peter Piper and the Coyote King." I'm well into chapter two and have a page of notes on the next chapter (or an addition to chapter two). More as the novel progresses.

June 4, 2020

Finished the latest Dawes novel. It is now under review by Kindle Independent Publishing. Both paperback and ebook should be out next week. I'll update this post when the book is available.
Update: Both ebook and paperback are now available. The link to Amazon is: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089M1KQVL/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1591374442&sr=8-1

May 2020

Just reached the 38K position in the new Dawes novel. Forty thousand always has been a relatively difficult barrier to overcome. I don't know whether I've programmed myself to lose the thread of the story when that barrier appears or whether it's the summing up of the character mix intertwined with a plot that doesn't always appear to be ready to make the leap to 41K and beyond.

In the past it has taken tenacity and the will to stare at the blank page until enough thoughts have coalesced so that the path to the end of the story appears and reduces the next 20K to a doable run. So, we'll see said the blind man.

April 2020

Being at home has provided time to work on the new Dawes novel. I've just passed 25K on the story and have designed the cover. 

San Francisco in 1879 was both a dangerous and a safe place, depending on where you were geographically. And it also depended on how much money you had at your disposal. The anti-Chinese sentiment was still very strong, although Chinatown was pretty much left on its own unless as pointed out in my novel "Celestial Moon" vicious murders occurred within the confines of that enclave.

The new murders depicted in the latest Dawes novel are the kind that newspapers love for their macabre details. But the merchants and other high rollers in the city were aghast at the language used by the reporters and editors and wanted the newspaper owner of The San Francisco Chronicle to clamp down on such effusive and disturbing words to describe the goings-on.

So, the next 35K words should provide enough clues to Dawes and his loyal friend Sean O'Flynn to resolve the murders.

March 2020

Good progress on the latest Peter Dawes murder investigation. Many new characters and some from previous novels. This investigation is extremely difficult as there are no clues to begin with. A potential lead and witness might turn out to be fruitful, but we'll have to wait and see on that one. 

Some books that have snagged readers: Herlong (paperback buy), Akasha (Kindle read) and Sweet Drop in Africa: Charity (Kindle read). Thanks to all that have taken the time to read them.