There Are Books Everywhere, Yet I Am Compelled to Write Another....

I have five published books: "Falling", The Crow and The Wind", "The Christmas Closet and Other Works", "Out on a Limb of the Family Tree", and "Signs from God"

I have another book in its final proofing and am fretting over the cover as we speak. I want it out before Christmas for obvious reasons. (You do give books as gifts, don't you?)

I can walked into Barnes and Nobel or browse Amazon.com and see so many books it boggles the mind.  And yet...

I am already writing another one.

It's like something inside wells up and must spill out. My mind becomes overtaken by these characters, and I think of them (and hear them think) as much or more than ya'll who surround me.

Spooky, ain' it?

I've sold around a thousand books, all told.

Not very many, if you are Stephen King.

But for me, it is almost unbelievable.

I mean, my mother just doesn't have that much money.

But that fact (the number sold, not my mother's financial situation) is not the reason I keep writing. Of course, I want somebody to read what I write. That's why I check how many people read my blog every day. (One day 127 read it. Some days only 15 people read it).

I am obviously not a New York Best Seller, but I bet their heads are as busy as mine.

I don't think we are that much different.

Well, except the bank account thing.

That's different.

Anyway, come late fall/early winter "The Year of Nine: Where the Rain Begins" will be published, and I'll be saying pretty please come to my book signings and annoying you with a little bit of self serving advertisement.

Meanwhile, I'm writing another book.

I'll keep ya posted, whether you want to be or not.

Will the Well Run Dry?

Every time I finish writing a book, I wonder if it will be my last.

After all, I never intended to write a book. Short stories, yes. Poems, yes. Little musings about things in general, yes. But a book? Nope. In fact, I always said I'd never write one, as I didn't have the patience to write something more than a few pages.

Well, I was wrong. At least four times, so far.

Actually, I have two children's books finished (Oh, Husband/Artist....) and enough short stories and poems and musings combined to make a book.  But I'm really talking novels here.

Each book I have written is very different from the other. Sort of like all your children are different from one another; you wonder how could they be so different coming from the same parents and environment? But it happens, every time there is  more than one child, I would say.

I've picked up a little thing I had started on before I came up with "The Year of Nine", the novel I have folks editing for me now.

It's twenty-something pages, and I am not sure, but it "feels" like another book. Don't know yet, though. Could just turn out to be a long short story.

I printed it out the other day to familiarize myself with it again, since my last read through of it had been over a year. I thought it was pretty good, so I tinkered around and have written a few more pages.

Who knows?

I don't see how writing could be as much fun for folks who are trying to make a living from it. Deadlines, pushy agents, demanding people; none of which I have to deal with. Don't get me wrong, I have to make at least a small margin of profit so I can proceed with the next book.

Well, I've done that profit thing (barely), so I guess we're off to the races again.

And if a book doesn't emerge, that's okay, too.

But whatever it turns out to be, I'm taking my time.