Happy 4th of July, my Friends!

 On this 249th anniversary of our Independence, I'd like to wish you all a safe, respectful Holiday!

We're looking forward to brats on the grill, baked beans with brown sugar and bacon, a nice cold tomato and cucumber salad,  a glass of iced tea or a cold brew, and friends to share the day with. We even have a red, white and blue cheesecake to end our feast!

We plan on playing some cards until dusk and then sitting out on the patio to watch the fireworks.

Simple pleasures.

I give thanks to our brave men and women of the Armed Forces, Fire Departments, Police and other service members who cannot celebrate with their loved ones on this day. 

Thank you for serving and protecting us.

Enjoy the day, my friends.

It's out, It's out, It's finally OUT!

 'Auntie Renita's Galactic Motel' has finally launched into the World!! Hooray!! 

Time for a Margarita (several maybe) and a plate of Oyster Nachos at Fish City Grill!!

This story took FOREVER to write, rewrite, and rewrite! Every time I thought I was near 'The End', I would notice a plot hole or a 'thin' scene or some terrible dialog. Off to 'Forever Editing Land' I would go, hoping to fill the gaps and gaffs.

But, I finally put it to bed, created a cover and launched on Amazon KDP.

This story combines my favorite aspects of hard SciFi, cool new creatures, adventure and of course humor. I hope you enjoy the fun and fireworks!

Auntie Renita's Galactic Motel

Finally put a stake in it!

 I've been working on 'Auntie Renita's Galactic Motel' for what seems like years. Wait. It HAS been years, technically! ;-)

I have some valid excuses though. A bout with 'choledocholithiasis' early last year took me out of circulation for weeks. It's when a gall stone lodges in your 'common bile duct'. If you're interested, and who isn't, google it. Just don't do it around lunch time.

I turned a lovely shade of yellow and couldn't stop shaking. I won't bore you with the details, but it took another month before I was clear of the all the issues surrounding the offending stone.

In the mean time, I had to postpone a procedure to implant an ICD (Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator). Once I recovered from the gall stone episode, I had the ICD inserted in a 'pocket' in my left chest. Fun. Again, google can tell you all you need or want to know about these life-saving devices. We live in amazing times!

In the meantime... Amazon KDP notified me that they were winding down their 'Vella' program. That program was supposed to address the idea that Readers would embrace an 'Episodic' delivery of stories.

The idea was to publish stories one episode every week or so. Basically break your story into chapters and publish a chapter or two at a time. Readers would sign up by buying 'coins' and uses those coins to buy each chapter of your book. The first few chapters were free.

I put two stories on Vella. I had a little success at first. But it quickly petered out. I wondered if it was my stories, but several readers had good things to say about them and encouraged me keep going. After a long lull between reader comments I decided to look around Vella.

95 percent of the stories were Werewolf porn, Romance porn, and Zombie/Apocalypse stories. Sigh.

I have zero interest in writing in those genres. Even if I did, I'd be lousy at it. Funny Zombie/Monster stories I could write. Maybe. But the 'serious' stuff? Nah. Not my thing.

So. Enough about my excuses. Once I got back on track I took one of my Vella stories, 'Auntie Renita's Galactic Motel' and have been turning it into a novel. Now we're cookin' with Crisco.

I've been working almost everyday for months now. Writing. Rewriting. Adding characters and action. Correcting some really terrible mistakes I had made in the original storyline. It's been a really fun project. Lots of humor and action.

Today I wrote 'The End', at last. 

Now comes the 'write/rewrite/rewrite' task. I've started on it today as well. After a couple of typo/phrasing passes to reacquaint myself with the story line, I'm going to start at square one and add interest and action to the base story.

Then I go back and recheck for typos and content.

Wish me luck!