New Cover For Heroes

I am close to putting up a revised version of Heroes on Amazon. In the meantime, I changed the cover.  The new cover was designed by a wonderfully talented woman named Teddi Black.  I hope you like the cover.  Look for the revised version of Heroes within the next couple of weeks.  I will announce it here.

Thanks.

Smoke Now Available on Amazon

I have a new novel available for download from Amazon. It is called Smoke.  It features some of the same characters in Heroes.  The two main characters from both books are Chris Garvin and George Hofmann.  The action in Smoke takes place earlier in time from Heroes.  Smoke explains why Garvin is so hesitant to get involved in the homicide investigation detailed in Heroes.  I hope you will enjoy this new novel.  I invite comments and questions from readers.  

As time permits, I will provide more insights into the novel.

Happy Reading.

In The Beginning

I remembered that I had an old paper copy of Heroes.  I thought it might be of some trivial interest for people to see what it looked like when I first printed it out.   So, there you have it.  I have printed versions of all of my books.  I don't think these prints have any written notes in the margins. At least, none that I wrote. Still, if there is ever a dispute about if a copy if legit, you can refer back to these pictures.

I need to start thinking about getting Smoke ready to publish. I think I might go with Smashwords this time. I was thinking I might have Smoke ready by summer. But, now it might be the fall.

Any preferences between Amazon and Smashwords?

Looking Back In Wonder

I have been correcting some typos in Heroes. I hope to have a second edition out sometime this spring. It was so odd to read back over parts of the text. I wrote Heroes about 18 years ago. That fact alone astonishes me.  As I read the text, I find that I don't recognize any of it, really. It's like reading a book that somebody else wrote. There is nothing I can do about it now; I don't have the energy or time to substantially rewrite the book.  I would not want to, either.  I think one interesting thing readers will find as I publish over titles is how my style changed.  Heroes seems to me to be the most conventional book I ever wrote. By the time you get to Exile,for example, my writing is a lot different. I'd like to think it was progress. Maybe it was just age gently tugging away at the will to put so many words in a row. I don't know.

BTW: It look like Heroes has moved up to 775,000th on the best seller list at Amazon.  No holding me back now.

Persistence of Theme and Place and Time

At some point, when I was writing my novels as fast as I could to keep up with the stories rushing through my mind, the last sentence I would ever write came to me. I know what it was long before I ever began to write the book in which it appears. I won't give it away here, but it came to me, fully formed, long before I know how it would fit it.  I have, indeed, not written a sentence of fiction since then. It must be five years or more since I finished. I don't miss it much. I sort of marvel at producing so many stories and so many characters over such a sustained period of time. That said, now and again, I get the idea for a story. This is the way it used to be. When I was still writing Heroes, the idea for Smoke came to me one day. I was ready to abandon Heroes and start Smoke at once. But, of course, I did not do that. I have noticed that whenever an idea comes to me now, it is always something I have done before. The one image that I most often have is of someone walking through the ruins of Detroit looking for something. Then I realize how often I have done that already. Think of City of the Dead and certainly Home.  That said, the idea still comes back to me with some regularity. Lately, I have envisioned a book about a man walking through the mostly empty Detroit and he is either chasing someone in slow motion or being followed. And that's it. That's the whole idea. If I were still writing, perhaps that would have turned into something.  There is one image that has stuck with me for the longest time.  It is Garvin and Hofmann, sitting in an unmarked car watching a house.  Garvin is very nervous about something. He is smoking and fidgeting. Hofmann, as always is stoic and calculating. But I don't know more. I don't know who is in that house or what is going to happen. The truth is, I could have gone on writing Hofmann and Garvin stories for another twenty years. Everything about them is so a part of me that I can picture them and hear their voices. But I am done. I wrote the last sentence I ever would, just as I heard one day when it was not connected to anything.

The Simplest Things

I heard yesterday from a friend mine, someone who is really much more than that. He told he was getting married the next day. This morning, I learned he had gone and done the deed. What a wonderful thing this. Getting married for the first time at 51 to a woman who is just perfect for him.  I have this notion that as I age, my ability to experience anything from rage to joy folds back into a perpetual state of neutrality. Nothing seems to matter that much anymore. I heard somebody once put it this way: "Do you feel less significant as time begins to reel you in?" That rather nicely sums it up.  But, then, something like this comes along. I guess that not every part of me has gone somnolent.  The news of this marriage brings me such great happiness that it makes me think that perhaps there is even more good things to experience before time reels me in.  All the best to my friend and his bride, two truly good people who were  blessed to find each other.  Steve and Mary, wed November 17, 2012 in Oak Park, IL.  I could not be there in person, but I was with you nonetheless.  May you long endure in each other's company. Let time reel somebody else in.

Heroes Is Now Available

The wait is over. You can now get your copy of Heroes on Amazon.

Go, buy, let me know what you think.

Heroes