As planned, the Campbells swooped in and descended on the deep south, obliterated a swath of food for the festivities, then scattered to head home back to the routine until next year.  I figure a good 12 months or so gives the region time to recover. We had a 50th Anniversary wedding vows renewal, a wet game of kickball, a truck stuck in the mud, and no arrests (that I know of or will admit to). It was a good reunion.

In my return to work travel and general shenanigans, I resumed my usual bouncing on and off the grid. I’m currently on a two week stint in Maryland for work and am enjoying a couple of days off to recoup from a hectic work schedule. Going from night shift to day shift on 3 hours of sleep in between the shift flip causes sluggishness, slurred speech, and drooling during the day. Go figure.

I continue to chip away at the rewrites of the first book, The Monster Within. To answer a few FAQs I get asked when I mention my plans with the first book, here we go:

• No, I’m not changing the story. That all stays the same for characters and plot points and such.
• Yes, I am rearranging chapters, culling out unnecessary exposition, and clarifying certain pieces of the story.
• Yes, I have a bit of OCD.

After my tweaks are done, including a possible new cover, I will release the ebook as a free download. I will let you know when that happens, but don’t get all antsy over thinking the free release is imminent. I still have a few months to go before everything is complete.

Image by sxc.hu

Though two weeks have passed since the last post, it sure feels a lot longer. Getting clobbered at work with long work days will do that. Last weekend was mostly a blur since I spent two of the three days trying to physically and mentally recover from working a week in the gut of Washington D.C. The hours to prep and put on a multi-hour electronic medical record system demo for a large DC hospital was quite the rodeo, and it went well with good participation and feedback. So after all that, I needed a couple of days to recoup. By last Sunday I was back at the keyboard and banged out a good six hours of writing.

This weekend I’m starting things off getting the truck worked on. Rocks in windshields, bad. Funky noises from the engine, bad. Time sitting in waiting areas with my laptop, pure freakin writing gold.

Next weekend is the annual Campbell family reunion in the deep south. Many from our clan will descend on poor, unsuspecting Picayune, MS and gather. And like locusts we will devour much in the way of southern vittles. There will be few dishes, pots, or pans with anything left in them after the big reunion lunch. We’ll also be celebrating my parents’ 50th anniversary complete with tartans and kilts. It’s going to be a blast.

So with that, I’ll vanish for another couple of weeks. Facebook locked down my book account citing a potentially compromised/hacked site which I highly doubt. So in between other things and as time permits  (you can tell I’m really stressed about this) I’m working on getting that resolved. Personally I’m more interested in rushing to get to next weekend to see the fam. 🙂

image by sxc.hu

I invented this short phrase to describe myself a couple of months ago when relaying to a friend the new adventures headed my way in regards to stepping up publishing and agent hunts and such. I honestly don’t have a bloody clue what or how to do those things, hence, … gloriously clueless. I’ve always been a big fan of “winging it” so the phrase is quite fitting.

During my grad school time when I was out living in a tent and doing my research on island populations of garter snakes, I drove friends, family, and coworkers mad with my lack of knowledge on some things. These things being like where I planned to sleep for the night. I had my truck, I had my tent, and I didn’t necessarily need to know which campground I’d visit that night or which couch I’d crash on. One night while working in the ED one of the other nurses asked where I was staying that night. I told her I didn’t know yet. It was 9pm, I didn’t get off work till 11pm, so I still had time to figure it out. She was mortified by my answer.

Here’s the thing, there was zero stress on me about figuring out where I was going to sleep at night. There were always campgrounds available all around Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park. I knew where the more hidden ones were and never had trouble getting a tent site for one night or a few days before I headed back out to the smaller islands to continue my research. Other people might find that horribly stressful, but I didn’t.

As for what will happen once I launch into the agent/publishing realm, I haven’t a clue, and that is OK. I see it as a coming adventure where I don’t know where I’m going or where I’ll end up or how I will get there. It’s just details at this point. No point in stressing over the unknowns. That crap will make you crazy, and I have enough crazy stored up already.

Image by sxc.hu

This past Saturday I made my trip down to Boston to the New England Book Festival awards ceremony. Burnt Mountain Rhyllia, the 4th in the 5 book series, received an award for winner of the SciFi category of the festival.  I am beyond ecstatic!

I had a wonderful time at the festival and met several great authors from around the US. To see the list of all the winners in the 2016 New England festival, click here.

The most notable thing that I learned a few months ago about these awards, and also conveyed to the other winners there on Saturday during my wee acceptance speech, was that these awards, including honorable mentions, are a big deal. We wrote a work that we put into a contest for critique and to be compared to other works. To come out of that process with an award is exactly how an author obtains critical acclaim.

I had never previously considered myself a critically acclaimed author, but that’s exactly what these awards mean. I am thankful for the patient person that pointed this fact out to me and even took the time to explain it to me a second time, and more slowly, to make sure I understood. Once that sank in, I realized how much I’d underestimated my previous honorable mentions. Never said I was smart! 🙂

So during my wee speech, I relayed this reality to my fellow winners, most of them first time winners and also those underestimating the festival’s significance. A publisher in attendance thanked me after the ceremony for reiterating what she had been trying to get her client, another award winner that night, to understand. Cool stuff for sure!

Photo above by another winner, Jared C, with my phone, Jan 2017.

Hi Everyone, Cheryl here. Below is a guest post from my friend and fellow author, Joel D Canfield. I’m honored to be part of his blog tour for his latest novel’s release. Enjoy!

A Still, Small Voice (Is Better Than a Big Loud One)

Being the shy, sensitive type, I try to avoid shocks. Don’t like loud bangs. Bright lights are painful. Quick movements trigger my duck-and-dodge reflex. Gore and other explicit stuff in my entertainment turns me off.

As a result, the pool of introspective noir I can enjoy is limited. Elvis Cole and Harry Bosch are near the edge of my realm. Kinsey Millhone hasn’t scared me yet. Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe are fine. Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin make the grade.

They say you should write the book you want to read.

I’ve done that at least five times now, written introspective noir that’s safe for the most delicate constitutions. My latest, A Still, Small Voice is my 15th book, but only my 5th mystery. It’s the second featuring Phil Brennan, who, yes, is named after Mr. Marlowe, the hero in all the books written by the greatest mystery writer ever, Raymond Chandler.

Phil Brennan is a loner. Was, I guess. He’s getting to know the folks in his neighborhood. Some of them are great.

Some are real stinkers.

Our man Brennan, of course, judges everything by his childhood and his failures, which means sometimes he misreads people and situations.

Just like the rest of us.

Truth be told, my books barely qualify as mysteries. There’s always something unknown and someone trying to uncover it, but that’s never the core of the story. These stories are about morally rigid people jammed into morally ambiguous situations, forced to make the best bad choice.

Readers tell me the books help them confront their own personal moral dilemmas. That’s good, because that’s why I write them: to remind myself what I believe. [Cheryl butting in… Quick fact. Joel’s first Phil Brennan book, I didn’t have a lot of time to read it at first when it came out. But once I got about half way into the story, I emailed Joel with some early feedback: “HOLYCRAPTHISISLIKECRACK!” and then devoured the rest of the book in short order.]

No, you won’t find any overt preaching about right and wrong. You’re a grown up. You already know.

What you will find is the vicarious experience of a good guy struggling through bad times and coming out okay in the end, even if he is a little ragged and rumpled by the process.

At the moment, anyone who signs up for my newsletter gets A Still, Small Voice free. Download it instantly. [!!!!!!!]

You’ll also get my 4 previous novels. All 5 of them. Free. You probably want to do that before I freak out and change my mind. [I’ve read all 5. You want to get them!]

Who are your favorite mystery writers? I love finding new authors to stalk. It’s how I discovered that there’s actually a mystery sub-sub-sub-genre for Wisconsin coffee shop cozies. And they’re good. (Though I live in southern Arizona now, Wisconsin is my home state, and no, we didn’t leave because of the weather. I miss the snow and I hate the heat. [See why I like Joel so much? I left the deep south for Maine to gain the snow and skedaddle out of the heat. Kindred spirits we are!] Watch for how that affects my next book.)

What was the question again? Oh, yes. Your favorite mystery author everyone should know about. Fire away.