Thought-Drive

 I talked somewhat about how good the communication has been between my cover artist and myself. That's probably an oversimplification, because his posts on social media really outline how much he works on all aspects of his process. This refers to how hard he works, but also how well. This next cover will be the sixth cover of eight, and I feel very fortunate that we've been able to keep things together for years at this point, given the consistently increasing amount of opportunities that he gets, year after year, as he earns more exposure and recognition. I feel very confident I will be one of those people who might say "I knew him back when," and people may not even believe me.  In regards to process, things were very sloppy for the first cover. Our language wasn't very synced, nor did he have a great idea of what he needed from me to begin producing, nor did I have a way to really understand how my own words percolated into his artwork. I showed a potential

 I've discovered there is a point where even Facebook will give up on you.  I last posted in February. I guess around March I was reminded that I hadn't posted in a while. Maybe I got another reminder in April, but even then, I could tell that the robots were fed up. I would've been, too. I wasn't sulking; I might have even questioned what the use would've been, but that would've just been untrue. It's virtually impossible to say why, but for whatever reason I had a mysterious, steady few periods of royalty payments. I got an email from Amazon, then another, then another. I found it all very suspicious, and strangely was too busy with other work to really pay attention. I took a diligent moment to thank my luck, be grateful for readers, and then went about trying not to drown at my new job. I didn't think at all to blog.  And that's not why I'm writing now, either. I'm writing now because a thought I had been gnawing on for months, years, fin

  I saw friends the other day that I hadn’t seen in months. Their surprise that I had drastically changed my hair style was like a gauge for time. I remembered warmer weather and fireworks. I remembered that I had cut my hair around the time that I started the new job. I’d like to say somewhere in there I also remembered when I had last blogged, but that would be a lie.   But it would be true if I said I had been writing. Not true in the sideways sense that the next rewrite is coming along, which it is, or in a distracted sense in that the 5 th  book is out and available for purchase , which it is, but in the pure sense that I had the idea of something new, and started pecking away at it, and have put a dozen or so thousand words onto paper.   Combined with the work schedule, which is on its way to becoming routine, it is a grind. I don’t have a lot of excess energy for it, though I have identified time to devote, but consistently nearing E on my fuel tank has led to some odd dreams an