Fan Friday—Getting to Know Me


Rather than “interviewing myself,” whatever that is, I’m going to answer ten questions. Things you may not know about me, and maybe you don’t want to know . . .  Just kidding, these are pretty innocuous:

Favorite color: Green. Second favorite color: Blue. Third favorite: Yellow.

I don’t know why I have three, I just do. I guess that comes from having to answer this question repeatedly and rather often, depending on who’s doing the asking and for what reason. Facebook quizzes, for example, may get a different answer, and the answer may also depend on the item in question. I like my trees green, my sky blue, and the sun yellow. I also like red, say, for my truck, my iPhone, and my kitchen canisters. I would not like a yellow truck, and I’ve already had green and blue vehicles.

Doesn’t make any sense, does it? Good.

Favorite season: Spring. Okay, and summer, and fall. Not winter. Not a fan.

I like when things are growing, when the days are warm but the nights are cooler. I like being out in the heat, to a point—that point is about 90 degrees, with a heat index of zero. Anything over that, I melt and get miserable. And have a hot flash. Why can’t those damn things come in the dead of winter?

Fall is nice, too. Cool and crisp, especially after summer, and all the beautiful leaves. Holidays to look forward to and fire in the fireplace, lit candles, a blanket and a good book.

Favorite book(s): Gone With the Wind and The Little White Horse. Hands down.

If you have read either, by Margaret Mitchell and Elizabeth Goudge, respectively, you really should. The first is epic, of course, and the second will make you believe in magic and fairy tales. That is, if you don’t already . . .

Favorite food cuisine: Mexican or Italian.

No way could I pick a favorite food! But both of these are so versatile. And delicious. I mean, you could eat Italian for a week—lasagne, spaghetti, toasted ravs, pizza, manicotti. Or tacos, enchiladas, fajitas, quesadillas, tamales. Yeah, it’d be a tough choice if I had to go with just one food.

Favorite drink: Water

Bet you thought I was going to say “beer,” right? I actually drink mostly water, and cappuccino. When I do have alcohol, it really depends on whether it’s wine season (winter, sometimes fall) or beer season (all other times of the year).

I’m really pretty simple. A good, regular beer, or at least quite a few of them; for wine, I’ll go with Moscato every time. And I usually don’t pick the expensive ones, either.

 

So, anything else you want to know? Just ask. I’m always here . . .

Fan Friday—And Then It Continued


Naturally, the first thing I did after finishing REDUCED was to send it to a few beta readers. I also queried half a dozen agents. And heard zip.

So, after making a few tweaks as per my readers’ suggestions, I simply published the book.

I really had no plan. I wrote it, yay, I wrote A BOOK! And I was done. I used CreateSpace, picked a cover template (but used my own photo), and I was good to go!

And then someone said, well, great, but what happened next?

Next? How should *I* know??

So I sat down to write REUSED. But this time, I had a plan. Sort of.

A couple days in, I got stuck. And then more stuck (stucker?). So I gazed around my office, trying to find something to do to avoid writing this book.

And then it hit me—I’d publish OTHER people’s books! Really, how hard could it be? I’d fielded so many questions about my CS experience, so yeah, that’s it. Start a publishing house.

So I did. Rocking Horse Publishing.

I planned to release 6 books in 2013, including the one I was writing and was stuck on—I wasn’t even sure I’d get any submissions.

I got one. Then another. Then a virtual flood of manuscripts.

RHP published 12 books that year; we did 17 this year, and have 14 scheduled for 2015, so far.

REUSED? Oh, yeah—after I got done with the flurry of starting the publishing house, I sat down and wrote non-stop for four weeks. REUSED came out in December 2012.

And then someone said, well, great, but what happened next?

Crap.

So I scheduled RECYCLED to come out in March 2013. I had nothin’. Zip. Postponed the launch.

July arrived, suddenly and without warning somehow, and I had promised my fans, er, fan, or well, something like that, that the book would ABSOLUTELY be available in July.

Finally, I sat down to write. Three weeks later, RECYCLED saw the light of day.

Whew. A trilogy. I DID IT!

And then someone said, well, great, but what happened next?

Darn. Repeat. Oh, yeah—REPEAT! That’s it!

Coming in March 2015 . . .