The thing they don’t tell you about writing is that once you have a few books out, much of your time is taken up by promoting them, rather than what brought you to the endeavor, writing!
This month was busy, four podcasts and one talk at Cascades Library, but I still got some time to write, and work on “MilYun Maps Handicap.” It s still plugging along, if not exactly screaming. I will have the first chapter on the “Freebies” section of the website next month, I promise!
Submerged is still going great guns, now in sub-10,000 rankings of Amazon sales (reaching 2600 at one point, out of 48 million titles listed!) This month it will be a bestseller in two of its categories for a ninth consecutive month! Thank you to everyone who read it and sent reviews or emails.
I had a very nice interview by Terrri Lynch of “Tracer Rounds” on Military Broadcast Radio this month. Then two more on Daniel Cherkas’s podcast, one on Submerged and one on Magical Realism, which is a theme of my new book, “How to Hotwire an Airplane”. I have always been intrigued by the idea that there is a hidden order to what we perceive, that we may sense but not comprehend, and the book explores that.
The other podcast was with Gregory McNiff of New Books Network, I will post it to my podcasts page when it hits.
On Nov 25th, I hosted a talk about Submerged at the Cascades Library in Sterling, VA, and it was literally standing-room-only! (The organizer, Jeremey Worley, had set out 30 chairs and had to keep setting up more as people came in!) A big thanks to Jeremy. I thought that would be my last, but he said a few people came up and wanted to see it again, so I may have a few more at Loudoun County libraries next year. Stay tuned!
“Hotwire” is not selling great! I feel like a parent with one successful son and one still living in the basement! But I have hope it will find an audience, and that hope was strengthened when I got an incredibly nice review in the Vietnam Veterans Association magazine! Among other things, the book is about a Vietnam vet healing from trauma, and I was over the moon to be featured in their magazine (and also get a very nice review!) So there is hope for that book yet, I think!
Besides PTSD and magical realism, “How to Hotwire an Airplane” is about illegal migration. I tried not to make it a polemic and present a balanced view of the subject. If you want to know my actual (nuanced) views on the matter, I wrote a blog about it on my website. (along with a few movie reviews, whatever strikes my fancy!)
That’s it for this month! Thanks for reading! Peace to all.