What’s clicking, you ask? Computer keys…at an alarming rate.
I am now nearly finished with my fifth novel, a sequel to Floating Twigs titled Finding Twigs. Nobody is more amazed at this than I am. I had wanted to write novels since I was eight-years-old but didn’t really get serious about it until 2018 when I decided to finish writing what has become an Amazon bestseller in the Kindle format, Floating Twigs. I had begun writing it years before, finishing a whopping two chapters. To be honest, when I returned to it after retiring from teaching, I figured I would write a few more chapters and set it aside again, only to allow it to languish until the Muses awoke in me once more.
Since releasing Floating Twigs, I have written the first two novels of a detective series (VERY different from my literary novels), and now two more literary novels. My most recent literary novel, Canaries’ Song, was released a few months ago in January 2021. I began work on Finding Twigs on January 26. I finished the first draft on April 7. To me, that’s amazing. I figured I would take half the year writing this one, but it flowed from my fingertips into my computer much the same way Floating Twigs did. It practically wrote itself. I will finish with my initial edits sometime in the next two weeks and send it to my editor. She will work on it for a number of weeks and get it back to me for revisions and discussion between the two of us regarding those suggestions. Finding Twigs should become available in late August or early September of 2021. I hope it is as popular as Floating Twigs.
Also in publishing news, Floating Twigs is being translated into Russian. AST Publishers, a large publishing house in Moscow, contacted me and asked if they could purchase the rights to publish a translation. After an exchange of emails, I accepted their offer. It is expected to come out sometime in 2022. I will receive two copies, but only as keepsakes. It’s not as if I can read Russian. A fellow author I know mentioned that when one translation comes out, others tend to follow. We’ll see.
My next novel, which I will begin writing while I am waiting on my editor’s notes on Finding Twigs, will be the third of the Detective Tony Pantera series. It will be titled The Whirligig of Time. I take all my Pantera novel titles from Shakespeare. This title appears in Twelfth Night (Act V, scene i). The line is spoken by The Fool: “Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.” The publication No Fear Shakespeare “translates” it to mean, “what goes around, comes around.” Yes, it is a novel about revenge and a nearly perfect crime. I’m even having trouble figuring out how my criminal will be caught.
I hope you have enjoyed this blog entry. I know they don’t come often, but I guess it is what it is. Anyway, thank you for reading it, and thank you for buying and reading my novels. They are a labor of love.
