Tanglewood Road is Free

If you have Amazon Prime you can download Tanglewood Road on any of the Kindle devices or Kindle software reading programs for free. This promotion will continue for ninety day. The introductory price for Tanglewood Road will end December 31, 2011. The price will increase to $2.

The Best Compliment

There is no doubt that a writer wants his readers to like his or her work. You spend months working on the finished product. Endless hours sometimes on the beginning paragraph because it just doesn't convey what you, as a writer, intended. Does it catch the reader's interest? Did you hook the reader? Is it too wordy? I find myself in this position all the time. Up until that last rewrite, I am working on the first two pages of the manuscript. Once you've spent all that time and effort, you want the reader to like your book: to really like your book. What a compliment when someone you really don't know tells you how much they like what you have written. But the best compliment is yet to come.

"Do you have any other books?"

What a feeling to know that someone wants to read something else you have written. When you hear someone ask about other books they mean they not only like the book they've read, they like your writing.

The Fifth Rewrite

I am one of those strange people that love to rewrite my manuscripts.  I usually have a rough idea of what I want to write about but it is only after the characters develop that the story begins to grow. I am on the fifth rewrite of The Possessor before I send it to my proofreader. I want The Possessor published by the first of the year so I'm really under a time restraint right now. I also have to send it to my readers who will critique it for me.  Readers are wonderful. They point out things that even the proofreader doesn't point out. I remember one time a friend read my book Tanglewood Road and she told me that in one particular part she couldn't see or feel what was happening. I changed my manuscript and have kept her advice in the back of my mind when I write.   I could continually find fault with my manuscripts and keep rewriting forever. I limit myself to six rewrites.  The last rewrite is after it has been proofread and my readers have given me their comments.

My Wife and Tanglewood Road

I am often asked where I came up with the idea for Tanglewood Road. I have to blame it on my late wife.   After we'd made the four hour visit to her family in St. Louis, on our return home, she'd usually sit very quietly in the car for the first hour.  I'd asked her what was wrong. and she always answered nothing. Finally she did. "I'm cutting the umbilical cord that tried to reattach in St. Louis." Jane had a very loving family but Jane felt they always stuck their noses where they didn't belong. She and her family never reached the point where they were family and friends.  Jane felt like they always wanted her to make changes in her life and that they always knew best. Later, when we had time to talk away from our children, I told Jane that I had worked with some women that felt the same way and their situations were far worse than Jane's. These situations seemed very foreign to me. It was hard for me to understand. Jane talked to other women and she also found others who were in her situation. One day on the way back from St. Louis, Jane ended one of her quiet periods by turning to me and say ingI should write about mothers and daughters who never make it to the friendship stage. She laughed and said she'd be my technical advisor. It took a long time to finish the novel but Jane was behind me every step of the way. The Porter family is nothing like Jane's family. They are the extreme. So whatever the success of Tanglewood Road, I owe it to my wife.