Up for Air

I know that I have not been posting much lately – here or anywhere else lately; just the bare minimum of commenting on other people’s posts and other people’s blogs and websites, but I had a couple of projects for the Tiny Publishing Bidness to work on, and then the two major projects to finish, format and upload to various platforms. Yes, I decided to go all-out and finish two books in time for the Christmas marketing season this year. Amazingly, neither one was the one that I had declared at the beginning of the year that I would have all done and ready to launch by this time  … yes, the adventures of young Fredi Steinmetz in Gold Rush-era California is rolled back another year. Sigh. I still have to do an epic-truck-load of reading of contemporary accounts and skull out a plot sufficient and historically-accurate to fill the last half of the book; which so far in my head will include a stint in San Francisco the year of the epically well-organized Vigilante organization, encounters with various historic personages, to include William T. Sherman, Lotta Crabtree and her formidable mother, some murderous claim-jumpers and a young woman seeking justice – while disguised as a boy. So, yes I will get on to that presently. After all The Quivera Trail was held at a third completed while I worked on Daughter of Texas and Deep in the Heart, and it didn’t seem to do any harm in the long-run.

So – the Harvey Girl adventure, Sunset & Steel Rails is done and ready for release on the 10th, in print and in Kindle. Amazon is dragging their feet apparently, in expediting the ‘Look-Inside’ feature. It isn’t up at present, but it should be in the next couple of days. Not bad, for something that I only got inspired to start in February of this year.  But The Chronicles of Luna City is a light and amusing present-day trifle which my daughter and I only got started on at the end of July – and here it is November, and that book is done and nearly finalized as well.  Three months, and just 70,000 words (but with pictures!) which is short for me, as most of the other books run 125,000 and up. (Although Lone Star Sons pegged in at 65,000.) There was one of the professional pulp adventure fiction writers – whose name escapes me at the moment – who was said to have done a book a month at one point in his career. Don’t know what the total word count was on any of them, but he must have worked in a white-hot blaze of energy … and Luna City is a light and diverting trifle, requiring very little research. Well, except for looking up restaurant equipment, and the names of obscure British TV series of the 1980s, and making certain that there aren’t any real companies with the same names of companies that I have mentioned in Luna City. Movie production companies really go for the obscure, I have to say. Had to nix six or seven possible names I thought were totally far out and unlikely because there is a real production company out in the world with that exact name. Luna City is pure contemporary escapism, utterly devoid of any redeeming social value in the eyes of the established guardians of our high literary culture … which I believe a lot of us have a need of these days, given how particularly screwed up, violent, and depressing real life seems to be, lately. (Oh, Established Guardians of our High Literary Culture? Yoo-hoo … over here! Now, gaze lovingly upon my upraised middle finger!)

So, light blogging will commence, now that all the hard labor of writing, editing, formatting and polishing have been done. Did you miss me?

Update: The ordering page for The Chronicles of Luna City is here. The page for Sunset and Steel Rails is here.

Both books will also be up very shortly at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

10 thoughts on “Up for Air”

  1. As long as that nice Mr Obama doesn’t call you up for duty and despatch you to Syria, all should be well, eh?

  2. Pretty much yeah, Dearie – it is also my good fortune that I am about fifteen years past inactive retired military best-if-used-by-date and a good few pounds over being called back to active duty.
    Yeah, although sometimes I dream it. And very good to wake up, too.

  3. “a good few pounds over being called back to active duty.”

    Oh, I dunno. I worked the female recruit side again today and a few hefty type got through.

    The sergeants like me because I am fast and like to work so I keep getting assigned to examine females although it is a pain because of all the gowns and chaperones.

    At least I only do it twice a week.

    One gal in her 30s today who wants to learn to fly booms on tankers. I enjoy talking to the recruits,

  4. Welcome back! I always look forward to your posts.

    I just finished The Quivera Trail last month and I am currently enjoying To Truckee’s Trail. Both are excellent! I’ll have to put the new ones on my Christmas list and maybe Santa will get them for me.

  5. Looking forward to Luna City. It looks great from the snippets that you’ve posted.
    How did the hens ever work out?

  6. Hi, Gurray – they worked out pretty well, except that one of them turned out to be a rooster … It seems that sexing ten-week-old pullets is not an exact science. But the two that are hens lay an egg a day.

    I’ll update with links to the pages for the two books, which should be available on the 10th of this month. We set up a dedicated website for Luna City, and there will be bits of Luna City lore and things posted there.

  7. Sgt Mom, if you had gotten Red Stars, the sexing of chicks is 100%. They are a cross between White leghorns and Rhode Island reds. The cockerel chicks are yellow puffballs that will be white and the pullets are reddish brown chicks that look like RI Red hens that lay more often that a RI Red hen but not as much as a white leghorn. There are several other crosses that have obvious sex-linked characteristics that make it easy to sex them.

  8. Hmmm … will keep that in mind for the next set of pullets, although we are limited by what is available from the providers in the area.

    I have put up pages and links for Luna City, and for Sunset and Steel Rails … so, all ready to go!

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