Really, I wasn't!

 

The weblog is up and working, as you'll see if you follow the link.

 

The website should be up later today...they are having server troubles...

Incidentally, this story ties in to River City as well...

 

Grace is a prostitute that is a supporting character in the novel Some Degree of Murder, and so is the unnamed Biker/Pimp (he's named in the novel) and the Asian prostitute (also named in the novel).

 

If you go back to March 2005, there is an entry about this story and also about my planning to send it to Crime Scene...

 

 

and

 

 

 

 

My short story Saving Grace has been accepted by Crime Scene Scotland, a crime and mystery e-zine.

 

It will appear in their September/October issue.

 

The editors requested a few editorial changes, all of which improved the story and which I was glad to make.

 

I'm very pleased that this story was accepted, as I felt it might be a difficult one to place.  I'm also glad at where it ended up, as this is a quality e-zine.

 

Incidentally, one of the editors, Douglas Shepherd, has a great story on the site called "That's Life."  The story is good, well-told, and the Scottish accents prominent in the dialogue are great.  Give it a try here:

 

 

Anyway, with Vancouver Dreams in the Summer issue of Starry Night Review, this story going up in September/October and Good Shepherd going up on Ascent in November, I've got some consistent net presence, and that makes a fellow feel just grand.

 

Now, if on the novel front...

Almost every story I write anymore, outside of the Fantasy Novel, seems to fit into River City.  The Meat-Cutter's Wife involves the death that is referenced in If Only and Some Degree of Murder.  Gently Used features Connor O'Sullivan and has several other patrol guys in bit parts.  Good Shepherd, due to be published in November, is all River City.  Even What Comes Around could easily be related, as there was nothing to have kept it from happening in River City (a la Burning My Masterpiece--just a call or an event that police respond to).

 

My hockey novel won't feature the River City police officers like the other River City novels do, but I'm going to have it take place in River City, complete with the minor league team that plays there (The River City Flyers, as featured in Waist Deep).  Also, one of the recreational league teams that Graham Wilson (the main character) and his team will face during the season will be a police/fire team, with a couple of River City PD cops on it.

 

The main character of A Village of Strangers is named Peter Conway, at least for now.  He's never been mentioned before in any of the other River City novels or outlines.  It may be that I'll use him as a minor character in Beneath A Weeping Sky and/or And Every Man Has To Die, so that the readers will at least know him passingly by the time we get to 2003 and his story begins.  His time on the job during this novel won't be too deeply explored, but there'll be a few chapters.

 

Plenty of inter-connectivity for the fans I hope develop for these stories.

I've got a new list up now for unpublished short stories.  These are short stories that I've written (or revised) recently enough to believe they merit submission for publication.  Instead of listing the author (they're all me), I've put in the status of the work.

 

This way, a piece that I talk about in the BLOG can be followed along on it's way to publication (hopefully).

While I was on vacation, I spent a lot of time on the road and at a motel.  I also went to a Bruce Springsteen concert (not my first) with my daughter.

 

In the course of all of those experiences, an idea for a novel came together.  This one really isn't a River City novel, per se, though it will have that setting.  Most of it takes place outside of River City, in Central Washington and Seattle.

 

The title refers to what a motel is---a village full of strangers.  The main character will spend some time in a motel, observing the people there and in the tourist town he's visiting.  The story itself will be chopped up and told somewhat out of time order (here's a nod to Pulp Fiction), but the thrust of it involves a man who has a traumatic event, his life slowly crumbles and he eventually decides to commit suicide.  How he reaches the point where he either has to do that or find a reason not to is the rest of the story.

 

Being a Springsteen music fanatic, I intend to use some of his songs as catalysts within this story, if I can do so without being hokey.  The nice thing about this concert was that it was solo acoustic and that many of the songs were hopeful and life-affirming.

 

Before that sounds too cotton candy and rainbows, let me tell you that this thing is dark.  What happens to him is dark.  How he and others respond to it is dark.  His decision to check out is dark and what he does while waiting around to do it is dark and ironic.  Ultimately, the ending is dark, too, though I won't give it away.

 

I've written just a few lines of this novel (maybe a page or two) and taken a bunch of notes.  I've been writing more steadily on my hockey novel, but I think that this novel might be next.  Of course, that doesn't include the edit of HOF I'll do after I get it back from Conway...

 

Lots to do.  Wish I could write full time.

Boy, this biz moves slow!

 

On the publisher front, I had contact almost two weeks ago.  There are business reasons I won't go into as to why they haven't sent out a contract yet.

 

I'm going to stop saying/thinking it's a week or less away and just wait.  The publisher is a small press and seems very dedicated to its authors.  I've purchased one of the books they've published and the quality of the finished product is very nice.  I'd be proud to have the River City books look like that.

 

On the agent front, more of the same.  She seems very energetic and is certainly nice, but has said she's buried with submissions.  She's expressed some interest in Conway's "Running in Circles" novel (way to go, Cons!), but I am waiting to hear from her regarding "Under A Raging Moon."

 

She didn't care for "Some Degree of Murder," by the way, but liked the writing well enough to ask for other works.

 

With this agent and this small press both interested, I haven't sent out any queries for novels since that interest was expressed.  I am excited at the prospect of working with these specific people, so I want to give it some time to work out.

Things move slow sometimes.

 

I spoke with the small press publisher via email this week.  There should be a contract offer in my hands sometime next week.  Same thing for Conway and his Jack Collins series.

 

There is also an agent very interested in our work.  I hope to hear from her within the same time frame.

 

I hesitate to update folks about something like this, because if one or both potential things fall through, I look like an idiot.  But then I realized that rejection or deals not working is a part of the writing business.  You don't look like an idiot if things don't work.  I suppose if I were self-publishing and pretending that it wasn't something else, that would be idiotic.  But sharing a little bit of the process here on this BLOG that I just know is looked at by thousands of people a day...well, that's not idiotic.  Except for the thousands of people part.

 

One day, you'll  come to this site and the news about being published will be in the past tense instead of the future.

The Summer 2005 issue of Starry Night review is online now.  My story, "Vancouver Dreams" appears in it.

 

 

The link is:   http://www.snreview.org/0305Zafiro.html

 

Any feedback would be great.

 

Titles are interesting things.

Just so the word "Story" wasn't on
the title line, I called it "Russian Hit."  Why?  Because there is a
Russian gangster who assassinates someone in the story.  Now, obviously
this isn't going to be my title, but it's better than "Story."  Or at
least more on-topic.

So I am typing along and the story is really more about this guy who
brokers the whole thing, a transplanted New Jersey-ian (the story takes
place in River City).  So about half way in, I change the
title to "Relocation Blues."   This still sucks, but at least it has a
tiny bit of artistic value to it...better than "Russian Hit", right?

I get to the end of the story, and one of the characters quotes a line
from a song..."Life ain't nothing but a cold, hard ride."  A little
while later, he mentions that it's too bad what happened, but he made
twenty grand, so he's got twenty thousand reasons not to care (that's a
paraphrase, I did it a little better in the story).

This brought up a new title.  "Cold, Hard Reasons."  Still not
"Farewell To Arms," but better than "Relocation Blues."

I even sent this story to another writer to review under this title.

Then, Saturday, I'm talking with Conway and
telling him the plot of this story and how it ties into other stories
and novels in the "River City" world.  And, as I'm explaining it to
him, I use the phrase "the meat-cutter's wife" to describe...well, that
character.  She's kind of the catalyst for the whole story, because the
meat-cutter asks the narrator to assassinate the guy she's having an
affair with.  The narrator hires the Russian.

Confusing?  It's not when you read it.

So the title I've finally settled on is "The Meat-cutter's Wife."

I stayed up 'til 0200 last night working on this story. It ended up being about 7100 words.  I didn't come up with the title until the final read through before bed.

 

I don't know if it's any good or not...I was too tired to tell.  I'll read it again today, maybe share it someone and we'll see.

I worked on two shorts today.

 

I got about 2 pages done on one with a working title of "Lauren."  It will have to keep, because this other story kept after me until I gave in and started writing it instead.  With a working title of "Russian Hit Story" or "Relocation Blues" (file name), I've finished about 2/3 of it.

 

I was stuck for an ending, though.  More aptly, for a little bit of a twist.  Dining at Chez Pizza Hut with the family tonight, the answer struck me out of the blue...and the solution darkens the story a little bit, too.

 

Sounds like I'm talking in code again, huh?  Well...I don't want to ruin it for you.

 

Both stories are set in River City, by the way.  The one I worked on today ties in an event that is referenced in "If Only," "Good Shepherd," and "Some Degree of Murder."  The character this event involves is in "Under A Raging Moon" and will be in some of the other 3 patrol series novels, too.  But he isn't the main character in this story.  Just the subject of it.

 

Okay...enough said.  The rest you'll have to figure out by reading.

Ascent Aspirations magazine just accepted "Good Shepherd" for its November 2005 issue.

 

I was actually rather surprised, because the story runs about 11,000 words.  I had simultaneously submitted it to another magazine and will have to retract that submission.

 

If you go back a little ways, there are several issues talking about "Good Shepherd" and what it's about.

 

I'll post the link once it is up.

That Irika...she keeps tugging at my leg and asking for just a moment, sir..just a moment.

 

I made some notes about her story this weekend, so we'll see.  It might be a nice counterpoint to the other stuff I am working on.

Well, things are shaping up nicely with the publisher.

 

An email exchange last night brought us to this point:  the publisher wants to publish all of the River City novels AND all of Conway's Jack Collins detective novels.

 

They will be sending their contract offer soon.

 

This is a small press, not a Ballantine or St. Martin's or what have you...so anyone who thinks this is the lottery we're hitting is off base, at least financially.  Career-wise, though...dream-wise...yeah, it's a hit.

 

It still hasn't sunk in yet, and I guess I'm still a little reticent to raise a glass in celebration until the contracts are inked, but this represents a goal I've had since childhood.  The wonderful part about it is that it isn't an end unto itself, but just the beginning.