Book Signings -- July 3 in Portsmouth and New Boston, Ohio

"On Harrisonville Avenue" continues to sell in Southern Ohio and Northern Kentucky, so while I am in Portsmouth over the 4th of July weekend visiting family, I will be having two book signings, both on Saturday, July 3:

11:00am - 2:00pm I will be at the Market Street Cafe in downtown Portsmouth, Ohio, a charming Cafe with home baked goods and terrific coffee.

4:00pm - 5:30pm Hickie's Hamburger Inn on Rhodes Avenue in New Boston, ranked nationally as having among the best burgers in the country. Brad and Shug there let me use some of founder Don Hickman's photo's of New Boston for my book.

If you are in the area, stop by these two unique and successful places with good food, quick service at a fair price -- all with a smile and a "how you doing'? "

Oh, and Mrs. Giles will be assisting me -- with a smile also :-) Yowzzir! (Yes, that's me in the 7th Grade.)

“You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six.” ~~ Yogi Berra, b. 1925

Finis!

Rewriting the Epilogue took longer than I thought, and I still may revise it as there are some details that I should revisit, but I say -- over.

My illustrator is reworking the third drawing she is doing for me. Her work will be the last pages of the Epilogue. I hope that readers are not like me and fan through the book, in which case you see the last pages before reading the book; instead, I want the drawings to be a surprise, so please Dear Reader, resist that temptation (and I will try to take my own advice.)

Now, for an editor. I want to work with one where there is a give-and-take, rather than a recasting of my effort. I'm not sure, but I may have located one. We'll see in the next few days.

Oh, and I received another rejection -- I have never been gracious at rejections -- from women, selling ideas, or in this case, publishers; somehow, it seems easier though, when it is an email.

"I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself, one day I'm going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box. "
~~ James Lee Burke, American Author, "Cimarron Rose," "Black Cherry Blues," and "Heaven's Prisoners."

On to the Epilogue

Chapter Four is now "in the can," a television expression actually derived from the film industry, meaning it is finished -- the rewrite is complete; of course, it is never really finished. If I started looking at it again today, I would begin agonizing over this word or that one -- but enough. On to the Epilogue.

Yes, its true there are only four chapters and an Epilogue in my new book, "Great Heats." The word count is 53,000 something, so it will likely come in at around 200 pages, helping me earn my new approbation, "the easyreading author."

The title, "Great Heats," derives from an ancient Asian method of dividing the year into 24 parts, for the purpose of planting, planning for festivals and planning for the winter. One of the annual divisions is the Great Heat, the hottest part of the Summer -- the last part of August, where we live. Our main character was born during the Great Heat season, and each chapter is from a year in his life.

Among my favorite authors is William Least Heat-Moon, of Irish and Osage lineage. Least Heat-Moon is really not his legal name, but because his father was called Heat Moon and his older brother called Little Heat Moon already, William became Least Heat. In 1982, his book, "Blue Highways" was a best seller and on the New York Time list for almost a year.

I was not thinking of William Least Heat-Moon when I named my book, nor did I know the story of how his name came about, but in my book, the Chief, who is father of the main character is Tall Heron, his son, the main character is Young Heron, and his son is Third Heron. Odd, eh?

“There are two kinds of adventurers: those who go truly hoping to find adventure and those who go secretly hoping they won't.” ~~ William Least Heat-Moon, b. 1939

Progress

I now have finished rewriting Chapter Three. The usual grammatical and spelling errors have been found, but the number of content errors have surprised me.

For example, I am amazed that in the heat of writing I would rename a character, combining two names into one. Perhaps I knew it at the time but was so anxious to complete the scene that I went on, never coming back to correct it.

I also trap myself with the age of characters: "Ten years ago when I was when I was eight, my life changed in a dramatic way ... " Well yeah, I guess it would!

And then my most annoying trick -- highlighting a paragraph because something is wrong with it, but continuing to write without resolving or noting the reason because I'll always remember that. Then I rediscover the paragraph weeks later and am not be able to recall the reason I highlighted it. Did I want to move it, reword it, consider pitching it -- argghhhh.

I shouldn't rely upon my memory, anymore. When I taught history for three years in the mid 1960's, my memory was crisp and focused. I often worried then that education simply rewarded good memories and that I had gotten through because I had a really good one.

Much of my time today is spent going to a room in our house, stopping and trying to remember what I went there for.

"Life must go on; I forget just why." ~~ Edna St. Vincent Millay, American Poet, 1892-1950, and first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

The Shortest Short Story?

This was in my mailbox this morning:

A College Class was given the assignment to write a short story using the fewest words possible, but the story had to include the following three things:
... Religion
... Sexuality
... Mystery

One A+ was handed out and here is her short story:

"Oh, God, I'm pregnant. I wonder who is the father?"
(A tip of the hat to Scotty Hood.)

Perhaps the short story that intrigues most literary scholars is attributed to Ernest Hemingway, who in six words communicated a complete message even though it is not a complete sentence. In these words are tangible and intangible elements, used to create a tragedy. The six words:

"For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn."

Snipping Chives

My herb garden has been neglected. Although I have just potted new Basil and Rosemary plants, last year's Oregano and Chives once again "volunteered" to grow in the same historic but miserable soil without any help from me and a lot of discouragement from the weather; how hardy plants are.

This evening while preparing to braise boneless pork spareribs, I felt the need for chives as a garnish, so off to the herbs on the deck to snip the chives with my scissors. Some of the grassy blades had flowered; others had brown tips; some were hard and stem-like. Underneath all of that were the tender ones that I sought, so I trimmed back the less desirable blades, revealing a fistful of the shoots I needed to grace my dish. SNIP.

In that moment, I shuffled my mind to the on-going editing of my third book. Chapter one needed to be refreshed and strengthened, particularly the first paragraph and certainly the first five pages. It was not as easy as changing a verb here or moving a phrase there; whole sections were cut, new words were added, the old sections re-integrated. I lost the sense of forward motion of the story and had to start again. Laborious, detailed, concentrated -- all things I am not good at.

Snipping chives was much more fulfilling; it's oniony perfume, lovely and less lingering than the visceral after-taste of snipping words.

The first draft of anything is #%&*.
~ Ernest Hemingway