My favorite season approaches and that means cooler weather, the smell of burning leaves, feelings of primal and paranormal company all around us, especially at night (even long before Halloween) and of course Halloween. I love fall and notice how truly happy and inspired and creative I am during that time of year. I was in Hasting’s yesterday and saw probably the coolest book display ever:

(Click images for full view.)

Awesome. I couldn’t resist a photo. THE WALKING DEAD, WORLD WAR Z, among other great and delicious zombie literature and even David Moody’s HATER and DOG BLOOD books.

So anyway, not a lot going on lately. Still agent-hunting and in the meantime editing so much that I can’t see straight. This is what I get for having more than one novel project at a time. Hey, I figure having two books on submission possibly doubles my chances of finding some sort of representation.

So far, I’m still delusional. :-)

I’ve uploaded the newest edit (and hopefully the last one before actual publication) of DIRTY EDEN chapter one and would love and appreciate any opinions or critiques, complaints or compliments.

Well, I’m off to Starbucks and my nieces 2nd birthday party. Here she is, mean face and all. Heh.

Lastly, I’ve changed my Bio page a lot, if you’re interested.

So, it’s been a long time since my last post and I have to admit, I still don’t have much going on. Though, I thought I’d put up a few things just to be able to say I did, that I updated my blog.

First, on Dirty Eden, I have come to face the reality that the first chapter just wasn’t cutting it. Brian had some of his writing class peeps read it and provide advice, which I truly appreciate! In fact, I appreciated it so much and agreed with everything they said that I completely revamped it. I have to say that I got more positive than negative feedback from everyone, but there were a few key points that everyone seemed to share. Anyway, I took all of the advice to heart and did exactly what they thought I needed to do.

You can read the new version of Chapter One in a pdf. here.

How about some cool photos? I went to visit my brother in Eureka Springs and stopped at some cool old places along the way. I love old abandoned buildings like this.

We went to the river and Jonah decided to take a picture of the sun! Is it true that doing this can potentially fry your camera? Well, it didn’t hurt mine, thankfully.

Not too far from where I live is Burns Park, which is huge place that…let me just copy/paste from Arkansas.com:

1,700-acre park featuring a pre-Civil War log cabin; covered bridge; 36-hole golf course; indoor, outdoor tennis courts; camping, picnic area, horse trail, ball fields; amusement park; disk and miniature golf; 6.2 miles of paved hiking/biking trails; four miles of combined paved/unpaved trails; addition to half of the 14-mile River Trail; Off-Road Trail System includes hiking, biking and equestrian trails…

Anyway, there are also a lot of old mining shafts and underground tunnels as well as many more of those old buildings and places that I love.

(As always, click on any photo for a larger view.)

Look at this little guy…

Of course, ya have to take a photo against all the cool graffiti, right? Doesn’t everybody do that? *shrug*

Let’s see…I’m love The Colony on Discovery and I also can’t get enough of Man Vs. Wild, Man Woman Wild, Dual Survival, Wonders of the Solar System and I’m now all into The Event. Yes, a lot of television lately.

Where does ‘the apocalypse’ come in to this blog? My frame of mind according to my television shows should give you an idea!

I need a Maxpedition backpack…..

(Update: The Event sucks.)

I haven’t been updating this blog much, but it’s been for good reason. I’ve been writing a lot the past couple months and I couldn’t be more pleased—I feel like I’m officially ‘back in business’. I did put my Dirty Eden agent search on hold for a while and went back to work on The Mayfair Moon. Well, I’m happy to say I’m about a chapter away from the end and I’m excited. Of course, I’ve mentioned before that the title will probably change, but I couldn’t be more happy about how the story has unfolded. I’ll be putting the first chapter of The Mayfair Moon up for download soon. Book two of the trilogy has already been swimming around in my head.

{Insert Neat Photo Here to Distract from all the text}

But then there’s also a MG/YA novel I began around the same time last year I started The Mayfair Moon, which I’m anxious to get back to work on. I guess I’ll have to go with the flow and work on whichever calls to me the most.

Back to Dirty Eden – Okay, I just need to say that I really loved writing that story. It was a strange thing because in its conception, I was in the beginning of a two-year long emotional roller-coaster ride. It’s amazing what life-altering circumstances can do for a writer’s craft. Dirty Eden wasn’t just a story, it was an experience. Now, I just need to go in an edit it again so I can get back on the agent bandwagon.

Anyway, I have recently rewritten the Dirty Eden blurb on ‘The Work’ page. After several months of not reading it over and over again, I noticed something major wrong with it that I was shocked not to have noticed before. I’m mortified that I sent that synopsis to so many agents without realizing that error. The sentences were so damn long they were like a book in themselves. My writing, the actual story, isn’t like that at all. But the synopsis was because writing a synopsis is like walking a tightrope over a volcano. If you don’t do it right the first time….

So anyway, that’s my update.