Updates and Junk

The second pass of edit notes is done for Duke Noble P.I.: Rumor Has It.  This round, I ended up with 12 pages of notes.  And I've already entered 8 of those.  I'll enter those last 5 suckers and make one more pass for typos.  Then I can send it off to readers definitely by the end of the week.  The waiting is nearly over.  Yay.

I really need to get to work on a cover now.  Gah.  I actually have an idea in my head of how I want it to look.  The question now is whether I can pull it off.

And I need to do a blurb.  I have no ideas there.  

But I have an idea for the second book in this series.  Derp.

This book... which will hopefully be part of a series... is a throwback to the old noir crime novels.  It's set in a time before computers and to-go coffee.  When people still smoked without worrying about being harassed for it.  When men could still ogle a woman and she took it as a compliment.  

I hope I got it right.  

Anyway, I enjoyed writing it.  I hope people enjoy reading it.  

Last night, as a reward for finishing the edit pass, I started reading Uptown Blues: Herbert and Melancon #5 by Seth Pevey.  I'm kind of addicted to this series and Seth knows it, so he messages me when he's got a new book out.  Unfortunately, I was in the middle of the edit pass, so I couldn't start reading it immediately like I usually do.  But I sure as hell got my buns in gear to make that edit pass go quickly.  ;o)

So far, so awesome.  That boy can write.

And that's where I'm at.  How are things with you?

Telling Myself Stories

I'm not sure what's happening or why it's happening but I seem to be on a roll.  3700 words in the past three days.  I don't want to jinx it.  Putting words to a new story has been like pulling teeth this year.  Hell, I haven't even been able to put new words to old stories.  Blerg.

Anyway, I'm over 11K on the book now, so I should be able to finish this one.  :fingers crossed:

Duke Noble, Private Eye.  

"It can't be," said a voice near the diagonally parked cars to my left.  "Hank?  Is that you?"

I couldn't very well pretend I was someone else.  Howard Ellington Nobel, to be exact, as pretentious as that sounds.  What can I say?  Maybe my mother wanted a poodle and got me instead.  I hadn't heard the name Hank in decades.  Thankfully, Granddad Noble got one whiff of my middle name and christened me Duke.  Once my friends in college heard the story, they wouldn't call me anything else and I've been Duke Noble ever since.   

I wasn't surprised someone in this town would call me Hank.  I was only surprised anyone would recognize me after all this time.

I like Duke.  I'm enjoying the hell out of this story.  I have no clue who did it, which is part of the fun of writing the way I write.  I'm telling myself the story as I go along.

Even when I was a little girl, I was always telling myself stories.  I'd lay in bed at night, talking to myself, telling myself stories.  I'd be out in the fields doing the same thing during the day.

Now, the hope is that other people will enjoy the stories I tell myself, but I shouldn't let that change how I do things.  Maybe that's why this year writing has been so hard.  I've been letting everything interfere with the process.  Well, not this time. 

A Short Snippet

Since I shared this over on Silver James' blog, I thought I'd share it here, too.  This is the beginning of that noir crime thing I started a while back.  It's still pretty first-drafty, so be kind.

“My death serves no purpose,” she said.  “At least not yet.”

“Did you invite me here to ask me kill you?”  I wasn't sure how much Sara knew about the life I led or the jobs I had done over the years since I'd last seen her.  A lot of people seemed to have the idea that men in my line of work would be willing to do any job for the right price, murder included.

“Goodness, no.  I want to hire you so you will, at the right time, insure none of my heirs are arrested for my murder.”

I shook my head.  “You’ll pay someone else to kill you then?”

She giggled and I could picture the girl she might've been.  Once, she'd been a close friend of my parents.  She was as near to a mother as a woman could get to a boy without actually giving birth to him.  “Goodness no," she said again as she handed me a plate of Danish Windmill cookies.  They were my favorite.  When I was ten.  I took the plate and set it on the coffee table between us without taking one.  This wasn't the time for eating.  

"I am more than capable of doing it myself once the time comes.

I sat down with this story last night, read through it and tightened up some stuff, then wrote new words on it.  It's at 8690 words right now, with the 828 I added last night.  This might be the thing that gets my writing jumpstarted again.  Not promising anything.  It seems like every time I promise something (even to myself) lately, it falls apart.  For now, I'm going with the flow for as long as it lasts.