Charlie ("The Glacier") recently made a deal with Archway Publishing for my third book "Esmeralda".

 For the past six months I've been trying to "clear the decks" so I can concentrate on finishing this book. Not so easy :-( I have too many cars (10), I'm old (84 next July), etc etc etc.  

The book will have three  parts. The first part is basically done and consists of the story of Brian, a Jewish kid from Philadelphia, a music major goes on a class field trip to Mexico where he meets and falls in love with Angela. The complicated blending of families fills the air as they get married and their daughter, Esmeralda is conceived on their journey to Galveston Texas (where I currently live) to take Brians first real job as a professor in the music department at Galveston College. The second part of the book is about Esmeralda's growing up in Galveston. Nothing has been written of this part, but a lot has been taking shape in my mind.  The third and final part is about the young woman joining the U.S. Airforce as a fighter pilot and she and her Maya soul/companion, a Tigrillo, save the world from a diabolical spoiled brat Colombian drug kingpin, who is working with an Islamic terrorist group who has a deadly diabolical plan to terrorize the world by lacing the drugs with a hi-tech item that will make the infected persons head explode when they hear a certain frequency phrase upon answering their telephone. About half of this has been written. If you're interested you can read here, about Esmeralda's and El Tigrillo's encounter with Don Calixto, the drug king pin.  The story shows "All things work together to the good of those who love the Lord."(Romans 8:28), by charting the destiny of Esmeralda wherein the diabolic principle is defeated by a whim on the part of a humble, Mayan female. And the truth of this victory will be hidden from EVERYBODY, except for those who choose to read "Esmerslda" (or maybe "Esmeralda y El Tigrillo."

FINALLY!    an ex-girlfriend once told me I moved like a GLACIER :-)  My second book "Track Lessons" is now available. 

 You can check it out on Amazon at:

Track Lessons: Seymour, Charlie: 9781665733441: Amazon.com: Books

Right now I'm very busy trying to figure out how to use the Lone Star Motorcycle Rally (here in Galveston Nov 2-5) to sell  "Track Lessons".  God told me to get on it and get it out there, so here I go.  I was never much good at selling anything. Part of being such an introvert I guess.

Archway editing service for "Track Lessons"

 I got great ideas for improvements to "Track Lessons"  from my five "friends and family" editors, and I decided to invest approx $1500 in Archway Editing Services to clarify my writing style in general and, more specifically to make this book as good as possible.

The Archway editing service offers three editing processes, the first, "Developmental Edit" is a complete reading by an anonymous published author for a high level, comprehensive overview/critique of the book.  I am VERY happy with the results of this edit that Archway has forwarded to me.  The editor did a thorough job and made about ten constructive suggestions that I am still digesting. The next two edits will focus more on detail writing techniques and conventions.  I think the process will provide a LARGE step up the learning curve for me, and will speed up my other writing projects.  This process has added about six months to my publishing schedule for "Track Lessons"...but then...why hurry?

BTW, I highly recommend the Archway editing services for new writers, you can learn more about this service at Archway's web site.

Yahoooooo!!! Jeff Heino has given me his permission to use this great photo on the cover of "Track Lessons" - - PERFECT!

 

Jeff Heino #23 racing his Harley Davidson Sportster at Daytona in the early 90's.   Synchronicity ?  "Track Lessons" protagonist, George's race # has been #23 from day one!

This week I sent all "Track Lessons" items (manuscript, author photo, about the book, about the author, draft & notes for cover, etc.) to Archway Publishing.  I was VERY happy about all their work putting "Walt" together and I'm looking forward to how they do everything for "Track Lessons".  Hoping to have the book on the market for Christmas.

Three cheers for "Grammarly"

 The friendly efforts of my wonderful editors encouraged me to sharpen my writing.  Mainly to be more precise and clear, to ease the burden on my readers.  For now this means learning more about punctuation and grammar.  And to be more consistent and simpler in general.  More careful, less "sloppy".

With this in mind, I signed up for one year of "Grammarly - Premium" ($75/year "special price') and worked my entire novel ("Track Lessons") through Grammarly.  I spent about 30 hours doing this (30,000 words) and found it enjoyable and very productive and educational for me.

I use Apache "Open Office" for WP, so I did this entirely on the Grammarly web based system but will probably start using MS Office for WP in the future to have Grammarly checking everything as I write. I liked Apache because of the stable nature of their system (very few little unsolicited changes).  I have a 30 year old hammer that works just fine. :-)

So, I highly recommend Grammarly!  Try it for free on-line!

 

Great editors! All four of my wonderful "friendly" editors completed their work by July 4...GREAT work!

I sent my manuscript to my editors June 1, and asked them to get back to me by July 4, which they all did.  Two of them beat me up on grammar and punctuation sending me back to the books on these two subjects.  And it urged me to think more about my personal style of using and presenting DIALOG for telling stories.  Think about it, sharpen my tools. A VERY constructive, unanticipated side trip for me.

So now, I'm hoping to work on these things for a few more weeks, and have the upgraded manuscript ready for the publisher by the end of July.

Also checking online sources for Harley Davidson race photos for the cover.

So, BIG thanks to Barbara, Skip, Maisha and John for pushing me up the author learning curve.  Somehow your combined work has encouraged me and led me to work in totally new ways to find my personal writing voice.  Wish I could describe how this synergy happened and what a grand blessing it is for me, but I can't.   THANKS to y'all, and, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow."

About ready to send "Track Lessons" to the publisher

Rules, lessons, generalizations, CoronaVirus, statistics, probabilities, and soft eyes.  Generalizations are helpful but come from a poor place, often from laziness, or just the newness of a situation, or no time to study,  "Times up! Fight or Flight".   "Track Lessons" shows how rules become lessons as the generalizations are refined. For example Lesson 6 is "Some lies are OK".

Altogether 10 chapters, several started out as stand alone short stories, but now they all have to come together, same font & size.  Character's names, dates and whereabouts have to be consistant, all in one novel, one Word document.

I start with 10 separate documents, one for each chapter. I edit each document using Grammarly for punctuation, spelling and small improvements, and note inconsistancies (For example, George's sponsor is "Lancaster Harley Davidson" in Chapter 3, but is "Dexter's HD" in chapter 7) into my "edit notes".  Next I will join all ten documents into one, carefully following Archway's guidelines.  Then re-edit this new document using my "edit notes".  Then I will send this out to my 6 "Friendly editors".

In the month that this editing process is going on I'll work on cover design. (HELP!  Any graphic artists out there, interested in a three motorcycle kurfunkle scene for the cover?