The Author Guy Blog

28th June 2024 Hello out there, Welcome back. In my tenth blog, back in January of this year, I wrote about works of fiction that had made an impact on me, and, in fact, inspired me to become a novelist. My focus then was on brief books – what today would be known as a novella – and how some of them gained worldwide reader acclaim and awards such as the Pulitzer and the Nobel. I’ve self-published four novels (word count greater than 40,000 – mine were around 65,000) and my fifth, to be released early next year, will come in at around 75,000 words. But when I began my author journey ten years ago, it was the novella (21,000 to 39,000 words) I envisioned myself writing, and it’s a place I believe I will find myself returning to with my sixth manuscript. An even lesser word count, traditionally topping off at no more than 8,000 words, is the realm of short stories. I recently read of the passing of Alice Munro, a Canadian author who published fourteen collections of short stories over fiv...

 21 June 2024 Hello out there, Welcome back. As I’ve written about previously, in December of last year I signed two-book contract, exclusive in nature with grant of right-of-first refusal on all future manuscripts, with a noted publisher aligned with the powerhouse Simon & Schuster. A brief update on where we are. I agreed without hesitation to the publisher’s request to re-publish and re-release my award-winning  Blue by You  novel that was first released as a self-published book in 2022. I worked for several months with a wonderful Toronto-based editor going word-by-word, line-by-line, to elevate what I (and others) believed was a very good book into a great manuscript. We’ve moved through the first two stages – developmental review and line edit, and we’re close to finishing the copy/detail edit process. From there, we move to cover design before the book actually goes into production and is placed in the hands of Simon & Schuster worldclass marketing and sale...

14th June 2024 Hello out there, Welcome back. Anyone who has read my award-winning novel  Blue by You  novel understands the title is a play on words of the “Blue Bayou” song written and recorded by Roy Orbison, and also memorably recorded by the legendary Linda Ronstadt. I write about this connection, and about Ronstadt in the book. What can I say – I’ve been a fan ever since the release of her first hit record “Different Drum ” in 1967 – the year I graduated from high school. Yes, the math is easy. I’m approaching my 75th revolution around the sun. It pained me greatly, and her millions of fans worldwide, when Parkinson’s Disease stilled her Grammy-winning singing voice eleven years ago. But as fate would have it, a replacement has come into my life. A couple of years ago, my wife and I attended a concert by one of the country’s leading Linda Ronstadt tribute singers, and over time, we’ve become great friends since she lives nearby in Tennessee. You can get a taste of her ta...

  7th June 2024 Hello out there, Welcome back. The events of the past week put me to thinking about “force of nature” and how `we are almost always helpless if we find ourself in the path of one. Metaphorically speaking, a one-of-a-kind force of nature in the person of a former president (and his party’s presumptive 2024 presidential candidate) was just found guilty of thirty-four felony counts by a jury in Manhattan. That decision, and the reaction in the coming months by both the individual and his followers, and those aligned against them, most likely will be a force of nature thrust upon our country and the world, and we’re powerless to do anything about it except make our feelings known, one way or the other, at the ballot box on November 5th . A literal force of nature descended upon my hometown three years ago, and the resulting damage and loss of life was haphazard and indiscriminate. A house destroyed here or there; those surrounding it left untouched. The randomness of it...