The Author Guy Blog

18th February 2025 Hello out there, Welcome back. One of the great joys (among a hundred or more) is selecting the names for characters in my novels. Often, with their permission, people who have a special place in my heart or in my memories of times gone by are featured. In all four of my published novels, Dr. Michael McGinley has a brief recurring role as the town’s beloved family doctor, and he keeps alive the memory of my best childhood friend who sadly died of Lou Gehrig’s disease when he was in his early fifties. In my novel Blue by You , the minor character readers write that they “adore” is a teenage girl named Annie Hathaway. That is the name of Suzanne Pleshette’s (I was a huge fan until her passing) character in Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic thriller “ The Birds. ” I’m determined to name a future character Joey Heatherton after the actress, singer and dancer who was very famous during the 1960s and 1970s as I was “growing up.” I’m in the process of writing a Christmas-themed nov...

 4th February 2025 Hello out there, Welcome back. For those who have read my award-winning novel  Blue by You , you know “Blue” in the title is a dog. Actually, three generations of Australian Shepards owned by my male protagonist who names each of them the same. I love dogs, and have featured them in all four of my novels. Before  Blue by You , each of the dogs was a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel because I’ve owned two over the past twenty years, sequentially not consecutively. From the same breeder, they were cousins. My first Cavalier was named Mosby, and he passed away a few months shy of his eleventh birthday. My current little four-legged best buddy is Jackson and we celebrated his eleventh a few weeks ago. Sadly, we’ve learned he has cancer, with perhaps only a few months remaining. I’m sharing this in the context of my blog that will always be author or writing focused because I intend to continue to write a dog into every book I write, be it a novel or a shortene...

11th October 2024 Hello out there, Welcome back. I read a sign somewhere sometime that said: “I want patience … and I want it now!” That’s how I felt a few weeks ago when my new publisher, with whom I enthusiastically signed an exclusive contract last December, informed me it will most likely be next summer (18 months later) before the new version of my award-winning book Blue by You will be released. My sense of urgency is two-fold. First, last week I celebrated my seventh-fifth birthday and the sand in my hourglass seems to be falling more rapidly with each passing year. I reckon I’d feel different if it were instead my forty-fifth. Second, and more important, from a commercial standpoint I’ll I’ve been at a standstill, out of business in terms of marketing for those same eighteen months. I consulted with my wise and experienced marketing expert who lives in the high desert of Oregon, and we concluded this could be a good thing, indeed. More time for us to plan our “launch” – you kn...

10th May 2024 Hello out there, Welcome back. Just returned from a six days in Florida and a four-day cruise around the Caribbean with my bride/best friend of thirty-five years. This was only our second cruise, and there will definitely be more in the future. After ten years that yielded four novels, I find myself much more relaxed regarding my author journey since my escape five months ago from the self-publishing world. Don’t get me wrong. It was a wonderful experience and I learned more than I can possibly describe but, at least for me, a lot of the self-induced pressure has abated. My first book with the new publisher and their partner Simon & Schuster will be a re-release of what is now a scrupulously and meticulously edited manuscript of my fourth (and award-winning) novel  Blue by You.  The “new”  Blue  will be published sometime later this year. The rough draft of my second of a two-book initial commitment,  For the Love of Charlie Chaplin , will be f...

3rd May 2024 Hello out there, Welcome back. I’m delighted to report the relationship with my new publisher, who is affiliated with powerhouse Simon & Schuster, is meeting or exceeding all expectations I had when I signed the exclusive contract with them back in December of last year. As I’ve mentioned previously, a re-publication and re-release of my novel  Blue by You  will be my first book with them. Even though Blue received three international award recognitions in 2022/23, the book is being treated as a brand new manuscript. For the past two months, I’ve been working a ton of hours with a marvelous Toronto-based editor going line-by-line and word-by-word, metaphorically running a comb through tangles of POV (point of view) mis-steps, information stacking, setup and payoff, paragraphing, on and on. I’m pleased to say that the first two of a three-step process ( documental review  and line edit ) are now complete, and what was a very good book is now, I believe, a ...