Craig Lancaster's Blog, page 40

Still more book-launch photos

These are courtesy of my friend Jim Thomsen:

Ang looks on during one of the readings.

Dad watches.

Russell Rowland, author of "In Open Spaces" and "The Watershed Years."

I sign the books, Angie collects the money.

It takes rapt concentration to use a pen, appar

Photos from the book launch

Thanks to my friend and colleague Casey Riffe for snapping these:

Photo by Casey Riffe

Photo by Casey Riffe

Photo by Casey Riffe

Photo by Casey Riffe

Photo by Casey Riffe

Photo by Casey Riffe

Photo by Casey Riffe

Photo by Casey Riffe

Photo by Casey Riffe

Photo by Casey Riffe

Big night in Billings

Perhaps it’s a little strange to have a book-launch party almost two months after the books were released. But that oddity didn’t seem to affect the festivities tonight in Billings. I was gratified to see so many friends and friends of friends come out to support an independent author trying to make a go of it.

I read two selections — the first was the second chapter of my novel, “Six-Hundred Hours of a Life,” and the second was “The Motorcycle Crash,” from “Past-Due Pastorals.” My friend Russell

Readings, imminent and later

The big book launch and signing party is less than 24 hours away. A month ago, it seemed impossibly far off, but time did what time does, and here we are. (It helps that the past 48 hours, in particular, have been killed by a project at work.) I’ve picked out a couple of readings that I think will be big hits. Fingers crossed, anyway.

Today, I received a nice flyer from Parmly Billings Library that promotes my April 13 reading there as part of National Library Week. Please do come out, if only to

The query

So you’ve written a novel and you’re looking for a literary agent.

Over at Writers in the West, there’s some advice on writing a query letter, from a newbie (that’d be me). There’s a lot more such information here. (And, please, do yourself a favor and bookmark AgentQuery.com.)

Finally, I’ll make the plea again: If you’re a writer or an admirer of writing, please join us at Writers in the West. We’re a fledgling group, but we’ve got spirit, yes we do.

Billings Gazette review

The Web link isn’t up yet, but here’s a PDF of the review (hey, I have connections). It covers both “Six-Hundred Hours” and “Past-Due Pastorals.”

Of the novel, reviewer Chris Rubich writes:

Lancaster starkly, yet with humor, follows Stanton’s daily routine of logging his waking times and the previous day’s weather, eating the same foods and arranging magazines in his mental-health adviser’s waiting room just so.

If he drives, every turn must be a right turn, and he’s proved right in his own mind wh

A bit of publicity

The Billings Gazette Enjoy section today included a short writeup on next week’s book launch and signing.

A full review of the books is coming Sunday. Be sure to look for it in the Magazine section.

Moving the chains II

Over the course of about four hours late last night and early this morning, I did an edit on my manuscript. Perhaps this won’t be of interest to anyone but me, but I found it fascinating to watch the word count change as I tweaked away, adding a few words here, excising a few there. In terms of word count, the changes were mostly static, though I think the story improved.

Finally, toward the end of the work, I added a bit of color and background to a scene and pushed the total up by nearly 200 wo

Moving the chains

Over at Writers in the West, Jim Thomsen started a thread on what separates those who are serious about writing from those who are dilettantes. The biggest difference: Writers write. It sounds simple, but that’s the crux of it.

A novel isn’t born by sitting down and bleeding out 80,000 or 100,000 words. It’s hundreds of cases of sitting down and chipping away — a thousand words here, 25 hard-to-extract words there, going back over your work and rewiring passages that just don’t add up, removing w

Taking a flyer

Now that I’m starting to book some readings, I’ve whipped up a flyer for folks to take from the event:

Check it out.