juggling

I'm juggling a number of literary projects, all with the eventual goal of publishing my novel, Dentville: The Ancients' Legacy . I mentioned, a few journal entries ago, that I would begin writing a "prequel" to the Dentville novel to give away for free as an ebook in order to promote the later, printed novel. This will be like a big prologue, or Part I, that will be of novella in length. I've drafted about the first third of this and hope to get it out sometime this summer. Yes, it delays the publication of the main work, but I believe it's essential to do it this way. And it'll be more fun for my readers.

I've also started working on a new short story. This one is not Dentville-related but is from an idea I've mulled over for a long time. There are a number of things I want to accomplish with it, among which is the expression of my view of life as it is lived by workers in the US, especially technology workers. If you've followed my work and this website for very long, you probably have an idea of what that view is. In this story, though, I want to speak of where hope lies in that life. My classical inspiration for this tale is Voltaire's Candide. More on this later as the story comes together.

What prompted me to begin work on the short story was my discovery of a new magazine being published in Jackson: MISSISSIPPI aesthetic . It is a magazine about and promoting the arts in Mississippi. What caught my attention was that they publish short stories. There are five good ones in their debut issue (Spring 2013). The magazine is free, supported by advertising, so look for it in shops around town and pick up the first issue. It impressed me as a quality magazine with quality CONTENT. So I want to submit a story to them, whether the one I've described above or another.

I'm also thinking about reworking my website and my newsletter. All of this is a work-in-progress with the ultimate aim of a novel, so I adjust as I figure out what I'm trying to do. The newsletter as it is takes to much time from my other writing, so I want to make it a more "general" repository for special commentaries from me (and maybe, eventually, "guests") with links to interesting websites and articles. Something like that. I'm open to any suggestions so please feel free to comment on what you would like to see in the newsletter and/or my website.

One change I made in the last month was sending an email version of these journal entries to my newsletter subscribers. It has prompted a few more comments than I get just from the website and if you follow a blog (Lemuria Bookstore, for example) it is convenient to get entries in your Inbox as they come out. So I'll keep doing that.

Otherwise, I'll keep juggling until I get the act down pat.


You can find the MISSISSIPPI aesthetic magazine's website here .