A New Project Makes Me Happy

c2011Shalako


I have a new project and that makes me happy.

Because it was so much fun to write 'The Handbag's Tale,' my first detective story, and because I like detective or mystery stories, and because there is a market, I was definitely interested in doing more of them.

As far as story length, that really doesn't matter. If it's not a novel, so much the better. That's because the short-term marketing strategy is to submit it. If I can place the story somewhere, make some money and gain some new readers, that's fine.

The story is 'maintenon gets a vacation,' and Inspector Gilles Maintenon is on a walking tour of the moors in southwestern England because as a boy he read a lot of Serlock Holmes...and then of course there is a murder and he gets to solve it.

The whole thing revolves around a mysterious missing aircraft and one dead pilot who just happens (or happened) to be under consideration for an international seaplane racing team.

As usual in a Maintenon story, there are plenty of twists and turns, and surprising characters that say the damnedest things.

Luckily, I already know whodunit! In the first Maintenon story, I had to write it to find out.

The really great thing about writing the same character is of course marketing. With a half a dozen short mysteries featuring Inspector Maintenon, I can package them up in collections, publish them as Amazon 'shorts,' or when I develop some more relevant skills, develop it into a TV pilot/proposal.

It is nice to take a break from the incessant round of social networking and sales/marketing, and do some actual work for a change.

Gilles hasn't actually said this yet, but I suspect he will before the end of the story:

'A change is as good as a vacation.'

And now if the reader will forgive me, I must rejoin Maintenon and a certain Esther Phelps, a tall, athletic, brown-haired woman in her late thirties or early forties. They're at a remote farmhouse on the verge of Exmoor, and Jimmy is about to arrive on his sidecar-motorcycle and break the news...a lady down the road has a body in the parlour and would the nice inspector like to come and have a look at it?

New Post: Cycling is Therapeutic.

c2011Shalako


I injured my right knee back in August of 2009. I did it swimming, which shouldn't be possible, at least for a fit or even a slightly younger person. A normal flutter kick shouldn't do that to you. It might have something to do with my doggy-paddling style, a sort of one-armed stroke designed to keep my smoke up out of the water.

With a few weeks of downtime, and autumn fast approaching, I didn't get too many kilometres of cycling in that year.

I never walk farther than about a kilometre, incidentally.

Along rolls 2010 and I was re-writing my first two novels, editing, reading, learning social networking, and editing...I've been in this chair pretty much continously for about a year and a half. That is to say when I wasn't sleeping, or eating, or taking a shower. Shoveling snow. You get the idea.

So last year, instead of cycling two or three thousand kilometres over the summer, it was more like...I don't know, maybe 600 k's all year.

Today I took my second bike ride of the season. I wore two shirts and two sweaters. The first couple of kilometres did hurt my right knee. My upper back and shoulders, my arms, my elbows, my wrists...my lower back and everything else.

After a while the pain went away and my wind wasn't as bad as I expected. The upper legs burn of course.

I felt eager. I really didn't put much power to it, but the right knee felt okay. I only went about five kilometres, and it was a nice spring day. 'No worries.'

It's not a matter of 'owing it to myself' or anything like that. My right foot is numb half the time and I now walk with a very distinct limp...this is a new thing for me and I don't like it very much. I need a new office chair something fierce.

Cycling is a necessity after all this time at my desk. In my opinion, my productivity and creativity will actually improve. Summer is for the living.

Cycling is for me.