I have been working diligently on my novel and passed the halfway point. It’s always a pleasure to meet important milestones and make progress. I’m 180 pages into the book, and it’s going well. It’s a Jack Whitstone book; there are three others in the tetralogy (Indian Spirits, Weeping Woman, Music Master), all available on Amazon.com.

At the pace that I’m writing it will be a few months before I have a completed draft. But I’ll stick with it until I get it done and will post periodic updates along the way.

I just completed the first chapter of my new book, and it looks good. Progress could best be described as a trickle, slow but steady. I looked back into the first book of the set, Indian Spirits, and was amazed how grim that book was. Jack Whitstone has been on a long journey, and in the latest book he is back into the fray. I don’t want to give away the plot, so that’s all I can tell you for now.

After a month of work I have finished the outline for my next novel and typed it up so I don’t lose it on my computer. I’m taking a few days off before starting the actual writing. Though I write a detailed outline, often the finished novel only superficially resembles that outline.

I’ve heard writers say they wrote a novel in just a week, or even just a weekend. I have not read the final product of these works, but I assume that they read like junk that someone wrote in three days…

So for now I am kicking back and relaxing, and I will be in touch again next week.

I bought a copy of one of my books on Amazon, and Amazon said it would arrive in ten weeks. I freaked out. I needed that book in four to six weeks. Every day I checked in with Amazon, wondering what was taking so long; in about two weeks the book came to my door. No idea what happened there, but I have my book and it is in great shape.

Amazon is like this with small packages, with great variation in shipping and delivery times. I expect this for the Christmas/holiday season, but in February? Maybe as they ramp up their own delivery service, shipping will speed up. Not that I’m looking to complain and cause trouble…

I have had all sorts of problems using WordPress, most recently the disappearance of all my old blog posts. No way am I going to rewrite those, so suddenly six months of posts are gone. Sometimes it seems that a WordPress techie watches me type and messes with me as I go.

Are any of my readers out there having similar experiences? Disappearing posts, disappearing images, changing menus when I didn’t make the changes, and so forth. I have a simple site, so I don’t know why it’s so hard to maintain. Let’s go back to the malicious techie and leave it at that…

I have gotten past the research phase of my latest book and have started in on making the outline for the whole thing. This is probably the most important phase of writing the book, because the outline is the backbone of the finished product. I have never heard of a writer who stayed wholly on the outline, but many make only small edits from that document.

As for me, I take the outline as a suggestion instead of the gospel and make plenty of edits as I go along.

Whatever your method, have a great day outlining your next book!

While researching for my latest Jack Whitstone novel I couldn’t help but notice the difference between book covers with an image and words (title and author name) and those with only a single large image and no words. I have a visceral dislike for the wordless covers, because it takes a reader in a bookstore several more seconds to turn the book to its spine and get the information there. However, I have seen other covers that look fine without the text on the front cover.

What do you think, friends and readers? How do you like your covers?

I grew up reading books from the libraries in the schools I attended. The first book I can remember reading was a science fiction book about the aftermath of a nuclear war, where only a few people survived and most of them were in dire need of food and water. That was a post-apocalyptic novel, and I have read many of them in the decades since. The fact that we have not yet brought this fate to the human race suggests that we have better impulse control than we give ourselves credit for.

Later in my school years I went to the public library in the town of Durango, Colorado. There were many more books in there than in the school libraries, and I expanded my reading accordingly.

The public library also had a meeting room where some friends and I played role-playing games. There were half a dozen of us, and for the most part this was great fun. As my mother said, it kept us away from doing drugs.

Modern libraries have internet-enabled computers for even wider reach than in the past. The library continues to evolve as an information hub, and who knows what budding genius is even now checking out a book that will fuel his mind and enrich the human race?

Where do you get your story ideas, whether it be for a short story or a novel? I get my ideas by living life. Taking walks in the pine forests, or on the beach. Of course the media kicks out a lot of good ideas. And my friends and family give me tidbits to work with. In my youth I read many books, both fiction and nonfiction, and this is a habit I continue through today.

Of course there are many disasters in any person’s life, and these are good fodder for stories. The pet dog runs away, and do the kids in the family chase him down or wait for him to come home? Another story: the mother of the family feels weak and tired day after day, until her husband takes her to the doctor and learns she has cancer and has less than six months to live. And again: a young Maya Indian girl learns to play a magic drum and takes on a deadly demon in a battle to the finish. The idea came from some pictures I saw, of Maya dancers and musicians. Finally, I served as a soldier for several years, and those experiences gave me many story ideas.

But that’s my inspiration. Let’s return to the beginning of this post. Where do you find your story ideas? Whether you are a writer or a reader, it can’t hurt to keep your eyes open to the world around you. Live, and read!

Whether you have a hundred online friends or a dozen, it’s relatively easy to keep in touch with them and see what they’re up to. For me, as a writer, typing up a blog post on my word press site is a good way to send a message to many friends at once. A post to your Facebook wall will accomplish the same thing. You can also encourage visitors to your site to leave comments on your blog posts.

If you value your friends, respond to their comments. You never know what great new people you might meet!