Newsletter May 2008
Hello everyone,
I know I'm a week late, but I have a good excuse. Well two good excuses. The first is the baby. She hasn't arrived yet, but she keeps threatening to come, so I'm completely stressed out, and I'm moving on to being wigged out. I can't wait to meet her in person! There is a great quote by Einstein "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Well, I don't know what my next novel will be, but the one after that will be a kid's book. :)
The second excuse is one that I know is forgivable...I just received an acceptance letter for a short story! Yep, after these many years of writing (15), I'll finally be a published writer! How great is that? (Answer: just slightly less great than becoming a dad.) My friend and fellow writer, Shannon Page (http://shannonpage.net) told me about the anthology. It is a horror themed book, and all the stories will take place in the same hotel. When Shannon told me about it, I said, "Hey, I'm a business traveler. I stay in hotels all the time. Surely I can find some inspiration."
Sure enough, my mother-in-law told me that police had found a body packed in dry ice in a hotel across the street from one that I often use. Truth is stranger than fiction: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dryice8mar08,1,1984493.story
So I wrote the story from the woman's point of view. The editors loved it and said it was reminiscent of The Premature Burial by Edgar Allen Poe! Wow, I'm going to go swoon now. As far back as I can remember, I've had a book of Poe on my shelf. And recently, my wife introduced me to Roald Dahl.
For info on the anthology, check out the publisher's site and look for the Voices anthology: http://www.morriganbooks.com/Voices.html
Now when you tell your friends to check out the free novel and free short stories on my site, you can tell them that I'll be a published writer and not some random dude with a web site. :) Also, being published will make it much easier to get my foot in the door when querying agents and editors.
And next time I write, I'll be a dad as well. Life is good.
--Todd