March 2006 Posts

The March Photo of the Month is of author Steve Hockensmith and myself on the occasion of Steve's debut book tour for his excellent first novel Holmes on the Range, a witty who-dunit set in 1892 Montana. The novel is narrated in one of the most original voices I've read in a long time. This book is sure to be a collectible, and I heartily recommend it.

Wednesday April 5, 2006
Well, we have a winner in the March 31st, 2006 free Amber Page T-shirt give-away. Jethro from Utah was the lucky winner, and I'll be getting the word out to him later today. Thanks to all who entered the new quarterly drawing.

In a few minutes here, I'm going to be cleaning up the blog, archiving the past month, and getting a new photo of the month up.

Also later today, I'm going to try to write up a newsletter for everybody on the email list. I think I'm going to make this a quarterly newletter to coincide with the quarterly give-away.

As always, any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Stay in touch!

Stacey

P.S. Incidentally, Amazon.com got the "Search Inside the Book" feature updated for Amber Page and the Legend of the Coral Stone. You can now read an excerpt and search around inside the book. Try it out!


Monday April 3, 2006
I know I'm running behind on the T-shirt contest, but Susan and I just got in this afternoon from Raleigh/Durham. We're putting in an offer on a new house near Clayton, North Carolina.

We left Raleigh for Phoenix this morning at 8 A.M. The flight was 4.5 hours, and so we both woke up around 5 o'clock in order to get to the airport on time. My brain is fried.

On top of that, Susan picked up a nail in her front right tire and so we just changed the flat.

Only received one rejection in the mail while we were gone. One on a short story from Asimov's. This year marks an even decade I have been sending them work every year without publication. I started sending them work in 1996.

In the good news category, I found out just a couple days ago that Poisoned Pen Bookstore will give me a signing and discussion on April 18. That means that I will be there as an author. A huge honor, really. It marks my second professional bookstore event.

The key is to build working relationships like this with bookstores because chances are, you'll continue to work with them year in and year out. If I could have five or six stores that I've done events with by the end of the year that would be a huge success. So far, I have two. It's a good start.

Stacey






Wednesday March 29, 2006
We are in Raleigh, North Carolina safe and sound. Susan is asleep in this here hotel room, so I have to be very quiet as I type up this blog. Shhhh...

Here's a photo of me right before we left the house in Arizona for the airport to fly to Raleigh.



Sure, I felt fine then, but our plane didn't get in to Raleigh Durham until around 1 A.M. local time. I hate flying west-to-east because it feels like you lose time. When you fly east to west, it always feels like you have a few hours extra when you first get in.

Regardless, late or no, there's always time for a photo-op, and where better to do that than at the rental car place!



Yes, I'm a low-budget Michael Palin. But wait until my writing career takes off, I get a major book deal, and I got some money to burn. It's a T-shirt give-away on staceycochran.com right now. One day, I hope to be giving away stuff like a quarterly Toyota Prius on my site.

So, today while Susan was at NC State, I drove around Raleigh looking at all the changes that have happened since I last lived here. One of my first stops was Ebenezer Church on Ebenezer Church Road.



I had completely forgotten about this church, yet the memory of it was somewhere in my subconscious. I swear it was like driving up to it in a dream or something. It was really wild.



Tomorrow, we're going to do a little shopping for houses. Weather's supposed to be kick-ass.

Stacey




Tuesday March 28, 2006
Susan and I fly out of Phoenix late this afternoon, arriving in Raleigh, North Carolina a little after midnight EST. We'll be in Raleigh Wednesday-Monday, house hunting.

I got a call back this morning on an oceanfront 2 bed/2 bath rental condo at Carolina Beach for this summer. I'm thinking I might just rent at the beach while we shop around for homes in Raleigh to buy.

We'll know more by the end of this weekend.

Stacey




Sunday March 26, 2006
Got a scorcher of a headache and it's almost one in the morning, but I've been working on the cover for The Colorado Sequence. Let me know what you think...

Saturday March 25, 2006
Okay, now we're cookin' with gas.

Friday March 24, 2006 I got a good night's sleep last night. I'm at my computer this morning, fresh cup of coffee in hand. The windows are open on the house and the temp outside is about 78 degrees (about 26 C). Humidity is low. It's one of those mornings where everything feels sharp and focused and fresh around the edges, the kind of day you write well. Claws 2. How does a novel get written? SC Thursday March 23, 2006 Received a final rejection today on Culpepper, my PI novel that was selected as a finalist for the St. Martin's Press/PWA Best First Private Eye Novel Contest back in October 2004. After one rejection already, the novel went back into the rotation to a small press mystery publisher after its nomination for the award. There it stayed for over a year. Today I received the rejection via email. Culpepper has been submitted to more than sixty editors and literary agents. They have unanimously rejected it. I really didn't want to self-publish this novel as well, but I have sent it everywhere I know to send it. It's been constantly under submission since 2002. I'm not sure right now where to fit it into the rotation of self-published books I have scheduled through 2010. Maybe I'll wait until 2011. Maybe I'll release it somewhere in between, do a couple of novels in a single year. Any thoughts or ideas, as always, are greatly appreciated. It's back to Claws 2 today. Stacey P.S. This post script comes several hours after the above. What a weird day. Following the rejection via email for my novel Culpepper, I received a rejection via snail mail for my novel Maggie Redcrest and then a couple hours later, a rejection for my novel Claws via UPS. Wednesday March 22, 2006 Better day today. I've just been hammering away at Claws 2. Sometimes, it feels like it takes an act of God to get you started writing a scene. The motivation is that lacking. But once you get rolling, it's really invigorating. Today, the writing was not Hell. Stacey Tuesday March 21, 2006 It's been a hard few days. I've received 14 rejections since Friday, and I had to cancel my registration to ThrillerFest because I simply can't afford to attend now that I'd have to fly and stay at a hotel. I'm trying to do some writing on Claws 2 today. Susan has flown to Chicago for a conference, and so I'm alone in the house for five days with nothing but a novel in front of me that needs to be finished. Novel number eight. #s 1-7 still unpublished. Writing has become a kind of Hell. Stacey Saturday March 18, 2006 Well, we're home safe and sound from Colorado. For me, it was back to the grindstone. I muscled my way through 1200 words in Claws 2 this morning, setting things into motion that will draw the novel to a close. My goal is to have the first draft done by April 14 because everything is going to get turned upside down after that date, what with the move from Phoenix to Raleigh. Stacey Thursday March 16, 2006 Today was the last day of our Colorado vacation. We skied at Vail, and the conditions were great. I was happy. And when I'm happy, I like to kiss my wife... Altogether, Colorado was a wonderful place to vacation. Tomorrow, we leave for Phoenix, and it's back to the grindstone. I've got a novel to finish by the end of April. Stacey Monday March 13, 2006 Today was the first really good ski day of our Colorado Ski Vacation. We hit Beaver Creek (where the movie stars ski!) and conditions were very good. Of course, no ski vacation is complete unless you're wearing way too many clothes... Pictured here, Susan enjoys the peaceful tranquility of a chair-lift ride to the top (save for the nerd snapping photos of her all day). As the day wore on, though, a storm rolled in and the mountains got pounded with even more snow. So, we figured it was high time to head back to the condo and get down to the things in life that matter most... Like watching a peaceful snowfall from your living room. Tonight, it's Thai Food for dinner. A guy could get used to this kind'a life. Stacey Saturday March 11, 2006 Today was the second day of our Colorado Ski Vacation. We woke this morning to a view of Beaver Creek Ski Mountain from our condo's window. Our plan for the day was to drive around and get a better sense of the various resorts near to where we are staying. We drove first up to the actual resort at Beaver Creek. Once there, we found the Beaver Creek Chapel. What better place to start your vacation... Next, we drove to Vail and had lunch at The Red Lion in Vail Village. From Vail, we then headed up to Copper Mountain Ski Resort, where I snapped this photo of a sleigh ride. It was snowing pretty intensely from there forward, but we pushed on to Breckenridge. I really like Breckenridge's quaint downtown streets. From there, we drove home, hit a sporting goods store, came back to the condo and went for a swim. I've got a bowl of pasta beside the computer that has been cooling off while I typed up this blog. Time to eat! Stacey P.S. Okay, so I just had dinner. Afterwards, Susan and I looked up the weather forecast. Looks like we're in for a snow storm... A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM MST MONDAY. PERIODS OF SNOW WILL CONTINUE THROUGH SUNDAY NIGHT. THE SNOW WILL BE HEAVY AT TIMES...WITH TOTAL NEW SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 10 TO 20 INCHES EXPECTED BY EARLY MONDAY MORNING. Sounds like a good time to curl up by the fireplace with a paperback book. Friday March 10, 2006 We are in Colorado. Most of the day we spent travelling. I managed to snap a couple of photographs along the way. This one here was from the very start of our trip. The truck was packed and ready to head to the airport. We left from Phoenix Sky Harbor. The flight took about an hour and fifteen minutes from Phoenix to Denver. I snapped this one while on the plane. Once we got to Denver only half of our luggage showed up. However, we only had to wait around an extra thirty minutes, and the airline gave us vouchers for food in the food court. So, we had lunch for free. Right now, I am typing these very words from the kitchen table inside our resort hotel condo. The drive from Denver to Beaver Creek was pretty intense. We encountered a good snow storm around the Eisenhower Tunnel all the way over to Vail. Fortunately, our rental car has 4-Wheel Drive. It is nearly midnight local time, and there's a peaceful snow falling outside our window. More pictures tomorrow. Stacey Thursday March 9, 2006 Somehow or other, I let a ski vacation to Colorado creep up on me. Susan and I fly out of Phoenix for Denver tomorrow morning. We'll be staying at Beaver Creek. I'm told there's a wireless connection, so I should be able to post blogs. Stacey Tuesday March 7, 2006 Good news! It looks like the house has sold. One reason why I've been absent from the blog the past few days is that we have been working to close the deal. Right now, it looks like we'll be moving out around April 24-27, which is only a few weeks away. It is amazing how fast all this stuff comes together, once things are in motion. That said, Susan and I have to find a place to live in North Carolina during the next 6-8 weeks. We're moving to North Carolina. Somehow or other, I've got to switch gears now and work on writing the last third of Claws 2. I'd like to have the first draft of the manuscript done before we move, so that I can start fresh with something new once we get to North Carolina. I've been reading Silence of the Lambs this past week. Stacey Friday March 3, 2006 After about a month's break from writing, I've started chipping away again at the ending of Claws 2 the last three days. In over a decade, I don't think I've ever taken quite as much time off from the process of writing several hours each day. My typical week consists of writing at least five days out of the week, usually six. Some days I may only go for an hour or two, maybe 500 words. Other days I may hammer out as much as 2000-3000 words. But, for better or for worse, I rarely let more than about three days go by without writing something. This has more or less been my practice for about a decade. It is a process. That said, I've enjoyed the break. It's been refreshing. And I've done a lot of reading. I did write one short story during the break, but that only took about 3-4 days. At any rate, I'm back on task. I'd like to get the first draft of Claws 2 completed before we move to Raleigh. The manuscript is right around 225 pages and 50,000 words, and I'd like to keep it under 100,000 words. Preferably closer to 70-80,000. Stacey Wednesday March 1, 2006 Yesterday evening, I drove to the Poisoned Pen Bookstore for the T. Jefferson Parker discussion and signing. Store owner Barbara Peters spoke with Jeff for about an hour, and they answered questions from the crowd of about 25-30 people. Afterwards, I had the opportunity to meet Jeff and to get a picture taken with him. His newest novel The Fallen is about a San Diego homicide detective who, after being thrown from a window, undergoes a kind of synesthesia that enables him to be able to read people’s true emotions, and, thus, to know when they are lying. His new condition leads him to suspect that a death, first ruled a suicide, may have been caused by foul play. This photo of yours truly was taken while waiting in line to get my copy of the novel signed. Also, yesterday, I received my confirmation for registration to the inaugural ThrillerFest, which I'll be attending in June/July. Stacey