December 2006 Blogs

The December Photo of the Month is of my son Sam, who was born on November 30, 2006. Talk about a life-altering event... I think I now understand what people mean when they talk about how having children changes your life. Susan and I couldn't be happier, and we feel extremely blessed to have such a peaceful, healthy, happy son. Wednesday December 27, 2006 Everything's going great! I have family in town this week, and we're just having a great time. Believe it or not, I've still found time to do a little writing in the mornings before the family activities get underway. The word count on Sacred Kill is up to 27,571 at 144 pages. Stacey Sunday December 24, 2006 I managed to get some writing done this afternoon, bringing the word count for Sacred Kill up to 26,351. Spent most of the day with family and friends. Merry Christmas, everybody! Saturday December 23, 2006 It's just a couple days until Christmas, and today I spent most of the day with family. My mom and dad drove up, as did my brother and sister-in-law. Everybody wants to see the baby! I did manage to actually get some writing done early this morning, and I wrote some yesterday and the day before. I'm finding that with the baby, it's crucial that I write any time I get some free time. Even if it's only for an hour here, or thirty minutes there. This is different from writing where you have 3-4 hour chunks, but if I really make myself work, I keep chipping away at the new novel. It's really cool, and it's likely to be a very different novel than anything else I've ever written. The current word count on the novel I've been calling Roman Phoenix (but have re-titled Sacred Kill in the past week) is 25,665. Once I hit about 35,000 words, I'll be halfway done. It's been a fun novel to write and research. Stacey Wednesday December 20, 2006 I've got a new literary agency update. This brings me to nearly 250 agents that have now been queried for my novel The Colorado Sequence. Sunday December 17, 2006 I'm taking a break from grading to post a couple of new photos. This first one will probably end up going under the Bio & Photos section of the site because I don't have another one like it... That's my life -- right there in one photo, folks. From left to right, that's Steinbeck, Me, Zoe, Susan, and Sam (hidden in the stroller). And here's Sam in his bathrobe wide-eyed and awake... Thursday December 14, 2006 Just a quick note to let everyone know everything's going along fine this week. I've been putting together another batch of 100 literary agency queries that should go out in the next 24-48 hours. I've got some major league grading to do this weekend to finish up my English 101 for the semester. I should have some free time after that to get back to the Roman Phoenix novel. Stacey Sunday December 10, 2006 Hi everyone, I've got a new interview for your enjoyment. This conversation is with Gabriel Gurley, a fellow Lulu author. Friday December 8, 2006 Hey, folks, I've been incredibly busy the past few days. Yesterday, in particular, was a great day. I started first thing in the morning with another interview at the rapidly growing Kitchen Table Studios. The interview was with author Gabriel Gurley, and I should have that interview live within the next few days. Then, yesterday afternoon, I worked with my writing colleague Elisa on our most recent manuscript workshop. We discussed her novel and query letter over a late lunch. Then, I drove over to Chapel Hill, where my good friend Guy Waltz and his wife Sara treated me to pizza, and I discussed Guy's progress with his first published poetry collection. Afterwards, I drove down to Pittsboro for the Open Mic night at McIntyre's Bookstore. I spoke with the owner, and managed to get flyers set up in the store for my group bookstore event signing scheduled for January 20, 2007 at the store. I got to chat with poet Phil Morse and his wife Judith, who are just as nice as can be and are going to help get the word out about the event by putting a mention in the Fearrington Village Newsletter. Then, I drove home and got the best email that I've gotten in a while from an agent who wanted to see sample chapters from my newest novel Death Cabin. This is particularly cool because the agent just looked at the full-length manuscript for Claws, and so to be asking to see a partial for Death Cabin feels like a step in the right direction. So, I got started working on doing one last edit on the manuscript, and I hope to have the package out by the end of the weekend. Today, I received another positive response from another agent on yet another manuscript of mine The Colorado Sequence. I made a short video of my reading that response... I'm beginning to get a little backed up on my To Do list. I called a local NPR radio station about getting an interview set up for our bookstore event in January. I wrote up the invoice for the books. I still have two manuscripts that need to go in the mail to agents, and I've got another round of queries that I would like to be getting in the mail. I need to get another Photo of the Month on the blog, and I still need to do the T-shirt drawing. I love keeping busy. Stacey Wednesday December 6, 2006 Hey, folks, I've got a new interview. This one is with Jon Batson, author of The Rands Conspiracy. I filmed it yesterday morning and did most of the post-production work last night. Enjoy it, man... Click Here to Watch at YouTube

Monday December 4, 2006 Hey folks, Susan, Sam, and I are home from the hospital, and we're all doing well. For me, it's back to the daily grind of writing and querying. I managed to set up a couple things for my bookstore event scheduled for January this afternoon, and I mowed through a stack of rejection letters. I also lined up an interview for tomorrow morning. For those folks who've been following this most recent barrage of literary agency queries, this video might be of interest to you. My goal is to 1) either land a literary agent, or 2) to query 450 by New Years for my novel The Colorado Sequence. So far, I've queried 142. So that means I've got about 300 to go. Today, I bought 60 more stamps for the next round, and the new toner cartridge arrived last week. So, I should begin putting that next round together in the coming days. This video is of me going through a stack of rejection letters. It ends with me finding a positive response from a literary agent! Friday December 1, 2006 5:43 P.M. -- Here are two more photographs of Sam. 11:44 A.M. -- One last video of Sam. This is from last night in the hospital room... 10:29 A.M. -- I've just uploaded this video of Sam. He was about fifteen minutes old, and we were in the hallway just outside of the operating room. 9:24 A.M. -- Well, Susan, Sam, and I are doing very well this morning. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. I've got some numbers and another photo. Sam was born at 6:26 P.M. November 30, 2006. He weighed 8 pounds, 11 ounces, and he was born one week early. Had we not induced labor and had he gone the full term, he would have likely weighed more than nine pounds. His head size is above the 90th percentile, and that attributed to his needing a C-section birth. Thursday November 30, 2006 11:14 P.M. -- We've got the first baby photographs of Samuel... Here's Susan and Samuel... And me and my boy... I'll be getting a couple of videos up hopefully by morning. Stacey

7:21 P.M. -- The baby is here! 8 pounds, 11 ounces. More later... 5:54 P.M. -- We're going to be leaving for surgery in about five minutes. I thought you guys might like to see this video I took of Susan earlier today. 5:19 P.M. -- We're going to be going in for a C-section. The surgery is scheduled for about 6:00 P.M., and it should last about 60-90 minutes. The baby looks fine on the monitors, but he was not descending well enough, so the doctor wants to go ahead and get him out. I'll be right there beside Susan. 4:21 P.M. -- I've got my hands full right this minute, but I thought I would give you a quick update. Susan is in enough pain that she doesn't want me asking her how much pain she's in. The contractions are coming about every 90 seconds to 2 minutes, and they seem to be very intense. 1:44 P.M.-- The contractions are now coming pretty steadily every two minutes. In the past hour, the intensity of pain at the peak of each contraction has increased to a "6" on a 1-to-10 scale, Susan says. The following two photographs came from about 90 minutes ago, before the pain intensified... Susan even found time to respond to a couple students' emails... 11:32 A.M. -- The contractions are now coming every 2-4 minutes. Susan rates the pain at a 4.5 on a 1-to-10 scale. 9:24 A.M. -- Susan and I are in our hospital room. I have my laptop and our wireless internet card, and so I'll be able to get these press releases out throughout the day. Here's a picture of Susan just a few minutes ago... Right now, the contractions are reasonably mild, and they're coming about every 5-10 minutes. Susan says right this minute that she would rate the pain as a "3" on a scale of 1 to 10. The nurse has just increased the Ptocin. Stacey Wednesday November 29, 2006 It's about 5:30 PM, and Susan and I are waiting at home for the hospital to call to tell us that our delivery room is available. We've been told that they will call us sometime after 7:30 tonight. At that point, we will drive to the hospital and begin the process to deliver our baby. Today, I've been working through the edits on Roman Phoenix, as well as those on Death Cabin to keep from thinking too much about the coming baby. Stacey Tuesday November 28, 2006 Well, the big news for today is not of a writerly nature, but readers of "Everyone is Welcome" should find this interesting news nonetheless. The doctors have decided to induce labor for Susan beginning Wednesday (i.e., tomorrow) night. That means that the baby will be here Thursday or Friday at the latest. If you're the praying type, please say a prayer for her and I. If you're not, just keep us in your thoughts. This is our first baby. I should have pictures by the weekend of the new family! Stacey Saturday November 25, 2006 I did an interview today with fellow Lulu author and suspense novelist K. Robert Campbell. Enjoy... ARCHIVED BLOGS