Upcoming Projects

Anita, our campground host, liked Yesterday' Secrets, Tomorrow's Promises, my romance novel, but thought I should write a Christian romance instead and gave me one as an example. There are a few problems with that, one being that I am an agnostic and another that I don't ordinarily write romances.  I wrote this one back in the 1980's as a money making venture. While it never sold, I got rejection letters from editors who encouraged me to re-write the thing and submit even more. I never did that.

Which brings me to the third problem: I seldom repeat anything. I hand stitched a quilt once, a thing of beauty, but I've never had the least inclination to make another. I once knit a mitten but found knitting so boring I never finished the other. So one romance novel is all I had in me and once I self-published that, I was done. I don't even read romances! So I will return Anita's book unread.

People often have suggestions as to what I should write so I've finally printed out a sheet to hand out with my ongoing projects to show them I am far too busy to undertake anything new.  This is what I have scheduled:

October, 2013 --  Black Coffee Fiction, Volume 2 with Wade Peterson and Bettyann Moore. I've already written the stories so Wade is finishing up the work on that.

January, 2014 Going Down from Gairloch, fiction based on my adventures in Scotland and England. Not a romance, a true novel, it's about decisions that change our lives. I am on the third draft of that, and plan to have the book done by the end of November with final editing through December. 

Spring, 2014 Jake Dog and the Four Cats, non-fiction about my beloved Australian Shepherd. I have a a few of the stories written but there's still a lot to be done.

October, 2014 Another Black Coffee Fiction collection, so I have about eight more short stories to write. I still have to pick out the subject. This year's section is about a small Midwestern town where people are always dying, sometimes in grisly ways.  

January 2015 A collection of seriously depressing Christmas stories for people who don't like the holidays, again, taken from the Black Coffee Fiction blog. I have around eight done but will need another dozen. They are very funny, believe it or not. I may not publish them until November of that year to sell for the Christmas season. 

Spring, 2015, a novel based on the stories of my great aunt Mabel about homesteading in North Dakota. Very serious stuff about tuberculosis, death, rape at the beginning of the 20th century.

And somewhere in the future, my memoirs, mostly about travel around the world. I might do a collection of columns from Storytelling Trails and Tales, too. And of course, the yearly Black Coffee Fiction collection. Add to that a storytelling tour here and there and camping in the summer, possibly working as a campground host. 

So sorry, Anita, no Christian romance.