July 4th Week with the Undead Bar Association
Wow. What a week!
Later this week, I'll have more inside information about Matriculated Death. Stay tuned!
Having the 4th of July fall
on a Wednesday was odd. It really broke up the week in an odd way.
And since fireworks around here don't start until well after 9pm, it
made for some tired co-workers the next day on the day job.
I celebrated the holiday with friends
and family, in a home with a good view of the main fireworks display.
The best thing about the view, oddly enough, was not seeing the city
fireworks. It was seeing all the other fireworks. There was a big
farm field to the west, and hardly another building in sight. So we
had a view of the fireworks in all the smaller towns to the west and
southwest. Little blossoms of light dusting the horizon. Then a group
of people started setting off fireworks in the farm field, so we had
an immediate view of colored lights. Amusingly, the people in the
farm field did a better job of timing their fireworks to the city's
patriotic music than the city did.
Nature did her part to add to the
display. A summer lightning storm blew in from the south. It didn't
move so fast that it overtook the fireworks or concealed them, but it
lingered in the area long enough to compete with the man made
display. But the fat orange moon had no desire to compete. It peaked
out of the clouds and shook its head. It licked the envelope of the
sky with a little circle of tongue, then folded itself into the night
and sealed the clouds. Maybe it felt bad for wearing the wrong
holiday color scheme. We'll never know.
The party menu was eclectic. I've given
links to the recipes below. Wine was from Llano Winery in Lubbock,
Texas. It's a habit of mine to celebrate the wines of whatever state
I'm in, and most of my party guests agree. So it wasn't surprising to
see a bottle of Llano appear. Dessert was mini-bundt cakes from the
new Nordic Galley Bakeri in Amarillo.
Appetizer: Tabbouleh
Main Course: Ramen Shrimp Pouch
Pre-Dessert: Grape, Olive, Fig, and Fennel Salad
Update on Matriculated Death: Two
exciting things happened this week. First, I found out that a Central
Texas book club selected Matriculated Death for their book next
month. I'm extremely honored. I told a member of the book club who
contacted me that I would be happy to answer questions anyone has
about the book or the series. Let me go ahead and throw that out to
any book club that picks up a book from the Undead Bar Association
Series. If your book club has questions, please contact me. I love to
hear what readers think about the book and series, and answering
questions gives us an opportunity to interact. And you're more likely
to get inside information that way. ;)
The second exciting thing was the
arrival of paperback copies of Matriculated Death on my doorstep.
Actually holding the book in my hands felt unreal.
Yes, you're seeing two skulls in that
picture. The one on the left is Skully. He's the model for the
Matriculated Death cover art. You'll be seeing him on all the Undead
Bar Association book covers.
Update on Book 2: As of today, I've
written over 30,000 words on the sequel to Matriculated Death. The
goal is to have a solid draft ready for review and first edit by the
end of August. Glad I'd already set that goal privately, since my
editor asked yesterday when she could expect a draft.
I posted a question earlier about
whose voice I should use for the historic scenes in the book. The
choice was between villain and victim. After listing out the pros and
cons of each position, and polling readers and fellow writers, I was
going to pick villain. But then my editor suggested a third option.
Use a POV close to the victim who would have inside knowledge of the
villain's motives. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it.
It still has some cons, but it combines the pros of the other two
options in an unusual and elegant way. So the voice for the historic
scenes will be...
I'm not going to tell you. Not now.
This new POV voice is intimately connected to the plot. Explaining
the voice now would give away too many surprises. We'll wait for the
book release in November for that.
Later this week, I'll have more inside information about Matriculated Death. Stay tuned!