Stealing The Marbles has a cover and what a beautiful cover it is. It’s everything I could have wanted in a cover and I have the gang at Rebel e Publishers to thank.

The Lady from the Porch of the Maidens plays a central, spiritual role in Stealing The Marbles and I always wanted to capture that feeling in the cover. Of course, being graphically challenged precluded my even imagining what something like that would look like but the first time I saw the proposed cover, I knew the folks at Rebel e had pulled it off.

Stealing The Marbles – Coming soon from Rebel e Publishers.

It’s been a hectic two months since last I posted something here. First, the good news. After an arduous journey which saw several rewrites, a disastrous experience with The Agent From Hell, numerous attempts at query writing, a growing distaste and distrust of the traditional publishing route, the growing realization that I probably couldn’t handle the whole traditional publishing route even if I were willing to jump through the ridiculous hoops of fire and asinine mind-games required of pursuing the traditional publishing route, a brief consideration and quick rejection of self-publishing and my growing acceptance of the whole eBook phenomena, my novel Stealing The Marbles will be published by Rebel e Publishers early in the coming year.

I’ve been up to my eyeballs in copy edits which I hope to finish soon though, considering how wonky this ancient laptop has become, I spend more time saving the document than I do actually changing it. I’ve asked Santa for an Acer Netbook for Solstice but I doubt he’s going to come through for me so I’ll just have to muddle on.

And, of course, you can’t have a new novel coming out without a new website to help promote it so I spent a good deal of time setting that up. It’s still in the beta phase with changes and additions in the works. You can check it out HERE.

I’ve also been working on an idea for an online business which, of course, requires its own elaborate website. I have no idea whether this idea will work out or even if I’m capable of running an online business but I think the time is right for such an idea. I’ll probably launch it sometime early in the new year.

Another thing I got involved in was an update to my Wordpress plugin Birthday List. I received an email from Christian Schuster from the Blackwood Forest area of Germany. He asked if it were possible to translate the plugin into German which I thought was a great idea. Together we worked it out and it will soon be available on my plugin page.

In the midst of all this, I’ve been learning first-hand about dementia, the proper perusal of baby food and feeling more than a little like an out-of-shape Heracles cleaning the Augean stables or, in my case, the Red-Neck Jungle Haven, while having to endure 24/7 television as background noise. In this last regard (TV), I’ve become convinced that the world has gone utterly mad. I’m making progress wading through this nightmare, though there are far too many moments when it seems hard to tell.

On a sad note, Chaplin, mentioned in an earlier post, didn’t make it. One moment he was scampering about as any kitten will and within a day he was gone. More recently, Flannery, one of six kitties that showed up on my doorstep awhile back, was hit by a car. I had tried not to get attached to this ragtag group of gypsy felines but of course, knowing me, that was impossible. I try hard not to play favorites but of them all, Flannery was the sweetest and her death has hit me hard.

Chaplin and Flannery, Gone To Blue. See you both, and all the rest, on the other side.

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of YA despite the fact that I’m about as far from YAhood as one could possibly get and still be animated. I like YA. The stories I’ve been reading are original and fresh with some really quality writing. A. S. King’s The Dust of 100 Dogs comes to mind as does Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, Heather Brewer’s The Chronicles of Vladimir Todd and Lynn Sinclair’s Key to Aten series. I’m sure that the publishing industry, obsessed as they are with the ‘bottom line’, will screw this up eventually as they have with my usual genre of Suspense/Thriller. With the possible exception of Barry Eisler, Lee Child and a very small handful of others, the S/T genre would fit nicely into that old Reagan quip about redwoods: If you’ve read one Suspense/Thriller, you’ve read ‘em all.

Recently I finished Adrienne Kress’s Alex and the Ironic Gentleman. I don’t think this is a YA book, more like Middle Grade, or MG if you’re in the know about such things. Frankly, all these genres and sub-genres and sub-sub-genres confuse the hell out of me but I’m pretty sure Alex and the Ironic Gentleman is MG. For one thing, the protagonist is a ten and one half year old girl. I don’t think that quite qualifies as Young Adult. Maybe Old Child or Middle of the Road Child or Almost a Teenager But Not Quite but I haven’t, yet, heard of genres such as these. The other thing that leads me to classify it as MG is the story telling style which I will go on about later.

In a nutshell, so to speak, Alex and the Ironic Gentleman is the story of Alex Morningside and her 6th grade teacher Mr. Underwood. Mr. Underwood is the rightful heir of the Wigpowder fortune, a hidden pirate’s trove which no one knows the location of and which a competing family, the Steeles, are trying to claim as their own. Alex manages to find the map to the location but not before Mr. Underwood is kidnapped. The rest of the story details the adventure’s Alex encounters as she tries to rescue her beloved teacher and secure for him his rightful fortune.

‘Nuff said, as Stan Lee would say. Hey, you didn’t think I was going to give it all away, did you? Suffice it to say there are some wonderfully drawn out characters in this story and the adventures will tickle you silly.

I will say that I had a bit of a hard time getting into this book. Not because of the writing, to be sure. And certainly not because of the story. All that was quite impressive. It was the story telling style that threw me for a bit, one which I haven’t encountered in a very long time. That and, I suppose, the age of the protag. Hard to identify with a ten and a half year old when there’s a half century difference between she and thee. But once I opened myself to, and actually remembered, the wonder and joy of a life at its beginning, I really fell into this and found myself embracing fully the style Kress uses to tell Alex’s tale. Trust me, you’ll love it.

And, just so the FTC doesn’t get into my case here, no one has paid me for this review. Hell, Adrienne, who I know from my time on the writer’s forum Backspace, has no idea I’m even writing this and, considering how little traffic I get on this blog, I doubt it will help her much anyway. Still, if you are the one or two sorry souls who do follow my blog, please buy Alex and the Ironic Gentleman. If not for yourself than for someone you love. Trust me, they’ll get a hell of a kick out of it.

I’ve just started reading Kress’ Timothy and the Dragon’s Gate. Maybe I’ll let you know what I think of it later.

Technorati Tags: YA, A. S. King, The Dust of 100 Dogs, Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book, Heather Brewer, The Chronicles of Vladimir Todd, Lynn Sinclair, Key to Aten, Suspense/Thriller, Barry Eisler, Lee Child, Adrienne Kress, Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, Middle Grade, MG, Timothy and the Dragon’s Gate