El Segundo Author Fair  

Well so far the comments on my book have been positive. I have gotten things like: easy to read, keeps my interest, good plot, flows well, explains genealogy in easy to understand terms, couldn't put it down, great characters, surprised at how fun to read...

Honestly I am not bragging, I'm just throwing it out there in case a big editor, bookstore or library decides to visit my web page and wants to either read it or stock it on their shelves. Reader testimonials mean more than an opinion of some editor, agent or big name publisher. I have had some negative on the punctuation/formatting errors, but it wasn't like I wasn't expecting those. And to be honest even the people who have mentioned those say that they don't detract from the story. So to all those kind souls who have had kind words - thank you.

In addition to the book signing at El Camino College in May, I will also be doing one in July in Lomita. And as for the 20 books I ordered, I have two left. I think I need to order some more...is that cool or what?

And just a small plea, if you did read it and are members of Amazon, or if you can take an extra few minutes - please put a review on Infinity's website/my author page. Or email one to me and I'll add it to my personal webpage.

Well UPS came through and delivered my first batch of books. They sure weighed a lot and I already delivered two. I filled out the copyright form for Library of Congress and even did my cataloging record for them. I just need to write a check, stuff an envelope and it's in the mail!  The short form is better than the income tax short form. I guess there's something good to be said about some parts of the government's paper trail.

Once I get the official form back then I send that off to Infinity to prove it's copyrighted. I was supposed to have done that with the preview copies, but as you know if you have been following my blog, I wouldn't want those in the Library of Congress. So the revised and edited ones will someday grace their shelves. Hope they don't have a big backlog.

Now if I can just get them in a bookstore or in a library I'm set.

Well I had a revelation last night while reading a Dorothy L. Sayers short story (Lord Peter Whimsey is actually cool). I decided to take A Steamboat to Murder and totally revamp it.  It is now A Class in Murder.  What does that mean?  I decided that the story was peaking too quick and although I had a small back story it just wasn't enough.  So I let Lydia teach a genealogy class - 10 weeks. This will give the place to reveal the murder and solve the mystery.  It had dawned on me that Lydia does something genealogy related with each story, and I really didn't have that with the fourth installment.  I had her working in the Tri-Cities library in the first one (that's how she meets Julia), the society hosts a conference, and then in the third one they go to a conference. Ipso-facto you see little bits of her world mixed in with the mystery. I simply did not have that with this one.  So I thought teaching a class would show another aspect of what a genealogist does when they are involved with an organization and such. And don't worry the girls will still be in the picture -- I promise.

Thanks to SBCGS for helping me with some of the Tri-Cities ideas.  Once I got writing -- wow, my brain wouldn't shut off, and that is the way writing for me usually is

Well March brought a bit of restlessnes, spring on it's way and a new look to my website. I decided the magnifying glass - although nice - was getting to be a bit tiring. So I ran through the new pages the web host provided and found this one. It looks like pages being fanned and the gold just jumped out at me. So here it is. Let me know what you think.