3 - 2 - 1 - We Have Ignition

Wrath of the Falcon has launched!

How's that for a double metaphor? 

Okay, getting back to business. Wrath of the Falcon is in print and is now released on Amazon. It is also available to order through your local book retailer. If you are in my neck of the woods, you can get a copy through me.

And ... if you are in the "way up north" country, you can get a copy of Wrath of the Falcon or any of my other titles at the Cook Timber Days Festival! Yes, folks, you read that right. If you happen to be in the vicinity of Cook, Minnesota, on the weekend of June 10 - 12, you can purchase any of my titles at the Timber Days celebration.

Quantum Mechanics in Writing

Or, How to Never Get Enough Sleep

Let's begin with the known anomalies of physics. I'm not talking about wormholes or parallel universes. Those are inconsequential postulated theories. I'm talking about hard facts that don't line up with the known laws of physics. These abnormalities would include things like toast always falling jelly-side down and the magical attraction white clothing has for pizza sauce and grape jelly.

In writing, the primary physics-bending phenomena is, The amount of time it takes to wrap up a book is inversely proportionate to the amount of time available.

It's absurd. But, sadly, it is the truth. Logically, it seems like all the other steps taken should reduce the end-of-process workload. But it does not.

Then there is the boomerang effect. That is when you throw a ball into a time portal (of course they exist) and it returns through a different portal and smacks you in the back of the head.

The boomerang effect happens with the Boathouse Mouse books, because I write them, and edit them, and change them, and so forth (you get that part). Then I send them to Shawna for illustrating. We try not to have a rigid deadline, because we do not want to force-feed the process. So I don't know when they will actually return.

The odds of a Boathouse Mouse book returning for editorial review at the same time a Kingdom of the Falcon book is being wrapped up is approximately 9.73x10²³ to 1 against such an occurrence. It's like having all the stars in the universe aligning and synchronizing their frequencies. Obviously, that is not possible. But, it happened.

The good news to all of that is, Wrath of the Falcon will be available for purchase June 1st. And Boathouse Mouse, Book 2, The Cat and the River Thames, will be only a few weeks behind that.

Next up, I may write a fiction series on how to get enough sleep.

My Excuse to Write

It all started back in 2006. Our eldest was a little over a year out from her college graduation, and it occurred to me that I had no good ideas for her as a gift. With a seven-second audit of our finances, I was able to determine that we had exactly no money available to work with, so I plunged into "Plan B."

"Plan B" was to write her a family history. It seemed like an innocuous enough plan. Only, my pen did not cooperate. Not even a little. Every time I put the ballpoint close to the paper, that mischievous pen would signal my brain to write something else.

A story idea kept slipping into my mind about a profound, horrifying self-sacrifice by someone to save the life of another. So I set about writing that story. Only, I never got to the aforementioned part in that first book. As it turned out, Blood Trail of the Falcon (Book 1) set off a series of four books written as college graduation gifts for each of my kids.

This past week, we celebrated Josiah's college graduation from Visible Music College. As you can see by the gold tassels, he graduated with honors, and you can also see he received his book, Wrath of the Falcon.

At long last, my story-inspiring event has been put into print. It only took me four books to get it there.

For fun, scroll down and watch the video Josiah made as his graduation self-introduction. Turn up the sound and enjoy the action and the word play.

Wrath of the Falcon

A prince's ransom – his weight in gold!
It is the deceptive promise of easy riches to those who would stoop to villainy at its worst. But to kidnap a prince alive does not happen without fierce resistance.

When evil becomes brutal and the heir is at risk, the king sheds all restraint. Amidst the turmoil, allegiances are betrayed, blood is spilled, and unimaginable sacrifices are made to protect the child of the king.

Wrath of the Falcon is set in the 15th century. It is a fast-paced action adventure where no one is safe and the only thing predictable is the unexpected.

Kingdom of the Falcon Book 4

Available June 1st

An Allegorical Tale

No one ever messed with the old man behind door 749. It was the sparse little room at the end of the hall. And when the door was ajar, it was revealed to be poorly lit by a single dim bulb.

Most of the residents in that squalid corner of harsh reality kept to themselves, and they certainly stayed clear of the end room. Everyone knew the guy who resided there was a hermit, a loner, with no friends and no known connections to anyone. That could only mean one of two things. Either he was alone because he wanted to leave something drastic in the past, or … they all shuddered when considering the alternative. No one dared to ask.

As fate would have it, the alternative was the truth. No one actually asked. It just sort of leaked out. The rumor mills of the underbelly of society have a way of doing that. The dreaded hermit was a writer. And making matters worse, he was a fiction writer.

When the neighboring residents demanded to be moved, the slumlord refused. He knew no one was safe. So he tried to put a positive spin on it. But secretly he harbored the same dread.

Any time a writer takes up a pen and makes a story appear on paper, someone dies, someone becomes a fool, and someone emerges as a hero. And most of those characters get a name. And no one wants to be the name inspiration for the fool!

It was only natural that the inhabitants would try to make themselves scarce when the writer was around. The problem was, they never knew when that door would open and the old man would step through, settle his hat just so on his head, lock his door, and stroll down the hall with a manuscript tucked neatly under his arm. And it seemed the title was only ever barely visible …

On this fateful day, it is: Wrath of the Falcon!