I’m trying to keep up on my self-imposed reading pace and finish one book a week. I’m a little behind schedule.  New books on my shelf include New Orleans Noir (a collection of short fiction in that noir series), Room to Write (writing exercises) and Write Away (a novelist’s approach to writing fiction).

School is beginning soon, and while family and friends are gearing up for another year of fighting the powers of ignorance and darkness, I’m preparing for what looks like the busiest fall of my life. My book tour is taking shape and my calendar is filling up rapidly. Though I’ll be traveling a good bit, there are two important parts of my day I want to keep up with: reading and my own personal writing. I’m getting a good bit of editing work, and those jobs always have deadlines, so there’s some pressure there to finish them up.  I also must devote my self to promoting and marketing my books. An ideal day (a day without crucial life-chores, etc.) would be constructed like this:

1. Reading (at least one chapter of current book)

2. Writing (at least one poem, one scene of a play, one chapter of a novel, or one creative nonfiction piece)

3. Promotion of books (I do five things every day to promote them in some way)

This Saturday, August 4, I have a signing at the Books-A-Million in Monroe, Monday, August 6th a presentation at the Ouachita Library in W. Monroe. The next weekend I go to the Ft. Worth area for some Barnes and Nobles. I started to list the cities in the South that I’ve targeted, and then I realized that every major city is on the list. I’m determined to get the book out to bigger markets where there is more money and more people. Here’s a Latin quotation that is my inspiration today:

Fortes fortuna adiuvat – Fortune favors the brave.  (I’ve read that this now famous proverb is a line from Terence, a 2nd century BC Roman playwright.)