My author site and accompanying blog is only a few days old, and probably only one or two dozen people have heard of it so far, but it’s already had an emotional impact on people. The emotion was expressed in the form of side-splitting laughter, emanating from my kids, at the site of what I looked like when I was only a little older than them (see About the Author).

In just a few minutes, or maybe an hour due to procrastination (every authors’ sacred rite), I’ll be typing the first lines of the first draft of Blood Game … Book 2 in my debut series. Call me Ishmael? No, can’t use that for my first line. It’s been done.

One of my favorite books, the first “big kid” book I ever read, begins: “It was a dark and stormy night.” A tip of my proverbial cap to the first person to guess the title in the comments. Award-winning book, despite the cliche opening.

I began writing Book 1, titled Burn Card, on May 1st, 2021. That’s almost 18 months ago. But deduct the two months when I set the first draft aside and decompressed. Deduct another three weeks for each of the two times I had to set everything aside to write a massive promotion portfolio for my day job, and deduct about a month or so for all the effort that went into several months of querying, which I hope I never have to do again.

It comes to about 13 months between starting one book and the next, assuming no more of that other distracting nonsense. Looks like I need to step up the pace just a smidge, if I hope to be one of those book-a-year authors. Or write slightly shorter books?