Friends & Followers

Before I go about giving any Shades of Luz updates I’d first like to thank writer/ media pro Bridget Hopper for letting me join her Friends and Followers on Book Blogs. Bridget you seem to be a real dynamo and a coalition-builder and that works for me.

The beauty about social-networking is that gives you marketing leverage that would have required any army-sized staff in the pre-blogger days. Nobody really can accurately quantify the net returns on all the networking being done, but it sure can’t hurt building a readership. Wouldn’t you agree?

As for me, I am now in the gorgeous coastal town Seaside in Oregon finally tying the knot on my MFA in Creative Writing at Pacific University. To say that I’ve kicked up my writing quality a mucho-notch is not only an understatement, but s downright lie. I will now try the herculean juggling task of prepping my critical introduction spiel and my scheduled reading, keep the buzz going with Shades of Luz, and also make headway on an A-1 top-secret writing project. More news to follow.

Toast to a New Decade

When I woke up January 1st of 2009 I really hadn’t planned on being a published author. My main concern was tying the knot on my MFA in Creative Writing at Pacific University. This by itself was going to be a heck of fete to pull off. I had the stories in mind I wanted to iron the kinks out of plus the idea to write some fresh material that hopefully would be my best stuff to date.

I had also hoped to get back into a routine whereby I would send out multiple short story submissions to various important literary journals still looming out there. I had been lagging behind in my diligent efforts of the past primarily because I had become so obsessed with a few short pieces.

I hadn’t gotten around to Shades of Luz in maybe seven or eight months. Honestly, I cannot say for sure why I decided to pick it back up, but I decided it needed more polishing before I sent it off. I guess it was March or a little bit before that when I had started sending it off in what I would call a kamikaze-type mission.

I’ll spare you the gory details of how it got picked up and all that jazz. The main thing I wanted to say with this final post of the year is that I am really looking forward to 2010. A new decade of possibility. It’s funny but I was terrified of 2000. Not because I was worried about Y2K, but because I felt like a new millennium was upon us and I didn’t know where I fit into it. Back then I was a writing the novel that would get pleasantly rejected by a myriad of top publishing houses.

I toast them all. I really didn’t like that novel very much and I am glad it didn’t see the light of the lit world. Here’s to Shades of Luz. Now begins the wild-eyed quest for write the sophomore follow-up.