Sunday, May 22, 2011

The End

Many writers have a little ritual about their writing to celebrate a manuscript’s completion. I never type “The End” until I’m done with it, or as done as I can humanly be. Today I typed “The End” at the bottom of Grind Joint. Considering I sent another book in to be e-formatted this morning, I’d call that a rich and rewarding day.

Now I intend to take the summer off. Maybe I’ll outline the next book, write a short story or two, but nothing structured as a day in-day out activity. I did that for the first time last summer and it worked great. No burn out from the previous book, raring to go on the new project. (Thanks to Declan Burke for hinting that might be something for me to try. He’s quite wise, considering his youth.)

I’ll also spend some time this summer trying to get the word out about Wild Bill, but, since I don’t know yet when it will be ready (I’ve been told prep times are currently eleven weeks), I’m not going to get my knockers in a knot about it. It’s summer, it’s baseball season, the Pirates are flirting with .500, and if I wanted to stress about those things, I’d still be looking at traditional publishers.

Life is good.

3 comments:

Charlieopera said...

I'll pimp this baby with everything I got. Grind Joint is a terrific book and Dana King is a terrific author (with his own voice). There will be countless comparisons to Elmore Leonard (the quality is that good and certainly deserving) but I found the voice to be unique and absolutely veteran (as if he's been doing this for a while--like 2 or 3 books into it). There are great characters in this book you'll want to see again and again. Best of luck with this and there will be one very favorable and detailed review waiting at my place when GJ arrives. Grind Joint rocks.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I never like to see blog posts titled THE END!!

Dana King said...

Thanks for the kind words, Charlie. I know where to find you when it's ready to come out, hopefully next summer.

Sorry about that, Patti.

Thanks, Peter.