Well, it’s been a crazy week, but all is good. I hope you are doing well. I live in a state where there are few cases of Covid-19 and 45 counties reporting no cases and fourteen reporting only one. I expect that many farming counties will have relaxed guidelines soon.

In the meantime, I continue to focus on the following:

• Reaching out to bloggers and authors to develop relationships

• Reading other authors in my genre

  • Currently reading Pushing Brilliance by Tim Tigner and expect to post a review of it as soon as next week. This is the first book in his Kyle Achilles series. Hint: I’m enjoying it. You can pick it up yourself here: https://timtigner.com/ and here:

  • https://www.amazon.com/Tim-Tigner/e/B00F8MO3PS%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

• Writing the second book in the Resurrection Runner series. I’m finished with my outline, though I expect surprises to develop as I write which may alter some of it

• I sent a short story to the New Yorker for consideration

• Most of my audiobook equipment has arrived. I need to get it set up and run a test recording.

…a bit about me (cont.)

My father remarried, and suddenly I was involved in the center of a large family, three older and three younger (after my third sister was born).

I was a sorrowful kid. Spoiled, for sure, not much liking growing up. it was the paper route, the hatred of mowing the lawn, distinct loneliness and solace in private moments singing hymns to myself so God could see me.

I was decidedly timid, a trait long gone. I remember this bully cornered me while I was delivering papers. I was trapped but then a man from across the street ran out of his house and grabbed the kid’s shirt and shook him up a bit sending him home to pout.

Then there was Charlie Starkweather our garbageman and what he did to the people down the street from us. My dad had a holster riveted to the driver’s door after that and a Smith and Wesson .38 was stuffed there for some time. I was driven to school every day even though it was only a few blocks away. Funny how experiences focus on one’s understanding of their fellow man.

My timidness did not end soon. When I was nearing high school age the world was changing very rapidly. My stepsister was already in high school and she was a tough gal. Elvis was exciting her crowd and scaring my parents with whom I shared a deep love of Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, the Satchmo, Woody Herman, and the Duke among so many others. My dad had played the trombone in traveling bands before the war and we had two baby grand pianos, a Hammond organ, a vibraphone, a harp, and a record player. Plus, my stepmother collected sheet music from the twenties and beyond that stuffed a four-drawer file cabinet to overflowing. Elvis, who I later truly appreciated, was a palpable disturbance.

I was a product of life before the new sounds changed everything. On top of that, there were stories about girls at the high school forming gangs and putting lead weights in their purses so they could crush the skulls of the other gangs. I was scared beyond reason, and, not unexpectedly, I decided to leave home and seek comfort and solace at a boarding school where my brother was.

Yes, I ran away as it were to prep school. Yes, by my own choice. An unbelievable decision and a spine straightening experience.

to be continued…

Well, that’s it for now, except if you haven’t read the first three chapters of Resurrection Runner, I hope you do.

And, as always, please pass this website on to your friends with a note of encouragement to sign up for my newsletter and receive the free Resurrection Runner chapters for themselves.

All the Best!

-rwa