It's been a chaotic summer. A new baby, an endless flow of relatives, and summer break for my daughter have all contributed to a dearth of writing (not to mention blog entries).

I'm back this week, though, and I've started working on Draft #8 of my next novel. As usual I'll keep you up to date.

In honor of this new beginning, I've decided to relaunch my blog with a new theme. The whole "agentless novelist" schtick was getting old. I mean, I am proud that I was able to sell a book to a major publisher without agent, but people weren't taking it that way--instead they're saying things like this.

The second version of the Frost book, created in response to the author’s objections to the first, didn’t appeal to me, but I might not be the reader for this kind of book. Finally, the clearly frustrated author had an illustrator create a sticker to cover up the publisher’s art. I wonder how that’s working for him. The tagline of his blog says “The life and opinions of an agentless novelist.” Agentless? Maybe that’s a clue. My literary agent has extremely good judgment when it comes to things like cover art.

Ouch. I can certainly understand that opinion. And it's likely a good agent would have helped. But a more committed publisher, a less prickly editor, and just in general less of a production line publishing environment would have too.

Anyhow. The blog relaunch.

I'm going to be writing more about the Portland writing scene. Thus the new blog description. I'm also planning to let my angst fly a little more--the world just ain't right these days--and there's nothing like a blog for releasing pressure.

So expect darkness. And lots of it.

Labels: blog issues