Slightly Off the Mark

If you've read Hoosier Hysterical ("and why not?" he said sternly), you know it's a humor book about Indiana history and trivia. People seem to like it, but my first though on a sequel was, "What do I do next?" I covered history. I covered a lot of trivia, too, although not all by any means.

So eventually the idea I came up with was a book about two things: The people who came here and/or started here and made their fame elsewhere, and the special little places that make the Hoosier State so ... weird.

You can bet Emily and I are going to visit the Uranus Fudge Factory in Richmond, for instance. I predict the puns will hit the fan.

So here's what I need from you. I mean, other than book reviews, word of mouth, and sales. I need you to tell me what little, out of the way attraction and/or person of note you'd like us to cover in our book, which I called Hoosier Hysterical-er until Emily told me no.

I can't guarantee we'll fit them all in, and I can't guarantee we'll be able to visit all of them, but we'll surely try. (If we end up with enough material, it might be divided into two books.) We'll also try not to repeat ourselves, so if we already covered something in detail in the first book, it's not likely to show up in the second.

So what do you want to hear about? The world's largest ball of paint? Orville Redenbacher? Orville Wright, and/or his brother? Elvis' hair? There's more than corn in Indiana.

Although there's corn, too. Just ask Orville Redenbacher.

Almost all of our books are related to Indiana, and you can find them here:

·        Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
·        Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
·        Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
·        Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
·        Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
·        Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
·        Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
·        Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
·        Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
·        Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
·        Substack:  https://substack.com/@markrhunter
·        Tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914
·        Smashwords:  https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914
·        Audible:  https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: Books about Indiana are as sweet as sugar cream pie, but without the calories. Unless you eat them. Don't eat them.

 I want to apologize again for how slow I've been with the Haunted Noble County, Indiana  project. I've collected most of the photos and written half the manuscript, but haven't been getting back to people about their individual tales as I should.

It's the same old story, to an extent: injuries, sickness, death, Covid, chores I couldn't put off. Basically everything except writer's block, and at least that hasn't been a problem. In addition, I hadn't anticipated how much time all the research would take. I've done this before, with Images of America: Albion and Noble County. But while history research gets time consuming, extra digging is required when it comes to the supernatural.

Not literally. Well, not usually.

There's also the fact that I'm an introvert, or suffer from social anxiety, or whatever the kids are calling it these days. Among other things, I hate talking on the phone. Do you know what I do for a living?

 

Yeah, I talk on the phone and radio for 12 hours a day. For thirty years.

I know what you're thinking: Why does someone who hates talking do it for a living?

It's because I used to work in factories, and also in the service industry. That's why.

I get off my night shift not only tired, but seriously stressed (which is not uncommon for dispatchers, overall). The last thing I want to do is talk on the phone, or be otherwise social. Between that and my weird schedule, I have real difficulty picking up the phone.

That's the long winded reason why I'm so far behind in calling people about this project. It's also why I much prefer talking about it by e-mail or messenger, and have difficulty finding a time to talk when either I or the other person isn't asleep.

So ... I'm sorry. My deadline is looming, so I'm back on the horse and working, and I will call the people I promised to. I hope the rest of you will contact me online, especially if I forgot about you, which after so many months is possible. I want to make this as good a book as I can, but man--it's been a slog. And that's not the fault of the material!

• Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
• Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
• Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
• Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
• Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
• Substack:  https://substack.com/@markrhunter
• Tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

Remember: Keep plenty of books around for ghosts to throw off the shelves.

 Yes, I've won National Novel Writing Month! 50,000 words of a novel over, in my case, 25 days.

What's my reward? Well, bragging rights. Also, I get a novel out of it, and that's no small thing. 99% of all people who attempt to write a novel agree it's horribly difficult to get it finished. The other 1% are friggin' freaks of nature.

This is the fourth time I finished a novel rough draft in thirty days or fewer, so by now I'm pretty sure I can do it. This one was different in couple of ways, though:

First, it's, it's a sequel to a novel that hasn't been published yet, Fire On Mist Creek. The original one, also a romantic comedy, remains in the hands of a very big publisher of romance novels. Unfortunately, after asking for the full manuscript, the editor has had it so long the odds of them buying it are vanishingly slim.

The other unusual thing is that this story is my first novel set during a holiday, specifically Christmas, which you probably figured from the title. Christmas novels are popular among romance readers; on the other hand, I assume their popularity is limited to a certain time of the year.

So, how do I celebrate? By starting the editing process, of course. One mistake NaNoWriMo participants often make is to immediately start shipping their book around to agents and editors. Unless you're a savant, 50,000 words in 30 days leaves you with a rough draft ... very rough. Mine needs editing. I'll make four or five passes at least, before it's ready. That's the job.

I'll probably polish up the first scene and put it in the newsletter, so people will have an idea of what to expect. When will the whole thing come out? Well ... some Christmas yet to come. That, also, is the job.

(But don't forget our other books are available as gifts THIS Christmas!)

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Now that I've finished the final draft of my new novel and handed it over to Emily to edit, I had to go back and figure out why I started working on it in the first place.

Ordinarily, when I finish writing a novel I like to have it finished--as good and polished as I can get it, before I move on to a new project. I also want to have it in circulation: submitted to literary agents and/or publishers, depending on the way I'm going.

That's where I have Fire On Mist Creek, Beowulf: In Harm's Way, and We Love Trouble, searching for attention in the cold, cruel world.  Smoke Showing is our upcoming non-fiction book, and it doesn't count because it was waiting for Emily's contribution when her work schedule lightened up in the fall. (Then I put her to work editing something else, so never mind.)

(I came up with all these titles; can you tell?)

So, four books I should be either self-publishing or submitting for traditionally publication. Then there's The Source Emerald, which Emily sent me notes on, and as a result now waits for another look. (The book, not Emily.) Add to that our already-published books, which are begging for some promotion and publicity time.

So when I finished the rough draft of "Found Dog Antique Fire Truck Romance Story" (still blocked on a title), it suddenly occurred to me: Why did I start a new book in the first place?

There's an antique fire truck in it. Specifically, one of these.

When I realized I started it in early spring, I remembered why.

My brother passed away at the end of January, and I started the new story about two months later, when the weather was still wintry-crappy. That was why I did it: depression. I don't mind editing or polishing a story, and I don't hate submitting, and I pretend I don't hate promotion ... but it's the writing, the actually telling of the story, that I love. So, to battle feeling down, I started work on a new book in April.

Yes, there is a Jeffrey in the new book ... kind of. There is not a Mark.

As long as I was doing that, I told my wife, I would also use the new story to work through my grief over Jeff's death. My wife asked me if that was a good idea and I told her something along the lines of, "I know what I'm doing.".

Notice how people who say that so often don't?

Now that the "final" draft is done, it's a pretty good story, although it needed more editing than usual. However, it's not the story I had in mind.

You see, I write in several genres, and one of them is romance. Now, there's nothing wrong with a guy writing romance, although it isn't common. However, all mine so far have been romantic comedies. That's what I like to read (and watch), so that's what I like to write. This was going to be one, too.

 Should have known better.

Hey, sometimes even dogs get depressed.

Oh, it still has humorous parts, but let's take a look at some of the subjects covered in the novel: cancer; family loss; puppy mills; animal cruelty; winter depression (seasonal affected disorder); and the stages of grief.

This was supposed to cheer me up?

The final story isn't as dark as that makes it sound, but it certainly couldn't be described with the word "comedy". So, here goes a dive into another sub-genre. How many am I up to, now? In addition to those there's humor, young adult, science fiction, mystery, history, and ... well, I guess The Source Emerald is urban fantasy, given that it has magic being used in modern society. If I had a publicist, they'd be horrified.

But what the heck ... writing's still my thing, and I still love it--even when it's therapeutic.

Genres? Yeah, we got genres.

 If I'm counting correctly (which is never a given), this is my sixth year judging 4H prose writing entries. And to think, before that I used to think all 4H kids did was push animals around.

Truth is, 4H'ers do a lot more than working with farm animals, which is probably what the average person thinks of. It's too bad they don't get more credit. When I was a kid we'd walk the fairway of the Noble County 4H fair, and when we got to the end I was puzzled by why they had all those barns full of cows, sheep, goats, and various other four legged guys. Since we didn't have the money to buy a lot of food or ride a lot of rides, I eventually wandered around enough to figure things out.

(For any of you who haven't gone to fairs, be cautious about buying a lot of food AND riding a lot of rides.)

I wonder if they had the writing stuff when I was a kid? I'd have been all over that: Other than extra credit in English class, I had nowhere to go with my writing until I turned eighteen, and started my eclectic collection of rejection slips. Not one of those rejections had a ribbon on it--not even a white ribbon.

Speaking of which, I don't know if it's a sign that I'm too easy, but I think I gave all but one of the entries a blue ribbon this year. With the one that got a red ribbon, it was really close to blue. The problem is, I have a clear memory of how good my writing was at the same age, and they're all better than I was. That's in all three categories--the youngest are at about the same level I was at the intermediate stage. The oldest are better than I was when I started submitting, which maybe explains the rejection slips. I'd have been a red ribbon all the way through, if not white.

So I had to not only keep in mind their ages when judging the entries, I also had to guard my self-esteem. I thought about turning on reality TV shows and saying "at least I'm not on a reality TV show!", but I didn't deserve that kind of punishment. Instead I told myself I was good enough to deserve chocolate. Then I ate chocolate.

If one of them hits the best-seller list before I do, there won't be enough chocolate in the world.

Look! A 4H clover!

 The final draft of The Source Emerald is done!

Wait, let me start over:

The "final draft" of The Source Emerald is done! (Assuming that will continue to be the title.)

There, more accurate. The Source Emerald is about a young FBI agent who is assigned to track down possible gem smugglers, only to discover two of her suspects claim to be foreigners--specifically, from the Land of Oz, which they insist is a real place. And if they don't find the mysterious gems everyone seems to be after, it might be the end of both their worlds.

I suppose it can be considered urban fantasy--I wasn't thinking in terms of genre when I wrote it. You might remember that my word count changed from draft to draft, starting at 67,515, peaking at 70,294 with the second draft, then dropping to 69,028. Now, after polishing and going through the whole thing line by line to check for voice and errors, I'm left with 69,370 words. I added some here and there for clarity, but also cut a lot out of one of the later chapters.

So, from the first word typed on November 1st to the "final" version, it took me just under three months to finish an almost 70,000 word novel. Yay, me! (I did do some outlining and research in October.)

Now Emily gets it.

Emily was holding my granddaughter hostage until I finished my draft!! Hey, I don't make stuff up.

My wife/editor/IT department/cover artist doesn't take any crap from me. The manuscript will come back full of red words, with numerous notes in the margins. She'll tell me what does and doesn't make sense, what word choice is wrong, where I'm being long winded, and what food is best for me. Well, that last one isn't directly connected.

Then I'll go through the whole thing all over again, because writing is editing. When it's finally, completely, for sure done, I'll put it in a file and go over to reread We Love Trouble, the book I went through all this with last year. When The Source Emerald has sufficiently cooled, I'll try to read it for entertainment, like a regular reader, and we'll see.

This is the writing process. The process is boring to everyone but the writer, and sometimes even to them. But it's the best way I know to get a good product.

Also, I can't write without the dog keeping a close eye on me. I think he's spying for Emily.

I didn't cheer. I didn't run through the streets, kissing perfect strangers. I just kind of sat there slack-jawed, staring at the e-mail. My wife probably thought I'd gotten a death notification.

But no: I'd sold a short story. And yes, I was happy--just having trouble believing it.

To understand why one sale should shock me so, we have to go into history. Don't worry, it won't hurt.

Shortly after turning 18, I started submitting short stories. At first, they went one by one to Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, which these days is called Asimov's Science Fiction. There were and are plenty of other magazines that print (or post online, these days) short stories, but Asimov's was the first one I read, and I was stuck on appearing there first. Just so you know, that's a stupid way to do it, then and now.

I wrote dozens and dozens of short stories. I took a course on writing them; bought dozens of books about writing; and I read hundreds of the short stories of others. I also got smart enough to send each story to every market I could find.

By the way, thanks to Linda Nagata, my teacher in that correspondence course. It was in the snail mail days. The story she helped me improve was "Grocery Purgatory", a tale of disappearances set in a small town grocery store. Read all about her here: https://mythicisland.com/

None were ever published. I came close later on, with favorable and personal rejection letters. Eventually I discarded the ones clearly written in desperation--some of them were real stinkers--while revising and improving the ones that showed promise. But no final sale.

Here's the thing: short stories of mine have been published. Some were holiday themed tales, part of Christmas inserts in the three weekly papers that published my humor column. They were not in the habit of publishing fiction, and if I hadn't already been on the staff it wouldn't have happened ... so they didn't really count.

In 2011 my first novel, Storm Chaser, came out. I wrote several short stories featuring the characters from the book, intending to give them away to promote the book itself. But when I told my publisher about it, they suggested selling them together, as a collection. That's how Storm Chaser Shorts came about: They're published, and they're short stories, but it seemed to me again that I had a bit of an unfair advantage, compared to cold selling a single story to a publisher who didn't know me. 

Three anthologies carry my stories, but they were by invite, and I think they also don't count. 

The point is, it had become personal.

(Oh, and as usual, all those can be found on our website and here, on Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Mark-R-Hunter/e/B0058CL6OO.) Always be closing.

As time went by, I boiled down the publishable stories to six, always waiting there in my master submission log. I had submitted my first short story in the summer of 1980.

So you see, when I received an e-mail from Alban Lake Publishing, telling me they were buying a story for one of their periodicals, I had been trying to sell to a magazine for thirty-nine years.

The story is "Coming Attractions", the bones of which I first wrote three decades ago. Revised many times and workshopped with Linda Nagata, it's hardly recognizable from the original (which was twice as long).

I'll give out more information when I get it, but my new publisher's website is here:

https://albanlakepublishing.com/ 

After almost four decades, I'll have a short story published in a magazine. Well, e-magazine. Let's just say periodical. After a summer of everything breaking and a long week of sinus infection, this small step is very good news, indeed. 

Now: On to selling the rest of them! 

http://markrhunter.com/

Here's the interview!

(So you won't be confused like I was, Arts in Focus is a half hour long show with two fifteen minute segments, and I was in the second segment. Not that the first one wasn't interesting, but I forgot--and panicked when the show started with someone else.)

https://vimeo.com/340742147?fbclid=IwAR1SldahLEq1E73IzOYvGM5T5Nce-9gvFuAGDoZ5qfIQhgu4jRpsMWQRc0Q

 Tell all your friends! And enemies. Heck, tell everybody.

Overall, I think it went pretty well ... could have smiled more, but I was too busy trying to think. Naturally, we really hope this interests people in checking out our books.

Find all of our books at:

http://markrhunter.com/

https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO