I schlepped into Manhattan late last Thursday afternoon to deliver the finished manuscript of my Damn France Book. It weighs about ten pounds, being made of 208 sheets of 11-inch x 11-inch paper marked with position slugs on its edges onto which I have affixed each and every piece of text, each and every bit of artwork, and then [...]

I have a confession to make.

It wasn’t just my computer that was flaking out these past few weeks. My raison d’etre also took a powder.

Yes, I had to stop hammering on my damn Dell and start backing up ALL my files, and yes, I HAVE had serious discussions with people about new hardware and yes, I HAVE wanted [...]

A funny thing happened on the way to my blog last Thursday. I got in a rotten foul mood and I went on a writer’s strike.

On second thought, that’s not so funny.

Thursday’s the day that I do my Friday post. It was raining heavily, and it was cold, as cold and rainy as it’s been [...]

Whew. What a week. After a balmy weekend, we actually got a glimpse of the back lawn. So that’s what grass looks like.

And then on President’s Day (Monday), things went back to normal:

I’ve had a lot to deal with.

On Friday I got the first round of edits for the Damn France Book from my publisher, [...]

Last Friday I went into Manhattan to have a meeting with my editor at Bloomsbury. I was 15 minutes early for our 10AM rendez-vous, so I walked across 23rd Street to Madison Square Park. (This is a plaza in the middle of Broadway, which Mayor Bloomberg paved part over to make in to a pedestrian [...]

My first book (called When Wanderers Cease to Roam, in case there are new readers today — Hi! by the way) was not edited. That happens sometimes: an editor buys your manuscript and then leaves the company shortly afterwards so when you hand in your finished manuscript nobody in the publishing house wants to touch it with a ten [...]