So, coming down the home stretch on the next book – which originally had the working title of Gone to Texas, which Blondie didn’t much like because she found a couple of others, fiction and non-  with the same title. So, when released, it will be titled Daughter of Texas, subtitled “The prelude to the Adelsverein Trilogy.” My clever and artistic younger brother, Sander, who is a freelance graphic artist, did the cover design for me, and Watercress Press, the tiny publishing bidness in which I am a junior partner will edit and publish  . . .  and print it as a POD book, since we have set up an account with Lightning Source. We had wanted to do something of the sort along the POD line for our clients, after a couple of decades of taking bids from various traditional litho printers. It’s the same old tradeoff – traditional litho, large quantities at a time = large initial up-front cost, but small price per single copy. POD/Lightning source means small print run = relatively small up-front costs and slightly higher cost per single copy.  So, Daughter of Texas will be the test run for Watercress Press.

It’s the prelude to the Trilogy, as it follows the life of Margaret, Carl Becker’s older sister, who married twice, and became an influential political hostess in Republic-era Texas – after experiencing the trials of the Texas war for independence from Mexico, to include the ‘Come and Take it’ fight, the fall-out from the siege of the Alamo, and the terrifying ‘Runaway Scrape’  . . .  all that, and she has just gotten up to her first husband. (Also explained why the Becker family got to be dysfunctional in a special way . . . )

Anyway, I was set on finishing it in time for release on the anniversary of San Jacinto Day, April 21 2011, because this spring will mark the 175th anniversary of the Texas War for Independence – which, while loaded down with bags of drama – was over and done in a flash, relatively speaking. (Can you picture a lot of people picking themselves up off the ground in early 1836 and saying ‘Whoa! – What was that which just went by? A war? The hell you say – anyone see who won?)

Small problem – I was just coming up to writing the post-war picking-up-and-moving-on part, and hit a couple of problems: the first being that I had already clocked 300+ pages, and if I wanted to do true justice to the Republic of Texas-era shenanigans – (the Pig War, the Mexican raid on San Antonio which captured the entire district court and every Anglo man in town, the Archives War, etc.) which would mean another couple of hundred pages at least  . . . written over the the next month. Plus all the necessary research – that being one of my marketing points, that I have researched all this to the nth degree. And I was out of time for all that.

Another problem: writing out Margaret’s first husband – who dies of consumption – and her romance, such as it is, with her second husband. I was struck out of the blue by solutions to both those situations, a solution which would let me wrap up the first part of her story very tidily while allowing an interesting plot twist in a book to be worked out at a later date – and to make a second book of Margaret’s life; widowhood in the town that would (on occasion) be the capitol of the Republic of Texas and later the state capitol, participation in or witness to a whole series of gripping and exciting events, plus a new romance with a male character which I would have to flesh out a little more. The second book about Margaret will be called Deep in the Heart . . .  to be available by Christmas 2011, perhaps.

Anyway, I will begin taking orders for  Daughter of Texas starting about mid-December, autographed and delivered in mid-April, just before the official release date. Links and pricing will be posted then, on my book website.

So that’s what has been going on with the book-thingy. Any questions?