Friday, January 18, 2013

The Virgin Blog

Welcome to my brand new blog site. As this is my first blog, it should be something momentous...and all I can think of to say is this is my virgin blog. The first. Eventually, I'll get into the swing of things, but that's for the future.

Hey, I can think of one thing to say. My contemporary gay erotic novel, Charley Blackbear, was recently accepted by STARbooks Press and assigned a release date of Spring 2014. 2014! I've had some feedback on my recent release, River Otter, the sequel to Cut Hand, wanting to know if and when there would be a third book in the series. Well, there will be. I'd already started creating some scenes and getting a general idea of where I wanted it to go...which meant understanding how far into the 19th Century it would take me.

When I got the word Charley had been accepted with a 2014 publication date, I said (I often speak to myself), "Holy cow...that would put the third book in the Cut Hand series in 2015!" Who knows if I'll even survive that long? So I fired off an email to Eric Summers at STARbooks and asked if I could submit a twenty-page treatment and reserve another date later in that far-off year. Eric came back with "We don't usually publish more than one book per author a year."

I thought for a minute and sent a reply saying I had fixated on that word "usually." He came back at me with "It was used deliberately." That left the door open, right? In my mind, anyway. Sure enough, a few days later, Eric contacted me and said the publisher had agreed to a Fall 2014 date in addition to the Spring reservation.

By then, I'd received another inquiry or two from readers about a follow-up, so I began scheming to switch the dates. It is my hope that Echoes of the Flute will be published in the spring of 2014 and Charley Blackbear will come out in the fall of that same year.

For readers familiar with River Otter, Echoes picks up the tale from the  viewpoint of Cuthan's second son, John Strobaw, whose Indian name is War Eagle, and Cuthan's foster son, Matthew (Little Bear). We meet familiar people: Otter, Major Morrow, Cuthan and Mary, Alexander, and the girls, Rachel Ann and Hannah. Post Civil War were the defining years of the Indian Wars, and we see the outcome of some of those conflicts. We also see how the dominant culture's mores continue to put pressure on the Native Americans' set of value. I hope this book is something to look forward to and to enjoy when its time comes.

I do not expect to be a prolific blogger, but I'll try to put up something every two weeks to a month. As soon as I get into a rhythm, I'll clue you.

Again, thanks for your interest in my work...and more particularly for letting me know how it impacts you...even if the words aren't so kind. Please take the time to let me know how you like the new site.

Caution: After we get the kinks worked out of this blog site, the markwildyr.com web site will be taken down, but I'll let you know beforehand.

Keep on reading!

Mark

2 comments:

  1. Welcome to blogspot, great to hear from you and your future endeavors.

    Nick

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks...just feeling my way at the moment. Good to hear back from you.

    ReplyDelete