Dear Reader,

          Progress on my romantic, mildly dystopian epic adventures in the Stone Age continues apace. I’m traveling today with my son Ben to the American Christian Fiction Writers’ National Convention in New Orleans. My hat’s in the ring there for a First Fifteen Pages contest for unpublished authors. Winning my genre would be helpful, but I’m not expecting anything. (In fact, my first chapters have changed markedly since that submission, hopefully for the better.) What matters most on this trip is time with my son, followed by meeting wonderful people, learning to write better, and finding a literary agent who fits tremendously well with me.

          I had hoped to start my periodic newsletter in July using Canva Pro, but some tech villain sneaked up on me and gorilla glued my shoes into the starting blocks. Perhaps my sons will help me melt the adhesive.

          How about the nitty gritty writing? Why haven’t I posted in two months? I’ve been pouring every drop of my twenty-five weekly writing hours into revisions of Books I and II. When driving full speed down the revision expressway, I hate to take pitstops to write posts. Is that selfish? Am I not adequately reader focused? Perhaps, but the novels must take priority. I intend to improve in the multi-tasking department over time.

          When I write with extreme focus, I experience a unique joy, a reversal of misery. My chronic pain issues fade. If I can’t ignore my fibromyalgia symptoms—muscle pain, fatigue, headache, brain fog, etc.—then I try to use that suffering as writing fodder. I routinely persevere for ten to twelve hours, sometimes forgetting even to eat.

          Progress in the summer of 2024: I queried about thirty agents with my Book I. Several responded with helpful advice. I also attended many writing conferences. This ACFW Convention is my fourth serious event of the year.

          At the Realm Makers conference in Saint Louis, Missouri, Donald Maass read a few pages of my Book I—now titled Called to Journey: The Legend of Crumble’s End—and made some recommendations. He said my emphasis on pity for the protagonist was not a good look. I made changes.

          Multiply-published romance authors DiAnn Mills and Melanie Dobson gave me wonderful feedback on my first few chapters of Book I. Wow. So much to learn from them.

         Thank you, readers and friends, for your steady encouragement. Keep writing in with comments. Say what you think! Thank you for joining me on this epic adventure to Publication.

Now for the humor

1. A ninety-two-year-old man told me this month, “Thompson, I think I’m going to live to be a hundred . . . because not too many people die after a hundred.”
2. The sign at the grocery store said, Senior Discount Tuesday. “How old do you have to be to get the Senior Discount?” I asked. “Oh, we’ll give it to you,” the cashier said.
3. My wife, age fifty-five, says she’s going to incinerate. I’m careful to get the newspaper before she does, lest she burn the house down.
4. Despite the constant sensation that she’s about to spontaneously combust, my wife lifts me up with words of affirmation. Just the other day she leapt out of bed, raced to the high-speed fan, and said, “You are so hot! Why are you so hot?”

If you liked this post, please send it to a friend. If the reading audience grows, agents and publishers become suddenly far more keen on joining in the Adventures of TAT!

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