DONIS CASEY: Write Errant

I just returned from yet another event, the High Desert Crimes Book Fair in Sierra Vista, Arizona. The Sierra Vista Sisters in Crime chapter invited 55 authors to sit on panels and to sell their books on March 25. It was a pretty good event. I met a number of authors from all over the Southwest, and I sold some books. However, I am pooped. I’ve done 25 or 30 events for The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, which some authors would tell you is not that many, but I have to say that I don’t seem to be bouncing back from my travels like I used to, and it’s beginning to annoy me that I don’t have any time to actually write as much as I should. I’m glad I have the opportunity and the wherewithal to be doing as much promotion as I am, and I really shouldn’t complain. But I will.

I got the ARC (advance reading copy, which used to be called galley proofs) for Hornswoggled just before I went to Sierra Vista. Hornswoggled is a tale that revolves around Alafair’s daughter Alice Tucker, the character of whom was inspired by my grandmother Chesna Alice Casey (the adult Alice) and my sister Carol DeWelt (the child Alice). I have a couple of weeks to go through the book and proofread it for typos and other mistakes, and thus far I’m finding very few typos and a number of mistakes I made myself and cannot for the life of me figure out how I missed them the first 500 times I read the manuscript. I’ll turn in the corrected ARC tomorrow, and then after one more pass by a continuity editor, the publisher will begin sending the ARC to reviewers. I have seen what I believe to be the final cover, which I really like. It consists of a beautiful photo of a lone elm and red dirt road that my husband Don took in Oklahoma back in the early ’60’s, inset with a 1912 portrait of my grandparents and a bunch of their siblings and cousins in a family band. My web master/brother and I have begun preliminary discussions about changes to this web site, which I expect will begin appearing in just a few weeks. If you are thinking that this entire enterprise smacks of nepotism, Dear Reader, you’re on the right track. After all, what are relatives for?

I’ve begun writing on the third book of the series, and will take a couple of weeks to do nothing but work on that before I have to start the promotion cycle all over again for Hornswoggled. I hope I’ve learned a thing or two after The Old Buzzard…. Fewer chain bookstore signings and more book club talks.

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