I gave an on-air interview Tuesday morning on WOCA radio (1370 AM & 96.7 FM) (www.thesource1370.com) in Ocala, Florida. I got to the station an hour early and parked in a space about thirty feet away from the studio, shut off the engine and let the radio run while I read a book. About 9:45, I was rudely disturbed by another car. It slammed into the driver’s side rear of my car, actually.
The damage to my 2002 Kia was only cosmetic, thankfully. The offending vehicle was an antique Pontiac station wagon, a real tank of a car. The passenger side front fender had driven up onto the rear bumper of my Kia and broke the plastic cover over my tail light. When the driver reversed, the bottom edge of his fender ripped a half-dollar sized hole in the top of the bumper. He’d only owned the beast for a month and wasn’t all that good at judging distance with that football field of a hood in front of him. He’d turned into the empty parking space beside me, but he turned just a bit too late.
There was absolutely no damage to the old Pontiac. Didn’t even scratch the paint. We exchanged addresses and insurance companies and I headed off to do the radio interview.
The radio interview went very well. Larry Whittler and Robin Mac Blaine do a great job with their Drive-Time talk radio show. And Joe Martone, the station manager, is a great guy with a lot of good stories he’s collected over his years in radio.
During the interview, we talked about “Hog Valley” and my upcoming book signing at “A Novel idea” bookstore in the Ocala Shopping Center on Silver Springs Boulevard, and spent a few minutes on my third novel, “Twisted Key”, that I hope to have available in July of this year. There’s a Podcast of the interview that should be available in the next day or so – it hasn’t been posted yet. But when you go to the web site www.thesource1370.com, click on the Programs link at the top of the page and then click on the photo of Larry and Robin. On the next page, click on the large Podcast image below their photo. Then look for the ‘Interview with Gary Showalter’. I’ll have it posted on my web site as soon as Robin sends me the link.
There is a LiveStream video of the interview, if you prefer: http://www.livestream.com/woca/video?clipId=pla_8a0b24bc-04f0-4040-8916-2c974a8d7c0c
So when I drove back to Ocala on Saturday, I was in a brand new Chevy Impala (a rental), courtesy of his insurance company. The book signing ran from noon to 2:00 PM, and went very well, indeed. To the gang of ladies who work the store - thank you all very much!
Afterward, I stopped by Mickey Summer’s home to check on the cover art for “Twisted Key”. He’s got the background done and the focal point for the painting is there for all to see. He’ll have it complete by the next weekend and I hope to drive back to Ocala for the photography. Once I have that I'll be all set to send it off to the publisher.
“Lonesome Cove” is moving apace. I’ve got 202 pages written as of this afternoon. I’m going to do a lot of editing in the manuscript over the next week to tighten things up, so that number might actually drop to something closer to 190 pages before I get back to writing new material. Or maybe not. As I’ve said, my characters tell me what to write. We argue a lot, and I don’t always get my way. I’m just the author – my characters breath life into my stories, so I have to let them have their way. Otherwise, they’ll give up on me and find someone else to write for them.
Have a good week, and stay safe.
No comments:
Post a Comment