Work your fingers to the bone, and what do you get?

 

Boney fingers, of course. I do admire Jethro Tull. What a great American Philosopher (for a British Band, of course).

So that’s what I’ve been doing, lately, and why I have not posted recently. Very busy in a non-profitable sort of way, I mean.

The Florida heritage Book Festival was a great place to be, if you enjoy the company of other authors, and I do. But it was no place to be if your goal was to add to your bottom line. There was an absolute dearth (dearth, I say!) of buyers this year.

But there are other events coming up, and I am ever the optimist. It’s either be an optimist or go live under a bridge in a cardboard box.

I have spent a bit of time in my soon-to-be workshop, tuning up equipment, building jigs and figuring out how to build very nice stuff with little in the way of equipment capable of working to standards well beyond their design specs. But one does what one can with what one has, or one don’t do much at all, do one?

And that is all too true of Life in general. You can sit around and complain about how little you have to work with, or do the best you can with what you do have, and take some measure of pride in your accomplishments. Or just go live under that bridge and listen to your new neighbors complain about how rotten their lives are.

Me, I’d rather keep writing, and building stuff in my shop, and meet my readers and sell my books and know without a doubt that I am doing the best job I can with what I do have.

You see, I have at times been faced with living under that bridge; I have been homeless. But I have never quit on myself, nor will I ever.

I am a writer because I choose to be, and I am a builder because I choose to be. And I am not a quitter, because I choose not to be.

“Twisted Key”, my third novel, is out now in paperback, and despite the poor showing at the FHBF, it is selling well in paperback, Kindle and Nook formats.

A vengeful ex-wife, a psychopathic ex-husband with a murderous crew happy to do his bidding, a missing daughter off on a treasure hunt, and Florida. What more could you ask from a novel? Hamas? They’re involved, and so is the State Department. And Terry Rankin, the poor guy. And Spike, the six-toed cat with an attitude.

I am working on “Lonesome Cove”, my fourth novel, and hope to have the first draught completed by the end of December. The first three chapters are already available as a PDF on my web site, www.garyshowalter.com . Click on the Free Downloads button on the left side of the page and scroll down to the bottom. The PDF file will download and  automatically open for you. You can then SAVE it to your computer for later reading.