The edits for Jane Doe are finished. I still have to tweak it, as there are a number of improvements to be made. I hope to have everything done within the next few weeks. My goal is to publish Jane Doe not later than the end of June, and I am on track to meet, and even to beat, that date.

And I think I will write no more about impending releases for a while, as I am getting tired of writing: nothing yet, still working on it. The next time I mention Jane Doe on this site, it will be to announce publication on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

In the meantime, I have a number of other projects on tap. Taylor Made, the first novel featuring my P.I. character Charlie Rowe, is ready for beta reading. I hope to send it off this week. I willalso need to start looking for cover art soon.

I also have a novelete, a horror story called Skinny Dipping. I am not certain when I will publish this, or even if I will. It is ready for another draft, but it is also third on my list of priorities. I want to refine the language, expand some scenes, and fiddle with characer dynamics. The basic story involves four girls and how they react to stress. This might not get published for some time.

In addition to those stories, I have several other ideas. Evil Twin and False Witness are stories that also feature Charlie Rowe. Those Who Have Not Swords is likely to be a nightmare of a project that involves politics, gun control, and crime. Slings and Arrows is another Charlie Rowe novel. The Other Woman is a serial killer story that requires at least one rewrite. It is farthest on the list.

I also have some short stories to work on that I can sandwich in amongst my novels and novellas, as well as some ideas for novellas.

The possible order of publication is:

Jane Doe

Taylor Made

Skinny Dipping

False Witness

Evil Twin

Those Who Have Not Swords

This is subject to change, of course, and is currently only a tentative order of publication.

I have enough work on my plate to keep me busy writing, revising, and publishing for probably the next two years. I also have other concerns in my life, such as the fact that my studies to acquire a Paralegal degree are coming to a close, and I will soon need to prepare for graduation. Then will come looking for a job. Except for some mobilizations with the U.S. Army, I have not worked since 2008. I hope I can get back into good work habits. I also will be looking into moving within the next year or so, and after that, I want to buy a house. I will also need to replace my car sooner or later.

All in all, there is much going on in my life. But, at least everything is going in a positive direction.

I have been thinking lately about the role of the cell phone in modern fiction. There are several reasons for this. First, I recently completed Stieg Larsson's Milenium Trilogy. It seemed that everyone in those books, or most of them at least, had a cell or "mobile" phone, and used them regularly. Second, I am rereading the book HOW NOT TO WRITE A NOVEL, and this book includes a section on the cell phone and the effect it has had on modern fiction. And, finally, I am rewriting one of my old manuscripts with an eye toward publishing it later in the year. One of the things I have been doing in the course of this rewrite is to update the technology in the novel. My private detective character no longer carries a notebook, and he no longer uses a miniature tape recorder to record conversations. He can, and does, do this with a smart phone.

So, is the cell phone a game changer for the modern writer? It can be, but it doesn't have to be. The thing that occurs to me, as a pro self-defense conservative, is that the cell phone is not a magic wand. HOW NOT TO WRITE A NOVEL (hereafter, HNTWAN) seemed to suggest that it could be. But I don't believe this is necessarily true.

HNTWAN suggested a scenario in which your character is trapped by a monster in a warehouse in Brooklyn. All he has to do is to call 911. I can see two things wrong with this scenario, or, more accurately, two points it does not consider.

First, there is a time lag between when your hero calls 911 and help arrives. Even the best American police departments can easily take 10 minutes or more to respond to emergency calls. This is because police staffing levels are such that the police are rarely close enough to be on your doorstep -- they have a lot of ground to protect, and a limited number of officers to do it with. Even if they are able to come immediately, American courts have ruled that the police do not have to protect you, the individual. In practical terms, this means that a hiker trapped in the mountains can call 911 and still be eaten by bears before Mountain Rescue can arrive. Or the monster can kill the hero trapped in the warehouse before the first cop comes anywhere near the place. In other words, assuming your hero gets the chance to call 911 at the start of an incident, he is still on his own until the cops show up.

This leads into my second point. Your hero still has to fight the beast or villain that has him trapped. He still has to survive until the police can come. I don't know about you, but I don't generally like heroes and heroines who passively wait for someone else to save them. I expect the hero, the protagonist, the central character of your novel to fight, talk, or charm his way out of the deadly situation by himself. Having a cell phone in no way allows your hero, in my opinion, to abdicate responsibility for hs personal safety to others. Many do in this world, but that doesn't mean that your hero should be one of them. He's the hero, dammit.

That's assuming he even has the chance to call 911, which is another matter.

I know that what I have written here probably won't convince anyone. I doubt it is even that original a thought. It is just my arguments as to why the cell phone, while important, isn't necessarily a total game-changer. At the end of the day, your hero is still the hero, and he still needs to take care of business himself.

Okay. I have found an editor to give Jane Doe a good going-over. It won't happen until some time in May, but it will still happen.

So, I will drive on and learn what I can from this setback. I am already thinking about what I need to do with future novels to ensure that they are truly ready to go.

In the meantime, I have published another story. This one is called Homecoming. It takes place in a fictional small town in Minnesota. The plot involves a man named Andre Larson, returning to the hometown he turned his back on in order to bury his mother. While he is there, he intends to confront a secret from his past.

This is the cover:

Homecoming will soon be available for Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.

If I ever manage to get Jane Doe published, this will be the cover. This, at least, turned out well.

It's not going to happen. Jane Doe needs more work.

And I am at a crisis point. I'm wondering if I should even continue writing. I probably will, but this has hit me hard. I've been writing since 1983, and I have very little to show for it. I have been working on Jane Doe since 2005, or maybe 2004, and it isn't ready yet. So far, that is a lot of work for no result.

I will probably end up doing a once-over, then hiring an editor to do a Literary Edit and tear my manuscript all the way down. Then I will rewrite it. More work before I can get published.

I wonder why I bother. Will it lead anywhere?

Ultimately, I have to write, but I feel like there's no point doing so. So, therein lies the problem.