The baby is born!

So to speak. I've been working on setting up my own publishing company so I can do my own books, and eliminate the middle man, as the saying goes. Now it's finally a reality! Last Friday, the UPS man delivered the proof copy of Complications, the new (and so far only) book release from Sisley Creek Press...

Now I realize that I already have that one in print. But this is the "new and improved" version. This winter I did a complete and total rewrite of the book, based on suggestions from my recently-acquired editor, Beverly Coomer of Coomer Editorial Services. By combining bits and pieces and some other sleight-of-hand, I think I actually cut out about six or seven chapters, without diminishing the story in the least, and drastically improved the flow of the story. I also created a new cover for it...

Today I faxed the original publisher a termination notice, so from here on out Complications will be a wholly owned and produced product of Sisley Creek Press!

Now I just have to get a bunch of stuff rearranged on here and on my website...

Exciting weekend...

Busy, but exciting. On Friday, Cheryl and I drove up to Kennewick for a "Lasik Consultation". My peepers were declared to be perfect candidates for the procedure, so June 25th I will be having Lasik surgery in Kennewick! We will drive up there that day, I'll have the procedure done, then we'll spend the night and drive home the next day after they look deep into my eyes another time, to make sure everything's skookum. I have to go back a week later, then a month later, then three months later; at that point, if everything's going well, it's "Don't go away mad, just go away". If there's any change, or a tweak is necessary along the way, that's covered in the fees...

Even more exciting than that, I finally got the book block and cover finished for my setup of my first book, Complications, under the Sisley Creek Press imprint! Saturday the weather was crap, so I stayed indoors and worked on finalizing it. I uploaded it to the printer's website this morning. I should have the proof in the relatively near future; then if it comes out the way it should, I'll order some and get back into the business of selling books! The learning curve on the formatting software has been pretty steep, but I think I've finally got it pretty well figured out. Next up: the rerelease of Book 2, Tyler's Law, under the Sisley Creek Press banner. Stay tuned, folks. Things are just getting going. I hope...

Saturday afternoon we went to the wedding of a kid I hauled to a lot of rodeos when he was in high school and the niece of a friend of ours. It was an outdoor wedding, and the weather looked like monsoon, but the sun actually came out during the ceremony, like the Good Lord was smiling on the whole thing. The reception was indoors, so it didn't matter if it rained then. The food was good, the beer was cold, and a lot of people were there, including a gal we hadn't seen in twenty-some years. Cheryl got to catch up on what Marcie and her family were doing...

Apparently I'm a lazy bugger...

As I haven't posted anything in over two weeks, not since church camp. I guess life gets in the way of leisure, sometimes, eh?

So anyway, there are a couple of blogs I sort of half-assed follow, both written by lady cyclists of my acquaintance. Lynne I can sometimes keep up with, if the hill isn't too steep. Cecil can pretty much blow my doors off any time she feels like it. Both of them posted links in their blogs to a bicycling blog called Bike Lemming, and a post about what we as cyclists need to do to improve our image. The writer makes some excellent points. Here's the link: Bike Lemming

So what have I done lately? Let me see. Oh yeah, I spent a whole bunch of bucks and time on rebuilding a sprayer that goes on the back of our tractor, so I can commit serious herbicide around the ranch. After a number of fits and starts, it's up and running, and the weeds are dying in droves...

I've taken up what is euphemistically called "DE (for double edge) wet shaving". I've been shaving with a Gillette Mach 3 cartridge razor for quite a while, ever since I decided that I was tired of the Norelco electric I bought "for convenience" pulling the hairs out of my tender little face instead of cutting them. I recently needed to buy some more shaving cream, and ran across an inexpensive "bowl, brush and soap" set at Wally World, so I started shaving with actual shaving soap and a brush, still using the Mach 3. Then I made the "mistake" of asking about shaving soaps, since I couldn't find any locally, on one of the cowboy websites I hang out on. I now have two double edge Gillette razors, both considerably older than I am, and a third headed my way. On top of that, my Dad said he has one I can have...

I've discovered that lathering my face with a brush, and shaving with a seriously dangerous instrument, is kind of my "me time" in the morning. I've got a blade sampler pack that I'm working through, testing to see what brand of blade I want to use for the long term, and I'm getting some of the best shaves I've ever had, although some of the blades I have are seriously not going to ever grace my medicine cabinet again in my lifetime. I shave every day anyway, and instead of hating shaving, I've grown to enjoy it. But a buddy of mine at work and I have been having some slightly weird conversations since I started doing this a few weeks ago...

I've even made my own brush! I bought what is called a "knot", made out of badger hair, and drilled a piece of deer horn out for the handle and epoxied the knot into it. Really, really luxurious brush, and I've got a grand total of somewhere in the vicinity of maybe, at the outside, $22.50 invested in a brush that would have cost me at the absolute least $50 to buy, if I could find one to buy anywhere. So now I've decided I need to build something smaller to use as a travel brush...

Church camp weekend...

Apparently, the March winds were running a little late, because instead of bringing April showers, we got May rain storms. At this juncture, rain storms are good, because we need something to make the grass grow so we can turn the cows out to eat it. Yesterday and today, we've had some good, warm soaking rains...

Friday and Saturday I went to a men's retreat at Camp Elkanah, sponsored by Calvary Baptist Church in Baker. Great camp! This is my second year going there, and this year was even better than last year. Camp Elkanah has cabins made of retreaded railroad cars, so we get to sleep indoors, and there's a big dining hall. The food was great again this year. Chapel is in a log building...

This year's music was performed by a local gospel quartet that calls themselves "Fisherman's Praise", and those guys can really sing. The wife of one of the tenors plays keyboard and she has written some of the songs that they do. She can sing very well herself, too...

The speaker was a guy named Luke Hendrix, who is a pastor, and fellow bicyclist, from Portland. He's a very engaging speaker, and talked a lot about our identity as Christians, and how the devil does his best to make us believe that our concept of ourselves has nothing to do with God. Au contraire! If we are to be the people that God wants us to be, we have to turn to God, and let Him be the guiding light in our lives! It's only through Him that we can truly weather the storms that life sends our way!

After Chapel on Saturday, I got to talking to a guy named Kurt, who lives in Pendleton. During the course of our conversation, I discovered that I'm not the lone ranger when it comes to my walk with God. Apparently other people stumble and fumble their way along, the same as me. Sometimes it's hard to believe that anybody else can feel the way you do. We both felt that Luke's words regarding our identity with God hit very close to home. I feel like I came away from the camp with a whole new outlook on life...

Luke said it sort of like this: "God will always love you; it's up to you to make sure that you are someone that God will like..."

Day to day...

Boring is our friend. Trust me. I was a control room operator at the plant for 5 years, and I can guarantee that boring is indeed our friend. So that's why I don't complain when there's not much exciting stuff going on in life...

That having been said, last evening was kind of exciting. There's been a brush pile out beyond our storage shed for a couple of years, consisting mainly of parts and pieces of the locust trees at the edge of the yard that have succumbed to the lure of gravity and subsequently been dismembered by my trusty chainsaw. I was sure it would burn; I just wasn't aware of how hot it would burn. Wowsers!

I lit a ball of newspaper under the edge of the pile, and went to get the garden hose so I could kind of keep things damped down. When I turned around, I had flames shooting about 30 feet in the air! It was at that point that I suddenly realized that the electric service line from the transformer out on the pole beside the county road to our house was relatively close to the flames, which were shooting up at least as high as the wire! As much as it pained me to do it, because a good hot fire leaves very little ash, I damped the fire down with the hose to the point that we could keep the utilities flowing to the house...

All the while this was going on, rumbles and mumbles of thunder were echoing about. When the fire had finally burned down to a size that I felt comfortable with leaving to its own devices, I went in the house for a minute, and before I could get back outside, it was raining! We need the moisture. I thought it might kill my bonfire, but after the showers quit a couple of hours later, smoke was still rising...

On an entirely unrelated note, my book formatting software finally made its way to our local post office. I'm hoping to get started on formatting the book block for my totally rewritten first book so I can get it set up and release it under the Sisley Creek Press imprint. I'm so excited...

Nice weather at last...

and I got outside on one of my bikes for the first time today. My original plan was to take my mountain bike down to the valley and try to get a bunch of highway miles, but stuff got in the way, so by the time I had time to do any biking, I decided to just ride it up the county road. Which is a workout in itself. I ended up with just over 6 1/2 miles...

I've decided that the trainer is doing me good. I've lost 11 pounds so far, and I didn't have to turn around where I normally do when I ride up the creek. I made it up to our gate and back. And I was actually feeling pretty good the whole trip...

The last couple of days have been absolutely gorgeous...

Life in general...

So much has happened since the last time I posted that I'm not sure where to start. I started this post on March 25, as the date says, but I actually finished it April 3. So when I say "last Friday", that means the Friday before March 3...

The publishing gig is progressing slowly, but it is progressing. I've got the print account set up with LSI now, so that part is a reality. I finally got the layout software that I need purchased, and expect it in the mail shortly. I've been working on possible covers for re-releasing my first book, Complications, under the Sisley Creek Press imprint. Here's the one I like the best so far:



I guess I'll decide for sure once I get the ISBN numbers, and the cover template from LSI. I hope to have Complications in print somewhere in the vicinity of the first of June...

My Ag Issues team didn't make the finals at the state FFA convention, but there's always next year. I'll only be losing one senior, so I should have a team next year...

Spring is springing. Last Friday we took 160 cows and their calves to the homestead. Had a good time blitzing through the bushes on the four-wheeler to get to the lead several times. It was a pretty nice day weahter-wise, too. We've got gobs of calves on the ground, and Cheryl's down to just about 20 ewes that haven't lambed yet...

The next day, I went to Nampa and got my shotgun from Cheryl's cousin, who picked it up from the gunsmith who did the work on it to get it ready for this summer's cowboy shooting. Speaking of which, I started a one year cowboy action and other fun stuff calendar on my website. It probably would be a good idea to do some more work on it...

Sunday was really interesting. Interestingly pretty damn cold! The north wind was howling all day, and put the power out down in the valley several times in the afternoon. We finally cancelled church that night, because I was afraid that the building would be so cold nobody could stand it...

I got in three sessions on the trainer this week! I'm up to somewhere in the vicinity of 640 miles since January 1, and I've managed to lose TEN POUNDS!!! I hope to be in some semblance of decent condition when the weather finally settles down so I can get out and do some riding on the road...

I've sold a few of book 2 so far. I've even got a couple of brief reviews to quote from, too. And I may be able to get both of my books on the shelves in another bookstore. I'm waiting for the manager of the bookstore I discovered in La Grande to get back from wherever she's been and to e-mail me about the possibility...

Busy, busy, busy...

Wow, how time flies when you're having fun! The last week has been incredibly busy, what with FFA Ag Issues presentations, which went very well, and working on making Sisley Creek Press a reality, I have hardly had time to take a deep breath...

But now I can stop and review the time since I last posted. Hmm, where does one start? Let's give this a shot...

Monday was Ag Issues practice. Nothing major there, except for personnel shakeups, but we're working past those...

Then Tuesday, we entertained the Irrigation District monthly meeting with our grasshopper presentation. The folks there asked some good questions, and the kids even knew the answers to some of them...

Wednesday, we gave our skit for the local spray outfit. They had some good comments for us, and straightened out some of our information...

Thursday was great. I had signed up ahead of time for a writing workshop run by a lady from Portland named Molly Gloss. Great workshop. Her premise is that setting should be essentially an equal partner with plot in developing your characters. Setting has always been one of the weak points in my writing. I tend to race my characters through the landscape, instead of slowing down and using description of the place where the action is happening to help with plot and characterization...

I also found that she writes pretty much in the same fashion that I do: until the story, or the movie, or whatever you want to call it, starts up in my head, nothing much gets written. My editor went to the workshop with me, and we had a some pretty good one on one time with Molly Gloss afterward, and learned some things that nobody else there did, because they all left immediately...

Some part of every day, I've been feverishly building my new website. I keep remodeling, trying to make the best I can make it. Down the road, I'm supposed to help my editor set up her own site. That'll be fun, too. The bookstore part of my site now has separate pages for each of the authors that I have a connection with, as well as myself, with still more pages under each of their names for their books. There's an "About the author" section there for each of us, as well as book excerpts...

And the icing on the cake: my publisher account with Lightning Source is on the verge of coming to life! Shortly after that happens, I'll be starting to come up with all the paraphernalia necessary to publish one's own, and possibly someone else's, books. I've already been talking to a couple of people about possibly doing their books. This is turning out to be quite an adventure...

Sisley Creek Press now has a home

Sisley Creek Press now has its very own home on the WWW! I've got the site set up, now I just need to add some pages. I was gonna do book excerpts on here, but it's a royal pain to keep them where folks can find them easily, so I'm gonna do them on the site, and link from here to the excerpts. Much better idea!

There are currently only a few pages built; there's the front page for the site, and a page that introduces the bookstore part of this whole convoluted enterprise. I'll eventually have separate pages for each of the books that you can see over to the left here, along with author profiles, excerpts, etc.

This is getting to be exciting, at least to me. Anybody who has read very many of the posts on here is probably getting a little bored with it all, but to me it's a grand new adventure. I've never attempted anything like this before, and I'm looking forward to it...

My first box of books has finally arrived!

Finally, Tyler's Law has arrived! The proof copy came about ten days ago, and my first full box got here today. The UPS guy just dropped them off! Right at the moment I'm planning on using these for handout/review copies while I order some more to sell, but I might be enticed into selling a few of them...