Once again, all pardons requested due to this scribe’s shameful tardiness. Blog followers may recall that I bragged at the beginning of this year about the progress I was making with my new novel, The Aztec Key. While it’s a truism of writing that novels always take longer than the writer figures, I can accurately and honestly state that it took me six-and-a-half months to get a rough draft done and eight-and-a-half total to come up with a polished draft ready for review. While many will probably still scoff at this as being unbelievably dilatory, it represents a personal land speed record for yours truly.
I’ve already sent off a query packet to an agent and already received a form rejection. Yet never fear, O gentle readers. Another query packet is already dispatched to another agent, hopefully a thousand times hipper than the previous one. Wish the best of luck to The Aztec Key. I’m hoping that this may be my big breakthrough. We’ll see what time brings.
On another front, my spam comment rate appears to have tripled lately. Most annoying, especially so since I’m basically not (and never will be) in the market for Russian pornography, cheap generic drugs, improved website access, and general gibberish communications. There doesn’t seem to be any way to get rid of it, however.
The picture in this blog entry is of John Huston, taken around the time that the novel is set. I think it gives things a nice, atavistic ring. My thanks to you, Mr. Huston, wherever you might now be, for giving me the germ of an idea for a novel and an enthusiastic shout-out to the entire talented Huston clan.