Rumours of Publication

News came this weekend that Blackwater, now under the working title "The Cardinal Divide Deception" will finally and at long last be published.

Over a year ago (November 6th, 2006 to be precise) I sent a previous version of the manuscript to NeWest Press. I got a call from one of their editors on Friday, maybe Saturday (he left a message) saying they wanted to publish it.

It took a long time. A long time. The book was conceived in Costa Rica in November of 2004. I remember sketching the characters out in a note book on the flight back between Houston, TX and Calgary, AB. I wrote a few chapters that winter, and then the complete outline the following summer while laid up with a pinched sciatic nerve. I finally got down to writing the whole damned thing after moving to Victoria in 2005. The current version is number 6 - six nearly complete front to back edits or re-writes. And there will be at least one, or maybe two, more before we're through.

After so long, its almost hard to believe this is happening.

When I write these mysteries I feel that I am truly in my element. They are easy to write. They flow. I write the first draft of them in a matter of months. Though there are many things I love to do, writing these books about the scruffy Cole Blackwater is certainly part of my Dharma - what I am meant to do. I don't judge it. Sure, they are mysteries. And yes, each has an important message. What is important is that when I am writing them, it feels more they I am simply the portal through which the stories emerge into this world.

Pushing aside tears, telling the people who are most important in my life that this was happening was a real gift.

If there is a downside, its that its going to take two more years for this book to hit the shelves. That feels impossibly long. But I'll bite my tongue for now and see where this goes, and be grateful that this dream is finally coming to fruition.