"The Homeplace Series" continues...

"The Homeplace Series" continues...

Following the publication of "Back to the Homeplace" in 2010 and "The Homeplace Revisited" in 2011, I have taken what may appear to be a 'hiatus' from The Homeplace Series in 2012. This is partially true, and partially untrue. This post, November 1, 2012, is intended to share with you a bit of what has been going on as well as to introduce the beginning of a more active blog posting period leading to things to come in the series.

First, let me say an additional THANK YOU to the hundreds of people who have bought and read the first book, "Back to the Homeplace." For no more than I was able to do in the way of publicity, this was a remarkable achievement. It is still available in both trade paperback and ebook format - see the sidebars of this post. "The Homeplace Revisited" was marketed even less, and sold less - no surprise - but is also still available, and I hope interest in it will build with the renewed activity here and elsewhere.

I made substantial progress on the First Draft of the third in the trilogy, "The Homeplace Forever," set in 2006, put frequently was pulled away from it be a number of distractions - that I will not bore you with here. Let me just say that I will finish this book, but not in 2013, as I had hoped.

What were some of the distractions? Well, one thing was... being a family history buff, I kept writing in little stories about the history of this family starting back in 1833 when the Homeplace was first settled. I did a lot of research on the history of the region, for example. My characters were doing this research on their family, as well, of course, and I found myself getting more interested in the founding story, and perhaps in what happened during the Civil War on the Homeplace, for example, than I was in the story I was supposed to be telling in the recent past...

Next, several instances got me 'reinterested' in writing mystery stories... I had created a character, Penny Nixon, ... many of you have read the four blog posts about her writings (one, two, three, four). Well, I now have made substantial progress on First Draft of a mystery novel, "Murder by the Homeplace," with Penny as the central character in a story taking place in the Oak Springs valley just at the time the "Back to the Homeplace" book is ending, in the fall of 1987. Many main characters of the first book become supporting characters in the mystery story. More on this as we move forward... ;-)

Finally, starting tomorrow, Friday, November 2, 2012, I am beginning a series of Friday posts. I am committed to the first Friday of each month, for up to twelve months, likely longer. I hope to also have posts on some of the other Fridays, as well, as time goes by, and the 'muse moves me.' We will see how that goes. So, there you have it. The update and the look ahead. I look forward to your participation and to your comments - I so value them, here on the blog, on Facebook, or on Google+... perhaps even Squidoo - my most recent new writing platform (see this example).

*****

"May each of us have a Homeplace to hold onto, if only in our minds."

Bill ;-)