Zanski: Blog

I just now submitted Coldwater Keys to the posting queue. It is the second book in the Coldwater County Series. Further development of this series is possible, but it would be, literally literally, years off.

My next project is another western series, of three books, only one of which is complete and the second about 35%, so my offerings to the denizens of SOL are about to be suspended, for at least a year.

There are those who suggested a chapter-by-chapter posting of my stories over an extended period, but that approach always annoyed me as a reader, mostly because of my apparent short-term memory deficits which required me to re-read the entire story every time a new chapter was posted. Go figure.

Instead, I'd bookmark (in Chrome) the author's page under the heading "Check back" and I'd look it up everey few months to see what's done.

Anyway, them's the reality of is what is for now.

But beyond all that, I have to admit to being genuinely moved by the encouraging and complimentary comments I've received. That was unexpected. I'm very grateful.

Coldwater Junction is in the posting queue. It is the first of the two-book Coldwater County Series. Both the setting and tone are very different from the Arenoso Trails Series. You've been warned; I don't want to hear a bunch of whining.

I intend to post the two-book Coldwater County Series, contemporary murder mysteries set in the Pacific Northwest. They revolve around the friendship between two men, the sheriff and the clinical social worker who runs the county's mental health services.

The books are written in a first person narrator, which is a change-up from the Arenoso Trails Series, which has a third person-observer narrator, except for the DeWitt entries in Game Trail, which are first person.

Both books are finished and I am presntly about half way through the first book, Coldwater Junction, giving it the once-over before posting. It'll likely be a couple-three days before I'll pretend it's proofed.

At Lazeeze's (and many others') recommendation, I have begun converting my odt files to HTML prior to submitting them. The three basic special formats -- italics, bold, and block indents -- all hold up in the transfer.

The other thing that transfers are my typos and edit slip-ups. Why they are so easy to spot after I post a story and not while I'm proofing it is just one of those mysteries of life, like what happens to make socks disappear in the laundry. So, yeah, I'm talking about Hard Trail. Ulh. Amateur Night.

About the edit goofs in Game Trail Chapter 11:
SPOILER ALERT (Deep background) As originally written, I had the K&ASR Board providing financial support to the junior colleges. But now, as I was prepping it for posting, I realized that just wasn't credible within the context of a looming financial crisis. At the same time, I decided the original austerity plan to start laying off employees in 1892, when business was still booming, was a really dumb idea, for the reasons cited in the story. The earlier version had adopted that plan.

To resolve the college funding, I had the other members of the executive committee -- Arnie, Pete, Dixie, and Raul -- pony up the money for operational costs to match Malik. Malik had originally pledged the half million for start-up capital axpenses and $50k a year for 3 years operting expenses, but the rest of it was all new.

Then, to damp the cognitive dissonance over Raul's early lay-off plan, I had Malik come up with an alternate plan to avoid immediate layoffs.

But I neglected to delete the old stuff so both old stuff and new stuff was mixed together, and some readers found that confusing. Go figure.

I think it's all fixed now, but frankly, I was balancing two books in my head at once, so there's no tellin' if everything is copacetic or not. I'll wait and see.

I have just submitted the fifth and final book of the Arenoso Trails Series, Hard Trail. The reaon it's the last book is because the time of the story has become too modern for my tastes in terms of writing a western. Once the internal combustion engine looms on the horizon, the western setting becomes anachronistic, IMHO. So I will bow out before that calamity takes hold.

True Confession time: I've left a major editing error in Game Trail Chapter 11, leaving a section I had rewritten. My apologies. Cleaning it up is my very next task.