Sold a Pirates and the Mouse.
The buyer, a café friend and repeat customer, wanted it as an Xmas present for her son, a cartoonist. She hoped it might give him direction. (She also expressed interest in Outlaws, Rebels but hasn’t sprung for that yet.) Now I am proud of my books and happy about any sales, but I can’t be certain, if I was a mother, I would want my son following in the tracks of cartoonists I tend to write about. Oh well, caveat emptor.
In other news…
1.) It has been a week of noteworthy conversation. There was the fellow who said, “Would you be interested in entering a writing contest, one page, for people from the café?” Sure,” I said, wondering what I’d win. “Do you write?” “No,” he said. “Then you can judge.” He shook his head. “Oh, I wouldn’t want the responsibility.” (He has not been heard from since.)
Then there was the woman who introduced herself as “An-ti-GO-nee.” When I looked puzzled, she explained that was the Greek pronunciation.. “Americans say ‘AN-ti-go-nee.” (Either way, a strange name to give a daughter, I thought.) We had a nice talk about my books and writing and I was sure I would hear from her again; but so far there has only been an exchange of nods as she picked up a black coffee to go.
Finally, there was an even more extensive conversation with a jazz musician (stand-up bass). To be fair, it was not my books but my red snakeskin cowboy boots that caught his eye; but we quickly got into it. It felt good, the whole jazz musician-writer thing.
2.) Lollipop’s cover has been finalized. Final formatting awaits. Then to the printer.
Even into my last proof-reading I had been having doubts about the name I had given the multi-thousand member street game which occupies much of my stand-ins attentions in the course of the book. Through several re-writes, I had called them the “Pariahs,” but, at the end, that seemed a bit pretentious for a street gang. After much brain-storming and Roget’s scanning I had settled on the more mundane “Raiders.”
I still had doubts, until, one morning, coming back from my cardio-walk, I spotted atop a retaining wall, as if placed there for me, a handsome, silver-and-black, wool RAIDERS stocking cap. A sign from God! I thought. That is how he works, right? Adele was not exactly thrilled when I brought it home, but, after I had Woolite-d and dried it, she admitted, “Cute.”
So many Bob Levins on the Internet; I'm the Bob Levin who writes.