Happy Mother’s Day!

A big thank you to all the moms out there!

I have a tiny real-life story to tell, but I’m not 100% sure what the story is yet. Tragedy? Comedy? Bromance?

Last newsletter I talked about my truck breaking down in Arkansas, and the run up there to get it. I spent 16 hours with my buddy, Bobby. Of course, I’d done a fishing trip with him before that was roughly the same distance away, so I knew we’d be okay. My wife asked me what we talked about for so long (because she knows I’m not a talker). “I dunno. God. Cryptocurrency. Wives. Children. Trucks. Conspiracies. Sometimes, we were quiet.”

I met Bobby because we have kids at the same school. My wife and I send a couple of our kids to a small, Christian school. A family hosted a parent get-together, and when I showed up with a six-pack of beer, Bobby beelined to me. Do you have those people who aren't the same kind of crazy as you, but your crazy and their crazy seems to all fit together without any teeth snapping off the gears? And neither of you is wise enough to figure out exactly why that is, but you don't really try to understand either? That's us.

The tragedy part was just the frustration with the truck. The check engine light came on four days after I bought it. Honda said it was due to a part on recall and it was safe to drive. A few weeks later, it won't start. I get it in to Honda and they say it is the fuel pump. They give me a discount (more than half off, but still, I hadn't put a hundred miles on the car since I'd bought it). My wife takes the car to Arkansas with the new fuel pump, problem repeats there. Then Bobby jumps in to help me rescue the car. I get it back to Honda, and they diagnose it as a bad clip for the power of the fuel pump they'd just installed. It doesn't make sense to me -- it wouldn't start after she filled the car with gas. A clip went bad after an 500+ mile drive while it was being filled with gas? I did a vin-history report and found that between the time they'd bought the car and sold it me, they'd done three fuel system services (one per month), and they didn't disclose that when they sold it to me (they gave me a history report that conveniently left those out). I suspect the previous owner sold the car to Honda b/c of a fuel problem, and Honda sold it to me with the problem unsolved.

But, my buddy Bobby's business involves working with car dealers. So on the way up to Arkansas, we stopped in Tyler, TX to talk with the owner of one of the big dealerships. That guy talked me through how to negotiate with Honda. And I talked with a lawyer buddy to help me steer clear of land mines. In the end, I have to credit my friends for guiding me through this misadventure. With their help, I got Honda to reimburse me for the costs of draggin' the truck back from Arkansas. Do I think the car is fixed? No, but I've got Honda partnering with me to solve the problem.

I think I hit elements of comedy, tragedy, and bromance in there. Not the best-wrapped story ever... I should stick to fantasy!

I don't do this often, but I'm going to make a request. People are influenced by ratings/reviews, and I need to get more of them so that folks will give my books a try when they pop up on Amazon. I have more active readers of my newsletter than I have rating/reviews on Amazon, particularly for the latter books in The Guardian League. (Song Unsung has 33 ratings...) Please take a moment to rate and/or review my books on Amazon (and any other platforms you tend to use... I use Amazon, Goodreads, and BookBub). Reviews can be very simple - don't overthink them. Someone put simply (I paraphrase), "I enjoyed the characters." That's absolutely a solid endorsement. "I want a Grundle teddy bear," is also fun and simple. “It was better than Cats,” though irrelevant and irreverent, would amuse me. (Name that TV show)

I would really appreciate it - it helps me justify spending my time on writing. (Because my boss at my day job says my making money from writing is a pipe dream).

You can rate/review all 4 books of The Guardian League from by clicking this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TVR62KJ?binding=kindle_edition&ref_=ast_author_bsi (I know, it's a bit painful to click through all four.)
And Mother of Trees (it has only 24 ratings!) here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CP6CNCD3?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_tkin_0&storeType=ebooks

I know some people have written reviews that have never shown up. Don't pester Amazon's Help Center (the repercussions can be nasty). But maybe the curse is over, and submitting a review again might bear more fruit.

Bones of Cenaedth - I'd been questioning the title, but I'm settling into it. The bones of Bones are knitting together better. But I cut some fluff and now it’s only 53k words. Way too short. A couple of scenes are missing after the rip-up, so maybe it’ll get back to 60k words. I like that—it’ll give me room to knit the remaining pieces together better and end up close to my 90k target.

Here’s some pics related to Bones of Cenaedth (not perfect, but close).