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moldy toast

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Fathers Day happened again and once again it happened to me and it happened at the most beautiful spot in the universe - the place we go to in Maine (this same week every year).

My amazing wife and son always do something wonderful for me on the Sunday that is the first full day we awaken to the sounds of the gulls and sea. The past few years my son has taken it upon himself to honor the "day" by creating something for me that has to do with whatever book project I am currently working on.

Above is his wonderful clay tribute to my current book, MILO. (below you can see the cartoon it is based on). You should've seen my grin as he presented this to me - and in fact it's still plastered on my face.
Unrelated to Fathers day and Maine - I wanted to thank the always funny and extremely gracious LISA YEE for her blog post "welcome" re. my upcoming Writer In Residency at the Thurber House.

That's it for now - time to drive back to the cabin where the internet doesn't exist - just the ocean, sea gulls and our dog who has probably eaten the couch by now.

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I disappeared this fall and even my semi-random posting became near extinct.The reason for my "now you see me - now you don't" blogging? That guy you're looking at - MILO.

After two failed (for now) starts on second books - I began something in August that soon turned into something else; a novel with my cartoons that is a journey of exploration and humor that helped me unlock doors and draw new connections to my own life through the fictitious one of someone else, MILO.

I gave myself a goal, a deadline on the end of the year to finish this funny book - and though the going was rough due to some of the unexpected emotional road blocks that pop up from re-experiencing the memory of what was - I was on track to meet my deadline (shock!).

The sudden learning that my wonderful agent Jill Grinberg was having a second baby - soon - pushed me into an even higher gear so that she could give my own baby the attention I need before her own new one is due.

And yesterday - MILO was sent off for his first read (after my wife of course) and I am proud and fulfilled to have told his story, while being able to liberate my own.

The cartoons add humor and emotion and will be scattered throughout. I'm very excited about that part - and holding my breath, counting backwards from a million, doing laundry, cleaning my office - trying not to think about when I'll hear back from Jill.

More on MILO soon.... Read the rest of this post

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Hey there. So today is the day my novel - Why Is Crater Lake So Blue? - is officially released, although that really doesn't mean anything in this weird, small-publishing world.

Amazon has been selling copies and I know a couple bookstores in the Northwest have put some copies out. There's even one copy in the Burnside store of Powell's Books - the biggest independent book store in the world - in Portland, Oregon.

Wholesalers are really in charge (a loose term) of how your book is distributed - or not - to the resellers. For example, if you check out Border's website right now you'd find my book in the database but it wouldn't include the cover photo and would be calling it a paperback rather than what it is - a hardback. At B&N, no photo, wrong ISBN number, no description. At Powells, no image. That's so sad to an expectant author but in the long run it's just exasperation rather than a huge problem. I think.

And at Amazon this morning they say the book hasn't been released yet despite the fact that they sold books last week. What it means is they ran out of books and they don't know where to get new ones.

All this is due to something happening on the other side of the country. The NY wholesaler who distributes the book to the giant wholesaler - Ingram - doesn't have the final paperwork settled on. Thus all this database stuff is in disarray. At least that's what I think is happening.

I won't know for sure until I start calling people Monday morning. Sheesh. And then the book tour starts Saturday in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Can't wait to find out what will go wrong there.

So you want to write books?

Michael LaLumiere
http://www.whyiscraterlakesoblue.com/

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