Happy Birthday, Highwayman!

Highwayman at The Night Rider blog is celebrating a birthday today (July 3). Highwayman has been a follower of this blog for a while now, and had some nice things to say about "Black Dog" in his blog. He's a long-distance truckie (as we say in Australia) and in the short time I've known him, has crisscrossed the USA several times moving freight from one part of the country to another.

Happy birthday, Highwayman!

New novel coming soon!

I'm now working on a new novel: Will You Love Me?.

Brady O’Brien is a twelve-year-old orphan with attitude. He’s angry, disruptive and antisocial. He wears out foster families quicker than most kids wear out sneakers. As a last resort Brady’s caseworker places him with emergency carer Jonathan West.

Will You Love Me? will be published chapter by chapter as each is complete.

Trivia: crossword brings visitors to alienson.com

There was a sudden spike in visitors from the UK to alienson.com on Sunday 1 February and Monday 2 February. They came from all over the UK, and most arrived at my site via search engines using variations of this search term: "____ grub, the wood-boring edible larva of certain Australian moths and beetles".

A little research turned up the answer—that search term was a clue in the 1 February edition of the Sunday Express crossword, and the solution was "witchetty". I mentioned witchetty grubs in chapter 4 of Black Dog, and an entry in the glossary described the grub using almost exactly the words used in the crossword clue. The UK visitors went straight to the glossary and spent an average of 13 seconds on the page—just long enough to find the entry.

Glad to have been of help!

Download Black Dog!

The complete story is now available to download in pdf format from the Stories page. Here's a direct link to the download, blackdog.pdf.

The End is nigh!

Well, it's taken a while but we've made it through to the end! The final chapter of Black Dog is now online. Click this link - Chapter 10: Recovery - to go directly to the chapter.

Thank you for reading Black Dog. I hope you enjoy the conclusion to Michael's story.

Congratulations, Azy!

Azy, my editor, celebrated a couple of milestones recently. The first of those was his 17th birthday. Then, upon completion of his final year of high school, he was awarded Dux of the School. If that's an unfamiliar term, Wikipedia explains:

"Dux (plural: duces) is Latin for leader (from the verb ducere, 'to lead') and for duke, and in Ancient Rome could refer to anyone who commanded troops, such as tribal leaders...In schools in Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Iceland, Dux is a modern title given to the top student in academic and sporting achievement (Dux Litterarum and Dux Ludorum respectively) in each graduating year. In this usage, Dux is similar to the American concept of a valedictorian."

Azy plans to attend university in 2009.

Black Dog Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine: Forgiveness? is online at last. Click here to go directly to the chapter.

I'm sorry it's taken so long for this chapter to see the light of day. My depression caused some of the delay—for several weeks I wasn't feeling well enough to concentrate on writing or editing. In addition, Azy, my editor was completing his final year of high school, and was busy with exams and assignments, as well as holding down a part-time job (see next post).
 
I'm still writing Chapter Ten: Recovery, but I'm hoping it will be online soon. This will be the final chapter of Black Dog.