The Flu..

Is kicking my ass. I mean, realy kicking my ass. I feel like I'm bleeding from my eyes. I ache from head to toe and my head is stuffed up. This is definitely the worst flu I've had in years. GRRRR

I feel crappy...

It's official, Langston has given me the flu. My head feels like a little man is banging a mallet in it.

Chuck E. Cheese...

My son had a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese, but we think that he's coming down with the flu. He was sluggish and then hot when we got home, so I hope we weren't Typhoid Mary for the kids who came. I still can't believe that my son is nine years old. Where did the time go?

My book proposal is in the mail to my agent. That feels good because it's been more than a year and months since my last book proposal, so it feels pretty good to get back on that horse. Next up, I complete my novel SLAVERYLAND. I'm more than halfway there and this story is more plotted out than any other novel I've written. Completely different and unique. And my editor is intrigued by it. So I'm going to knock this out, if I can stop playing Facebook poker during my writing hours. I'm finding myself looking at three Kings at midnight instead of my manuscript. Gotta change that.

So that's on my plate. Also, I meet with my boys about my script tomorrow morning. I'm ready to get all of these writing projects done so I can move on to others.

Finally...

Finally, my next book proposal is done. I absolutely hate doing book proposals, but they make you really think about what your book is going to be about. What makes them difficult for me is that I tend to come up with the general idea for the book, but proposal makes you sit down and get into the weeds in terms of details. You're constantly proving and disproving to yourself that there's a book in your idea or just a really long magazine article.

For this book proposal, I realized after almost finishing a few months ago, that my proposal was much too narrow for a book. It took some serious contemplation about what the book was ultimately about and whether or not it was important enough to be a book. I finally reached that point. Now, I'm going to get some really nice paper, print it out and then send it to my agent. He'll look at it and tell me he gets it or not. If he does get it, he'll point out the strengths and weaknesses. I'll probably have to do some adjusting, but after that, it gets shopped. But for now, I'm just happy to be done.

Close...

Ah, I'm almost finished with my latest book proposal. I've changed the title from JACKBOOTS & MONKEY CALLS to THE UNWASHED MASSES. The main bulk is finished and all I need to do is finish all of the table of contents, the marketing etc. I'm determined to finish that today and then send it off the first thing on Monday to my agent.

After that, I will knock out the final chapters of SLAVERYLAND. Kensington Books hired a new director of marketing and I'm absolutely ecstatic. She GETS it and after nearly ten years at the publishing house, I think this is going to be a new era. For the first time, I actually have confidence in my next books not needing a giant push from me to get them into the right hands. She's going to be particularly valuable for my DREADED BEAUTICIAN series.

The Hollywood writers strike is almost over and not a minute too soon. Every writer I know, including those of us who just graduated from film school, are chomping at the bit because no one has been able to do anything. It's not that we're going to go out there and immediately sell a script, but you want that possibility to be open and not closed.

I've put down my scripts for the minute as I finished my unfinished novels/book proposals. For some reason, I was pretty blocked in terms of focusing on them. My evenings were being spent actually reading (!) instead of writing. Hopefully, my main writing projects will be done by the end of the month and then I'll turn back to scripts.

BTW, something is happening to Money Shot. I don't know what because I haven't done any marketing, but my Amazon numbers have been really spiking. That's good because I've only had one out of five books not make back its advance (THE WAYS OF BLACK FOLKS) and the sooner you make back your advance, the fatter your bi-annual royalty checks. I like fatter royalty checks.