fallow, adjective.
2: dormant, inactive —used especially in the phrase to lie fallow
A New First Post
The final posts in my previous blog were written in 2016, roughly five years ago. What was happening between then and now? Why did I let those websites lie fallow all that time? I could make a number of excuses, and most of them might even be valid ones, but what I was mostly doing during those five years was focusing on my writing. There were some technological difficulties that caused me problems (being hacked, hardware failures, etc.), and those did lead to the dismantling and/or abandoning of some of those websites, but I’d rather not dwell on those. The primary reason was that I was so busy writing at that time that it was easier for me to stop spending the time wrestling with the sites than to continue working on them. I’m still busy, but it’s a good kind of busy.
By early 2015 I had published my first book, The Jagged Man, as an ebook. It made no best-seller lists, but I also didn’t promote it beyond creating a basic website for it, handing out an occasional Jagged Man business card, and just hoping it would get noticed. It got a few very nice reviews, mostly from friends, but I didn’t push very hard. I was navigating the business piecemeal, one mistake at a time, and learning from each of them. Please learn from my mistakes and try not to make the same ones yourself. The Jagged Man is available for purchase at… [Note: I pulled the book from circulation after publishing Aggravated. I intend to rework it and republish it, possibly late in 2022 or early 2023].
I had also by then finished a first draft, several edits, and a few polishes of another book called If a Butterfly. I had intended to make it my second published book, but it didn’t work out that way. I suspended the editing on Butterfly to work on another book, Aggravated. I plan for Butterfly to finally have its chance sometime around summer 2021. [That didn’t happen until December 2021.] It will be released as a two-part series (Book One called Chrysalis, and Book Two called Emergence). You can check the series out on its website, https://www.ifabutterfly.com.
I devoted most of the time between 2016 and the end of 2020 researching and writing my first (and only so far) non-fiction book, Aggravated: The True Story of How a Series of Lies Sent an Innocent Man to Prison. It was published in December 2020, and is now available in print and ebook versions at https://www.amazon.com/Aggravated-True-Story-Innocent-Prison/dp/1732790302/. The book is actually about my brother, Steve, who was unjustly convicted in 2006 of a horrible crime. I worked with him for several years, helping him write his appeals. He is still in a prison in Beaumont, Texas. You can find out more about why his appeals failed, and why he is innocent, at the book’s website. https://www.aggravatedbook.com.
So, I guess this post is to say, “I’m back,” and this site and the new ones for each book are a continuation of those earlier fallow sites. I don’t know how regularly I will post here, but it will certainly be a lot more than during the past five years. I will be spending the majority of my time, though, promoting Aggravated and putting the final touches on If a Butterfly (which includes prepping the series for conversion to ebooks and laying it out for print as well). Check back often for updates.
Michael
Standard Disclaimer: Please post a comment below if you would like to. All comments are personally moderated by a grouchy old guy, though, so posts by self-promotional schemers, spammers, and lunatic ranters won’t make it through. Everyone else, whether your thoughts are positive or negative, please feel free to speak your mind. Thanks.