Conversations At Wormhole Electric: Turkeys, Publishing and Everything in-between

Good morning from cold and snowy Colorado! Just rain and drizzle, Don? WOW! I thought for sure you would have a foot of snow by now. Our temperatures this week have struggled to get above 20 degrees, except for Friday when the temperature reached an almost balmy 38 degrees. Woke up this morning to cold and more snow. One nice thing about this is the buggies that plagued us so much this summer will freeze and not return.

I loved your picture of the tom turkeys! Do you hear them in the wild? I've always imagined that the sounds of the wild turkeys are the same as the domesticated ones. We have a pass between Gunnison and Salida that boasts a flock of wild turkeys... that yours are so use to you that they don't even flinch when you're around is good. I didn't realize that turkeys sat in trees!

I spent last weekend in a workshop on editing! Learned a lot of powerful ideas that I've been passing on to my students all week. The most re-affirming idea was to "read it out loud!" I do this with my tutoring/writing students. At first they are a bit put out that they have to hear me read it out loud, but most of them start hearing the mistakes and beat me to the corrections in their essays. It makes them feel more confident in their writing. And I don't have to work as hard – once they hear the mistake, I usually don't even have to explain it.

I just got back from another workshop – this one on publishing. Book sales have been good this month Even the Transports are selling! Makes me feel good that people are finally finding Wormhole's writings and reading them! But I want to find ways to increase our sales and hopefully bring more writers into the Wormhole! I've also discovered that maybe I need to buy a Kindle Fire - my Kindle is one of the originals, which I love! but it may not give me a realistic view of what we publish...

Wormhole is definitely an Independent Publishing firm! And we don't require an agent or previous publishing experience. In fact, we are the experience! It was great to feel like there really is a niche for this publishing company. A place for new authors to get published, a place for seasoned authors to work on new genres... what a wonderful deal!

I just got the latest draft of 3 Miracles – about Bosnia – and I am stoked to read it and include it in the December Book showcase. I'll be throwing in my non-fiction about Generation Y: Hotwired for the book showcasing we do in December – Christmas presents for the reader! (Sounds kind of contradictory based on the Christmas Creep rant ... )

Next Friday I actually get to present, maybe if the audience comes, the workshop on The Wired Generation – Gen Y. I want to review what I had originally decided to do – just so I appear somewhat intelligent on the subject. I really enjoyed writing the book and I've been working on the conclusions for the last week. Most of my editors have returned my draft so I have work to do before I publish it in December. Their comments have been positive and re-affirming. That in and of itself has helped lift the specter of doubt. Writing can be so self-defeating at times.

Don, yesterday I was thinking about how lucky you are that you have your Thanks Giving earlier in the month of November; that it isn't the harbinger of Christmas yet to come. I've joined a movement to not shop on Thanks Giving to help retailers know that their employees deserve a day of Thanks at the same time their friends and families are celebrating. Companies, my own included, sometimes forget that without time for our families and friends, we become rather shallow. Sometimes I think the Gen Y generation has it right – family comes first.

If we only kept one holiday, for me it would be Thanks Giving.

I admit that I cheered when I heard that your LSBH worked on the technical end of the play, Brigadoon. It is one of my favorites – and yes, I remember helping to construct the tree that gets climbed, the rocks that need to be stood on ... technical theatre was another life time ago for us. Sometimes I really miss it... I still have directions the technical director wrote for me on a piece of masonite, signed by the director... those were amazing times. I wouldn't trade what I learned or the friends we made; I'm glad we've moved on.

Office politics – my only advice to your daughter is to not engage, keep your head down, teach the kids and move on.

I've thought of a new twist to the riddles! A cross-word puzzle made out of the riddles we've constructed so

far. What do you think? I haven't figured out how to do the cross-word puzzle – maybe over Christmas I'll have time.The most important point will be whether or not the puzzles will migrate to the new website that the web designers are working on. Not sure when the new site will be ready, but it will be magnificent! Ways to provide videos, MP3s, a different blogging stage for more story releases...I can't wait!

Eight weeks in the land of the sun and the warm? Can you stand it that long?

Have a great week! Stay warm and safe.