Launching Wagstaff Summer 2018

Starting it off right – today I set a new record for alcohol purchases for a single day by replenishing different departments. Between a Trader Joes run and then a Costco trip, I refilled the ol’ wine fridge with a nice assortment, grabbed a new monster-sized Bulleit Rye (which I came back to after a brief sampling of some others, both for taste and for the Costco value), and then figured “Why not? snagging a 24 pack of Modelo regular and Modelo Negro.

I was also a good boy and donated 2 big boxes of books I culled from my overstocked library, picking out stuff I’ll never read or never read again, or in the case of numerous old reference books, never use again. I also took an old computer to be recycled. Lots more room in here to stretch out, that is until I inevitably buy more books to fill the opened up shelf space.

No books at an estate sale I happened upon on the way to Costco, but I did manage to grab some nice vintage kitchen items. They don’t make Tupperware like that anymore, y’know.

But the big plans this summer have to do with getting more books ready. First up will be a young adult scifi adventure novel I wrote sometime back that has spent enough time bouncing around Hollywood hell and ought to just get an Amazon release. It will be the first book in a series, so if y’all like the characters & the concept once you check it out, there’ll be more to come. Watch this space in the next few weeks for more details and previews and the like. This one will have illustrations and a more complex interior design, so I’ll need to be experimenting with that aspect. Aiming for a late summer/early fall release.

And yes, it IS the actual “kid’s book” referenced repeatedly in the Wagstaff detective series. It really does exist. I can write clean material, really I can.

For those of you who want to take the escalator up to the Adult Department of Berkin Inc.,  the raw material for the third entry in the Wagstaff detective series is pretty much all organized and ready to work with.  I will also spend the summer banging out a draft of Wagstaff 3. Stay tuned for more on that as well, not sure of a release time yet.

I know, I know… work work work (Hello boys, I missed you…)

But as long as I can get into a routine and concentrate, I think I can git ‘r all done. Not sure if I need Jonathan Shields to light my pipe and fly in my favorite rocking chair from my cushy southern university post teaching medieval history, but then again, I’m not sure I’d want him around after he set up my overheated southern belle wife played by Gloria Grahame to run off with Gilbert Roland and die in a plane crash.

I don’t smoke a pipe.

I don’t write in a rocking chair.

The married to overheated Gloria Grahame part I like, although I don’t think I’d want to come home and find her in bed with my 13 year old son from a previous marriage like Nicholas Ray did. I wouldn’t want to come home and find her in bed with Nicholas Ray, either.

Might be best just to watch those great old noirs she turns up in.

If you’ve never seen “The Bad & The Beautiful” I strongly recommend it. And NOT just to better understand parts of Wagstaff 3. And that’s the only big fat hint you’re getting at this point, mac.