THE PLEASURES AND PERILS OF GHOSTWRITING

THE JOY OF STORY

John M. Daniel’s Blog

August 27, 2016

I’ve just taken on a ghostwriting assignment. For professional and ethical reasons I can’t tell you who hired me for this job, or what the book is about. But ghostwriting is perhaps my favorite work, and it pays well, too; so I’ve decided to write an essay on the subject of ghostwriting in general: why I like the task, why it’s such hard work, the rewards in terms of satisfaction, and the perils of failure.

I don’t get these jobs often. I’ve been a professional editor for close to fifty years, during which I’ve whipped hundreds of manuscripts into shape by copy editing, line editing, and development or structural treatment. But these chores, though satisfying work for me, don’t thrill me anywhere near as much as creating, almost from scratch, a novel or a memoir, something with plot, conflict, and character. I specialize in stories.

Consequently, I’ve ghostwritten only seven books, of which five were novels of mystery and/or suspense, one was a mainstream novel, and one was a posthumous memoir. I consider these jobs some of my best writing, and of course I’d like to tell you to buy them and like them, but I can’t. I’ve turned down many ghosting jobs because they didn’t work as stories. I don’t feel qualified or inspired to write books of straight information and advice.

Ghostwriting is a tricky business, because my work must satisfy the client, who is justifiably sensitive to the sound of his or her  “voice.” I must spend time with the author to absorb how they talk and what they feel strongly about. It’s best  if this can happen face to face, but I’ve also gotten to know my clients through correspondence. Usually the client presents me with a mess of a first draft, which needs a complete overhaul. From that first draft I can get a general sense of the book I’ve been hired to write.

The next step is the outline. The ghost and the client work together, back and forth, hammering out a book outline, putting the events in order, defining chapters, sketching out the scenes, building a narrative arc for each of the scenes, each of the chapters, each of the “three acts,” and for the book as a whole. Making sure the climaxes come in the right places. An outline is essential, so that the client and the ghost can understand and agree on the architecture of the story. This is not a story that can be thought up and written down by the seat of one’s pants.

Then I start writing. I send my client batches as I progress, usually about twenty to thirty pages to start with. I expect to be paid for each batch I send. This is a crucial moment in the relationship. If the client doesn’t like what I’m doing, he or she can cancel the job. The client is required to pay me for work I’ve done, but can end the relationship if it’s not what the client wants. I’ve lost a few jobs in the early stages because my work didn’t live up to the client’s expectations. I was sorry to lose those jobs, but glad to know early in the game, and I’m happy that those relationships ended amicably.

Of course if the client’s complaints are just minor quibbles or corrections that can be dealt with easily, I’ll do that work for free. But if it turns out the author doesn’t like the way I write, or doesn’t share my convictions about how stories should be told, then it’s best that we     part.

Memoirs can be especially tricky, because the client may insist on complete accuracy about every detail of his or her life. My philosophy is that a good story is more important than absolute accuracy. I feel I should have leeway to make up dialogue for the sake of the plot, so long as I get the point across and am true to the characters speaking. The client may not agree, and the client is always right. I’ll always respect the client’s wishes and try to accommodate, but I’ve little patience for control freaks who make me guess about every detail and then reject my work because I inadvertently changed the color of somebody’s Chevrolet.

Mostly it’s good. People have asked me if I didn’t resent seeing a book I wrote be published under somebody else’s name. My answer is always, “Hey, what’s to complain about? I’m writing a fast-moving, entertaining story and probably getting paid more for it than I’d make in royalties if it were published with my name on the  title page.

Anyway, here I go again, writing somebody else’s book. I like the story, I like its “author,” and I hope this job brings us both the pleasure we both deserve for contributing another good book to the libraries of people who share our devotion to the Joy of Story.

§§§

Call for submissions: Your 99-Word Stories

The deadline for September’s 99-word story submissions is September 1. The stories will appear on my blog post for September 10, and will stay posted for a week.

note: this 99-word story feature is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.

Rules for the 99-word story feature are as follows:

1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.

2. One story per writer, per month.

3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.

4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.

5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the month.

6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains all rights.

7. Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com

THIS MONTH’S PROMPT FOR NEXT MONTH’S 99-WORD STORY: Write a story inspired by the following sentence: The Princess looked again into the mirror and said, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

§§§

Calling all published authors—

I try to feature a guest author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month. If you’re interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to promote a published book—email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com.

§§§

Thank you for visiting. Please drop by next week.

http://www.danielpublishing.com/jmd/index.html

AN INVITATION TO PUBLISHED AUTHORS

THE JOY OF STORY

John M. Daniel’s Blog

August 20, 2016

Greetings and welcome to all who enjoy reading and/or writing stories, and to those who tell and those who hear stories as well. This weekly blog is called “The Joy of Story,” and that’s a theme dear to my heart. Stories have been a main focus of my life’s work, as a bookseller, an editor, a publisher, a teacher, and a writer of stories, stories both true and fictional. (Sometimes there’s more truth found in fiction than in what pretends to be nonfiction, but who cares? Stories is stories.)

This post is scheduled to appear on the third Saturday of the month (of August 2016), and stay posted for a week thereafter. The third week of each month is a time slot I ordinarily feature a guest to take over the spotlight. I issue a standing notice in every post, inviting published authors to send me a brief essay on what “The Joy of Story” means to them. It’s a chance to express the pleasure you find in writing, or to share your thoughts about what makes a good story work (and play). It’s also a chance to promote a published book. Free publicity! My audience isn’t vast, but a notice goes out to 200+ fellow writers and readers of stories, letting them know where to find your words of fun and wisdom. Who knows? You might find a small, brief spike in your Amazon sales.

Well, you’ll notice I have no guest author this week. Nobody sent me any words of fun and wisdom to post. I’m disappointed, and I may have to get used to having the monthly guest author feature be more sporadic than dependable. I hope this isn’t the case, because I have enjoyed the variety of thoughts and voices brought to my blog by other writers. So, if you are an author who’s had a book published (at any level of the game, from Knopf to CreateSpace), please read the invitation at the end of this post.

Meanwhile I’ll fill the space with a post I wrote some months or maybe years ago. (Hint: recycled blog posts are welcome.)

§§§

BRIEF REVIEWS OF SOME OLD FAVORITES

Back in the early 2000s I contributed acrostic puzzles to Tin House Magazine. An acrostic puzzle, in case you’re unfamiliar with the genre, “consists of two parts. The first part is a set of lettered clues, each of which has numbered blanks representing the letters of the answer. The second part is a long series of numbered blanks and spaces, representing a quotation, into which the answers for the clues fit. The first letters of each correct clue answer, read in order from clue A on down the list, will spell out the author of the quote and the title of the work it is taken from.” (Thank you, Wikipedia.) It’s a giant, complicated anagram puzzle, addicting to the solver, thrilling to the constructor, and a giant, pleasurable waste of time for both.

I made up four literary acrostic puzzles for Tin House, lifting quotations from four books on my shelf of old favorites. On a separate page of the magazine, I gave the solution, and then I added a short essay about the source and the author of the quotation. I had as much fun writing about the solutions as I did constructing the puzzles.

Here they are: all four of them: the quoted passages and my annotations.

•••

From The Thundering Herd, by Zane Grey

Milly gazed back over her shoulder. The Comanches had gained. They were not half a mile away, riding now in wide formation, naked, gaudy, lean, feathered, swift and wild as a gale of wind in the tall prairie grass.

         “Better death among the buffalo!” cried Milly.

ZANE GREY

Zane Grey (1872-1939) was one of the most prolific and popular writers of his time. His books sold thousands of copies, and he seemed to write thousands of books. (Actually he wrote about 90, of which 60 were westerns.) He is considered one of the architects of the American Western novel genre.

But by 1962, when I had a summer job in a used bookstore in Dallas, nobody was reading Zane Grey anymore. We had a whole shelf of his novels, in hardback, priced at ten cents each, and we never sold a one. At the end of the summer, I splurged and spent a dime (less my employee discount) on The Thundering Herd. I finally got around to reading that book about thirty years later. It was…well, it wasn’t all that bad. The writing was terrible and the politics were atrocious, but it was a ripping good yarn. That’s gotta be worth something. Speaking of worth, I recently saw a copy of The Thundering Herd offered for sale on the Internet, priced at $295.00.

Dang. I should have bought the whole shelf.

•••

From The Trojan Horse, by Christopher Morley

It’s the dressing room where some Trojan warriors are cleaning up after the day’s fighting. Through the fog we see their naked athletic bodies under the spray. They shout to each other as gaily as college boys, or golfers at the club.

Christopher Morley’s 1937 novel about the Trojan war focuses on the bittersweet love story of Troilus and Cressida, in which a naive young soldier falls for a sophisticated divorcée, learns the joys of physical love, gets his heart broken, and dies in battle. It’s a sad story, but thanks to Morley it’s also warm and wise, gently erotic, and fabulously funny. It’s peppered with hilarious anachronisms, like taxicabs, tuxedos, martinis, and a sports announcer who broadcasts the daily battles over the radio. These “modern” touches seem a bit outdated now, but then that’s just another literary layer resting on the legendary town of Troy.

Morley’s novel tells us more about America in the 1930s than it does about ancient Troy, but then Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida and Chaucer’s Triolus and Creseyde are more about Elizabethan and Medieval England, respectively, than about Troy. For that matter, the Trojan war was relatively “ancient” history by the time Homer wrote The Iliad.

So it’s a tale for all times, and whichever version you read, you’ll be reminded that there’s nothing ancient about war, nor was there ever anything new about love.

CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

•••

From My Lady Nicotine, by J. M. Barrie

I gave up my most delightful solace, as I regarded it, for no other reason than that the lady who was willing to fling herself away on me said that I must choose between it and her. This deferred our marriage for six months.

J. M. BARRIE

J. M. Barrie (1860-1937) is best known as the creator of Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up. In the late 1880s, he wrote a series of newspaper stories about a group of London bachelors, young bohemian chaps who had nothing in common except their devotion to a particular smoking mixture. These stories were gathered together in 1890 and published as a book, My Lady Nicotine, which is considered the finest literary tribute to pipe-smoking. It is even more a hilarious satire of late Victorian society, and it is also a fine celebration of bachelorhood. Like Peter Pan, the nameless narrator and his goofy friends (who could have taught Bertie Wooster a thing or two) have no intention whatsoever of ever growing up.

•••

From Good Bye, Ava, by Richard Bissell

In Clyde’s houseboat why you can set up there with a cold bottle of beer and look at the river and let the rest of the world go bye-bye, believe me. Some day were are going to try that but it takes quite a while for the rest of the world to go by, at least half an hour.

Richard Bissell (1913-1977), like Mark Twain before him, was a Midwestern humorist who also held a pilot’s license for tonnage on the Upper Mississippi River. Like Twain, Bissell traveled the globe, pen in hand. His literary career and success took him to the East Coast, where he joined and skewered the New York literary establishment.

But Bissell never gave up his home on the Mississippi, a houseboat in Dubuque, and his best books are all about the Midwest: A Stretch on the River; 7-1/2¢ (which became the smash it musical, The Pajama Game); High Water; Good Bye, Ava; and his memoir, My Stretch on the River, Or Why I Am Not Mark Twain.

RICHARD BISSELL

 Elmore Leonard once said that he learned most of what he knew about writing from reading Richard Bissell. I feel the same way, and I dedicated my first published novel to Bissell. In recent years his books have been out of print, and thanks to collectors like me he’s even hard to find in second-hand bookstores; but he’s worth the search. He is the best Midwestern humorist in American literature—and that includes that other tugboat pilot.

§§§

Call for submissions: Your 99-Word Stories

The deadline for September’s 99-word story submissions is September 1. The stories will appear on my blog post for September 10, and will stay posted for a week.

note: this 99-word story feature is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.

Rules for the 99-word story feature are as follows:

1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.

2. One story per writer, per month.

3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.

4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.

5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the month.

6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains all rights.

7. Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com

THIS MONTH’S PROMPT FOR NEXT MONTH’S 99-WORD STORY: Write a story inspired by the following sentence: The Princess looked again into the mirror and said, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

§§§

Calling all published authors—

I try to feature a guest author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month. If you’re interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to promote a published book—email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com.

§§§

Thank you for visiting. Please drop by next week.

http://www.danielpublishing.com/jmd/index.html

SENTIMENTAL SURPRISES AND BLASTS FROM THE PAST

THE JOY OF STORY

John M. Daniel’s Blog

August 13, 2016

Beware. The past will come and haunt you. The past is never over with. As William Faulkner said, “The past isn’t dead. It’s not even past.”

These visits from the past usually occur as a surprise. And they often come in the form of a person you haven’t thought of for ages. These people from your past walk into the scene unannounced, and, intentionally or not, they stir up the present, either making your day a bit pleasanter or presenting an unholy mess that needs to be cleaned up.

It’s surprises like this that make good fiction. The appearance of somebody who was once important in your protagonist’s life is sure to add spice to your plot. New twists, new conflicts, new changes, new consequences, the return of the past’s pleasures or troubles. So if your story is stuck and going stale (it happens to all of us), try introducing a sentimental or unsettling someone the reader has never met before, a someone your main character knows all too well and hasn’t thought of for years.

In the stories that follow, join some men and women as they meet up with their pasts, thanks to surprise visits from a former teacher, a deceased spouse, a departed mother, old friends, and old flames. Who knows where these chance meetings might take us if the authors weren’t confined to 99 words.…

  

§§§

FATHER WALDRON

by June Kosier

There was only an elderly priest on the elevator I was taking when leaving work. “Are you Father Waldron?”

“Yes, I am. Do I know you?”

“You taught me Freshman Latin in 1963.”

“I must have been a very bad teacher if you still remember me.”

“No Father, you were a very good teacher—better than the nun that taught second-year Latin. She would have a fit if you put your name on the right side of your homework instead of the left as she wanted. You didn’t care as long as your name was somewhere.”

He smiled knowingly.

•••

MIRACLE AT THE HEADLANDS

by Barbara LaSalle

My walking rule was five miles an hour. Only the beat of hip-hop kept me on pace. I looked at nothing but the path and my watch. But I happened to turn my head to the right, and that’s when I saw it: the Headlands!

Awestruck, I fell to my knees. Recovering at last, I ran to my husband. “Look!” I said, dragging him outside. “A miracle!” “

Where?” he said.

 Years later I returned to that same spot, and there I found him: my late husband—on his knees, staring at the Headlands.

“Look!,” he said. “A miracle.”

•••

NOT TOO YOUNG NOT TO GET MARRIED

by Christine Viscuso

 “Paris, the City of Lights. Nine long years. I’m back.” I huffed and puffed as Frank and I climbed the stairs to the first landing of Le Tour Eiffel.

 I looked up through the wrought iron lattice structure to see a Peter O’Toole look-alike with a dyed black Pompadour descending. I recognized those green eyes belonging to the Elvis wannabe—my high school sweetheart.

 The man stopped with a clinging, much younger woman. “Chris?”

 “Hi Bobby.”

 “It’s been almost fifty years.”

 “Never forgot how you left me for someone younger. Your wife seems ageless though.”

 “Meet wife number four.”

•••

A VISION OF MOM AND MILFORD

by Jerry Giammatteo

I approached the beach in Milford, Connecticut for the first time in thirty years. To my surprise, I saw the bungalow we shared each summer with my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. I was certain it was bulldozed to make room for condos many years ago.

I walked the beach hesitantly. It was empty except for a boy about six years old in the water and an attractive woman calling out, “Don’t go out any farther. You’re doing great.”

It was only then I realized the boy in the sound was me and the pretty lady was my mom.

•••

THE RAFT

by Tom Donovan

 I watched the Harlem River flow by the old Highbridge in the Bronx. Years ago Terry, a red-haired freckled faced twelve year old, beckoned to us kids to join him on the rickety raft he’d built.

Six kids clambered on, to beat the August heat.

After swimming, the six of us went home, but Terry stayed below the pea green water of the river, held fast by a long hooked nail under the raft.

After all those years, Terry again waved to me to join him.

I waved back, enjoying my world, and not yet ready to join his.

•••

SWEETS ON THE CYCLONE

by Diane Morelli

I was seventeen the first time I rode The Cyclone. Too afraid to go on alone, I convinced my ballsiest friend, Twizzlers, to join me. That August we rode the rickety rollercoaster fourteen nights straight. 

Twizzlers and I sat in the last car, giggled on the chug up the tallest ramp, admired all of Coney Island from the apex, and howled from the terrifying first drop and the jolting turns that followed. 

Since then, I've taken an annual Cyclone ride. Always in the rear, alone. 

While boarding this summer, someone pushed on with me. She said, "Move over, Skittles."

•••

FANCY SEEING YOU HERE

by Margaret Ueland

For our honeymoon Larry and I went to Mendocino, California. On the summer solstice I persuaded him to walk with me on the bluffs to watch the sunset.

“I did this every year I was in college,” I said as we watched. “On the solstice.”

Just as the sun set, I heard a familiar voice. “Midge? Is that you?”

Yikes! I turned and said, “Hal?” We hugged till I pulled apart. I introduced him to Larry.

Hal told Larry, “Midge and I watched the sunset together here every solstice, back in the day.”

“I see,” Larry said. “I see.”

§§§

Call for submissions: Your 99-Word Stories

The deadline for September’s 99-word story submissions is September 1. The stories will appear on my blog post for September 10, and will stay posted for a week.

note: this 99-word story feature is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.

Rules for the 99-word story feature are as follows:

1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.

2. One story per writer, per month.

3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.

4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.

5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the month.

6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains all rights.

7. Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com

THIS MONTH’S PROMPT FOR NEXT MONTH’S 99-WORD STORY: Write a story inspired by the following sentence: The Princess looked again into the mirror and said, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

§§§

Calling all published authors—

I feature a guest author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month. If you’re interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to promote a published book—email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com.

§§§

Thank you for visiting. Please drop by next week.

 http://www.danielpublishing.com/jmd/index.html

TRAFICKERS IN DEATH

  

THE JOY OF STORY

John M. Daniel’s Blog

August 6, 2016

Those of us who are hardcore readers and hard-working writers of mystery fiction are obsessed with death. We look to murder, usually premeditated, violent murder, for our entertainment and for our art and sometimes for a bit of financial reward. We live by the sword.

I find this a bit strange. As a publisher of mystery fiction, and as a networker with other mystery writers, I’ve come to know dozens of mystery writers, and I must say they are, as a group, kind, considerate, gentle, peaceful people. So where do they get this urge to kill people on paper?

I might as well look close to home for the answer. True confessions: I’m a pacifist. I haven’t hit anybody in anger or even in self-defense since before I survived puberty. I feel guilty when I lethally trap rats in Susan’s greenhouse. Furthermore, I’ve never witnessed a fistfight, I abhor professional boxing, and get this: I’ve seen only one dead body in all my seventy-four years, and he wasn’t a murder victim, just somebody glad to be done with illness.

And yet, I’ve done my share of ruthless killing on paper. I drowned one fellow in a hot tub (Play Melancholy Baby). I poisoned one lovely woman with roofies in champagne (The Poet’s Funeral). I roasted a guy well-done in a burning warehouse (Vanity Fire), and I left one poor man propped up against a Dumpster with a kitchen knife stuck in his throat (Behind the Redwood Door).

Whence all this mayhem?

Perhaps it’s because all us mystery readers and writers honor death. Like members of all species animal and vegetable, we have in our nature, and have reinforced in our nurturing, an aversion to death: we fear it, avoid it, deny it, and try to escape it. But those of us who read and write about death know that Death is the fairest of adversaries. It comes to us all, the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak. It’s patient. It’s sometimes kind. Yes, it’s a bit scary, but it will give us peace at last.

On that warm and chilly note, allow me to entertain you with seven stories about death and dying, each only 55 words long.

Death is for the Living

“Martha, after you die I’m going to marry Alice.”

“My hospice nurse?”

“We want your blessing, Martha. Life’s for the living, y’know.”

Martha’s tears dropped from her cheeks to the pillow.

After Ralph left the house, Martha rose and spent the rest of her life swallowing Ralph’s medications and refilling his bottles with her own.

My Name’s Larry, and I...

I used to be an alcoholic. Booze was all I lived for.

Then one fateful day, my marriage broke up, I lost my job, and I got in a horrible automobile accident.

I haven’t had a drink since that day. That day changed me forever.

I don’t miss the alcohol. I just miss being alive.

Injury to Insult

“You’re foolish to insult a witch,” I scolded.

“You’re no witch.”

“You think not?”

“Prove it,” he sneered.

So I unlaced my bodice.

His jaw dropped.

His eyes fell.

His heart sank.

I kicked his heart, his eyes, and his jaw under the bed, then said to the rest of him, “I rest my case.”

The Second Course...

The unfaithful slave was ordered to choose between two doors. Behind one, the girl he loved; behind the other, a ravenous tiger.

Hearing growls behind the left-hand door, he opened the right. Entered.

Slam. Click.

The room was empty.

There was no partition between the two chambers.

Next door, a tiger was finishing his appetizer.

Catch and Release

He wobbled into school, still flinching.

“I was caught,” he said. “Thrown on a pile of dead bodies. It was all dry. All hard. I couldn’t breathe. Monsters squeezed me and ripped my mouth apart and threw me away. Brrrghhh!”

“They’d caught their limit,” I said. “You were lucky.”

He shuddered. “The others were luckier.”

Independence Day

I watched the little kid stamping up and down the sidewalk all morning. Finally I asked, “What are you doing?”

“Getting free of my mother,” he answered.

“You’re running away?”

“I can’t,” he whined. “My dumb mom won’t let me cross the street.”

“So how—”

He grinned and resumed his march. “I’m stepping on cracks.”

…And Have  Nice Day

Folks, this is your captain speaking. We’re experiencing some difficulty with three of our engines, and we’re going to have to lose some weight.

So I have volunteered to take the parachute and jump. Automatic pilot should keep you flying for a while, and eventually you’ll...land. Sort of.

Enjoy the rest of your flight.

§§§

Call for submissions: Your 99-Word Stories

The deadline for September’s 99-word story submissions is September 1. The stories will appear on my blog post for September 10, and will stay posted for a week.

note: this 99-word story feature is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.

Rules for the 99-word story feature are as follows:

1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.

2. One story per writer, per month.

3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.

4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.

5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the month.

6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains all rights.

7. Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com

THIS MONTH’S PROMPT FOR NEXT MONTH’S 99-WORD STORY: Write a story inspired by the following sentence: The Princess looked again into the mirror and said, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

§§§

Thank you for visiting. Please drop by next week.

Photo by Clark Lohr, taken at
Left Coast Crime convention

http://www.danielpublishing.com/jmd/index.html