I reached a saturation point, and sent the manuscript for "Wake of the Lake Monster" up to my editor, Billye McCarty. After an intensive 3 years of scrambling for contracts, trying to start a new business and create the software it would sell, the writing had to take a back seat for a while. I began "Wake" in December of 2004, while I was travelling on business. I picked it up in earnest in 2006, quickly filling it up to 175,000 words, another tome in the epic of Ian McQuade. The relief it gave me, to know that someone else could work with it, was like a literal ton off my shoulders. I enjoy writing, but I will be scaling down future projects to a "normal" 80,000 to 100,000 word titles. I will be using the serialized format that worked so well for "Chupacabra". 3 page episodes, 40 in all, written quickly to avoid the lyricist in me from all my days as a songwriter. The author of "Ulysees", James Joyce, would struggle in a given day over 7 words, then weep because they were not in the right order. He loved writing, though, and did it to his dying day. His eyesight got so bad, near the end, that he wore a Good Humor man ice cream suit (the Ray Bradbury reference), believing the sun reflected from it and enabled him to see his pages better. I want to do the same. Louis L'amour said he would live until he decided he'd written his last book. When he did, and said as much, he passed quietly a few months later. I've wanted to be a writer all my life. As with many things I did creatively, the only one that ever stopped me was me. With all of my software projects coming to fruition, my career back on track and the weight of providing for my family at least back to normal, I feel like my old self again. Look for new and better things from me this fall. "Shadow of the Thunderbird" will be released in its 3rd and final edition. "Wake of the Lake Monster", my third novel, will complete "The Cyrptids Trilogy", as a follow up to the successful and critically acclaimed "Track of the Bigfoot". "Chupacabra" did extremely well, as my only novella to date. I turned it into an audio book, and am completing a bookstore to create and sell them for others. Trilogus LLC's software is cutting edge, but we're still looking for a commitment from our first customer, who has been beta testing it for 6 months. I am putting the finishing touches on a graphical search engine, which literally expands out like stars to allow the searcher to select a category from which to search. I have to finish the final edits sent back for SOTT, but I can only hope to keep up with my editior, who can do 40 pages a day. She is focused, where I am always tinkering and doing my full time job. Most writers, the vast majority, also have a full time job. Pen Pal James Rollins is a veterinarian in Sacramento, and is the heir apparent to Clive Cussler. I wish him well, and can only hope to match his success. As I turn fifty in September, I look forward to seeing so many things I've worked so hard to achieve finally come to fruition. On the one hand, I feel that time has begin to run out. Yet, on the other, I feel younger and less burdened than I have in many years. I have the outline for a 4th novel, which will again involve cryptozoology, but in a combination of creatures not to be believed. Now, if I can just plan to get back to lecture again at Greenville Tech, nearly all the links will be back in place that I lost in 2003. So many good and bad things happened that year, but many saw hard tines as a shakeout to 9/11. I was at Fort Detriech, the base that guards both Camp David and the nation's capital, in Frederick, Maryland. I was there on a project with USAMMA for IBM to help set up a supply chain to bases around the world. The understanding was that we were going to help shut some of them down. On 9/11, we were evacuated, and 2 weeks later, brought back with a new objective, to prepare the US to supply soldiers in the desert. The war in Afghanistan began once the supply chain for equipping an army in the desert was ready. I had no vital role, just designed the formats for the elctrionic commerce. I am neither a soldier nor a political activist. I love this country, and its people. After completing that project, I was sent to Panasonic, along the Meadowlands Parkway. I was less than 3 miles from Ground Zero, where the Towers fell. The people I worked with went outside to watch the first tower burn, and saw the second plane fly low over their heads and slam into the second. The world has changed. We are now all thrown into together, and barriers once respected are being assailed. From terrorists to illegal aliens, our way of life is under attack. All I want is to see the vast majority of people get the peace they truly want. I can't do much but to write simple stories, and ease the cares of others for awhile. If I do it well, they will find a much needed rest. If I do it well enough, and enough people find out about it, I can take the rest I've so long wanted. As a friend once told me, do what you love for a living and you will never work another day in your life. Here's to retirement from everything but life. No one will let you do anything well without wanting to pay you for it. If it is yours, protect it. Stolen ideas from me have made a billionaire out of one man now cited as 'a visionary', and a well-known newspaper syndicator gave me a 3 page 'rejection letter' on a comic strip I submitted. They pitched the idea to another artist, and 6 months later it was published. I will always strive to be honest and do the right thing by others. I begin by being honest with myself, no matter what the cost may be. Sometimes, that cost has been terrible, or lead to a lesser life than what I might have enjoyed. The bottom line is that I can live with myself and, in the end, isn;t that what really matters? Not so much on the writing this time, except that it permeates everything I do. It began as a dream whan I was 14. It became a reality after a lifetime of writing and performing music, plays, poetry. If you have a gift, share it. Don't worry about whether it is the same or as good as anyone else's. Use the 80/20 rule in all you do. As for people, 1 in 5 will always love what you do. 1 in 5 will always hate what you do. The 3 in the middle are the ones to go after. This rule works in all things, so play the law of averages. Keep sending out your work until somebody likes what you do. For writing, it takes 30 rejections to get an acceptance. J.K. Rowlings sent out her first Harry Potter book over 40 times before anyone wanted it. Then it was a bidding war, and the rest is history. Write your own. You are its biographer, and decide how it will be scripted. As for me and mine, I have to get back to it. Until next time, Dallas

On July 31st, 2006, I completed the 2nd draft of "Wake of the Lake Monster". Because it happened over a 3 year period, during which I had an exhaustive schedule to maintain, the writing process wore on me. I printed out the manuscript, at first thinking to go back over it myself, then thought better of it. I contacted Billye McCarty, my beloved editor in Oklahoma, and told her it was ready. I have so many other projects I want to get underway, but just couldn't bring myself to go on with this one without another set of eyes keeping me on course. It is a grand story on an almost epic scale. Think Steve Alten meets Clive Cussler meets Dan Brown, and you'll have an idea of the overall scope. The Altamaha-ha is a catalyst bringing togethe a number of memorable character and situations, with ties to Civil War conspiracies and resurrected aspirations of failed WWII plots. Throw in the coersive influence of the oldest continuous secret societies in western civilzation, and you'll get the idea. The final volume of "The Cryptids Trilogy" is every bit the tome that "Shadow of the Thunderbird" and "Track of the Bigfoot" were, and brings to a close (?) the arc of stories involving Ian McQuade. I look forward to finishing it up for release this Fall, at the same time welcoming the release of the 3rd and final edition of "Shadow of the Thunderbird". I have been away during this time, to regroup and get other aspects of my life back on track. I fully intend to seek an agent and a bigger publisher for the trilogy, which will end up across the three volumes at over 1/2 a million words. I appreciate the support and encouragement I've gotten to continue. My readers are quiet, but very supportive. My lake monster story will be different from any written up to this point, and uses science and known facts to extrapolate a logical, if unusual explanation for the species. After all, the mystery in my novels is always the origins, not who will survive attack. To thise I've kept waiting after two consecutive yeasr of writing both "Shadow" and "Track", I can only say the wait will have been worth it. Until then, drop me a line and come along the journey with me. D.L.