STRUCK at 32% off

Amazon has STRUCK at 32% off. That's $6.38 off the cover price. I doubt that discount will last long, but wow! while it lasts.

For my Candian friends, STRUCK is now 28% off, selling at CDN $16.85 at Amazon.ca.

And if you need any more encouragement to buy a copy, just see for yourself how riveting STRUCK is.

Thanks to my multi-talented friend Judy Avila for this cartoon. I love it.

I have such nice friends

My good friends Jon and Jayson posted this photo on Facebook. It's the first official report of a copy of STRUCK being delivered anywhere. The best part: They started reading and love it so far.

I have such nice friends.

And I'm so excited to finally be read.

This actually caps off a highly memorable day of friends emailing, calling, and even sending cards of congratulation. A close friend had us over to dinner tonight. Others are meeting in joyful support this weekend.

I have such nice friends!

"Finger Food" adds to my July 10th excitement

Yesterday I learned my horror short story "Finger Food" was accepted and is on the fast track to being published in the The New Mexico Breeze, a weekly subscription magazine. My story is 2300 words, which is normally too long for the magazine to use, but they're breaking it into either 2 or 3 parts that will appear in successive issues. This will be their first time to serialize fiction, and I'm proud to be the guinea pig.

"Finger Food" will be my first fiction published in a magazine, and I'm really excited about it.

This morning I woke up and realized the date of publication for "Finger Food" is the same date of publication for my first novel, STRUCK.

How cool is that?

July 10th will be a double red letter day for me.

**edited to add: The Breeze really put me on a fast track, and "Finger Food," part 1 of 3, came out in the July 3rd issue. Part 2 comes out July 10th, and part 3 on the 17th.

I'm (pre-) published!

While waiting for my official STRUCK release date of July 10th to be published, my publisher opened up a website to sell novels directly to the public. And they have STRUCK right on the front page, available for purchase! At a 20% discount!!

I'm published (or at least pre-published). Either way, I'm smiling.

The website is here: http://www.RCEdirect.com. To go directly to STRUCK's order page, click the logo below.

In other news, I sent out my first email newsletter, and judging by responses, it was a big success. It won't come out often -- quarterly, most likely -- so I won't be overwhelming your inbox, only sharing new releases and news about my writing. If you want to sign up for future issues, there's a sign up form near the top of this blog to the right. It's easy to unsubscribe at any time. You can view it here.

That's it for now. This is a busy and exciting time for me. Now that I've shared my latest excitement, I must get busy again.

Speaking Engagements (updated)

Last summer, I blogged about speaking in public. This summer and fall, I'll continue practicing what I preached. I have five speaking engagements scheduled in the upcoming months. If you're local, I hope you'll come by one or more of these events. Here's what I have coming up.

Croak & Dagger

FACT IN FICTION

Tuesday, August 25th from 7 PM to 8:20 PM

James Joseph Dwyer Memorial Police Substation

12700 Montgomery Blvd NE, Albuquerque

I'll talk about combining facts, history, and speculation to create the fictional world inside a paranormal thriller. Specifically, I'll talk about how Anasazi (or Ancestral Puebloans, to be politically correct) ruins in Chaco Canyon influenced my novel STRUCK.

SouthWest Writers

WORKING WITH SMALL PRESSES

Saturday, September 5th from 10 AM to Noon

New Life Presbyterian Church

5540 Eubank NE, Albuquerque

Small publishers are extremely varied in what they offer, how they offer it, what they can do for their authors, and what they can do to their authors. I'll cover issues ranging from making the decision to publish with a small press, finding them, and evaluating them. I'll share experiences I hope will help other writers know what to expect.

RMFW Colorado Gold Writers Conference

FIRST SALE PANEL

Fri-Sun, Sept. 11th - 13th

Renaissance Denver Hotel

3801 Quebec Street, Denver, CO

This is a workshop during the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' annual conference. A panel of newly published authors (like me!) will discuss our roads to publication and field questions.

Land of Enchantment Romance Authors
THE PARANORMAL
Saturday, October 10th from Noon to 3 PM
Heights Cumberland Presbyterian Church
8600 Academy Rd. NE, Albuquerque
LERA is the New Mexico chapter of Romance Writers of America, and they've invited me to be the speaker at their October program. I'll discuss things I've learned over the years as I've incorporated a different paranormal element into each of my five thrillers.

THE day has arrived

Me holding STRUCK, my first novel published. I was unwashed, unshaven, and tired and sweaty from having just finished a run, but that's the moment the books arrived and the moment I wanted to capture. Glad I did.

I still have to wait until July 10th before copies go on sale, but at least now I have something to hold on to until then.

STRUCK, the poster

Here's the poster my amazingly talented webgod made for me with help from amazingly talented Donna Pawlowski's cover graphic and amazingly talented author Greg Lilly's blurb and amazingly talented promotion/author/freelance graphic designer Cullan Hudson's two line summary. Imagine a big version of this sitting beside a stack of my novels at my book signings. Will it help me sell that stack?

And geeze, I have a lot of amazingly talented folks helping me. How lucky am I?



**Click poster to view larger image**

And now....
STRUCK, the bookmark

**Click bookmark to view larger image**

Mesa Verde & Aztec Ruins

As you'll see once you buy and read my paranormal thriller STRUCK (available July 10th *hint, hint*), pueblo ruins fascinate me. Much of STRUCK is set among the pueblo ruins in Chaco Canyon. This week, we ventured further north in the Four Corners area to see the Mesa Verde and Aztec ruins in SW Colorado. The same ancestral puebloans we learned about at Chaco Canyon also built and lived in these ruins. Here are a few pictures from our trip.



Mike, our trusted tour guide and great friend.

STRUCK: In the Queue

It won't be long now until I can hold my first published novel in my hands.

I finished my last proof of STRUCK the other week, and I'm thrilled with how it read. A few days later, my publisher let me know it was at the printer. Now, as the July 10th release date approaches, STRUCK is prominently displayed on the front page of the Regal Crest Enterprises webpage, in the "upcoming releases" section. Click here to see for yourself.

Sequoias R Us

Jack and I just returned from a Tucson vacation. We loved it there. Judging by our pictures, what we loved most were the sequoia cacti.

We took pictures of sequoia standing alone.

Pictures of sequoias as part of a scene.

Pictures of Jack in front of a sequoia.

Pictures of me in front of a sequoia.


And we didn't even care if one was dead and decaying. In fact, it looks like that's the kind I relate to best.


Should I be worried?

Booksignings can be fun?

With a book or two coming out soon, I sometimes think of--and dread mightily--upcoming book signings. The thought of sitting like a pariah in a bookstore cubbyhole as people hide their eyes as they scuttle by sends shivers up my spine. But is there a rule that says book signing events can't be fun?

Friends Melody Groves and Ron Perea say "no."




We took this shot of them Friday in Old Town, Albuquerque. When Melody isn't slinging a gun in her role as gunfighter, she writes wonderful western novels and western non-fiction about rodeos and bars and no telling what else. Ron is the quiet, shy type. NOT! He can hear a camera click from 100 yards away and still make it into the picture. He's a stand up comic, author of Smiles, Giggles, and Laughs, and is deeply involved in play productions. Combined, these two authors prove book signings don't have to be dreaded events.

Whew! Good to know.

My author's page at Lyrical Press

I feel I've been officially accepted into the Lyrical Press family. I have an author's page on the website. My novel's cover is not yet designed, but I've learned the tentative release date for DARK KNOWLEDGE is October 19th.

To visit my author's webpage, click the logo below.

Ain't technology grand?

Today I ordered a new laptop (IdeaPad) to replace my beloved and reliable, but now frustratingly slow, 5 year old ThinkPad. Some numbers in comparison:

• RAM memory: 8 times more (500 MB to 4 GB)
• hard drive memory: 10 times more
• battery life: 25% longer
• screen size: 10% larger
• weight: 25% lighter
• cost: 20% LESS expensive

Amazing. Once I have blazing speed and deep memory, I wonder if I'll write novels faster? Or blog more often? Time will tell.

Detailed dreams

Last night I dreamt I entered a room from the dark, and it was so bright I couldn't crack my eyes open against the light. The room was familiar but neglected for a long time. I smelled dust...and some similar odor I recognized but couldn't yet identify. I needed to stay there for hours--to rest, I think--but I suspected rattlesnakes lurked. They were what I smelled with the dust. I strained my ears, knowing exactly the sound I was listening for, but I couldn't heard them. I tried again to open my eyes, but they wouldn't adjust to the glare, and it was too painful. My dog (a German Shepherd mix that died over a year ago) was with me. I didn't want her bitten, so I squatted and kept her pressed against my side. She was warm and soft against me.

My dreams are vivid, and it's easy to understand why. I see colors (if I can open my eyes), feel textures, hear familiar sound, and smell the slightest aroma. That's a good lesson to remember when I write. If I want my fiction to be as vivid as my dreams, incorporate the senses.

Now if I could only get my dreams to finish plotting novels for me--in a way that still makes sense when I'm awake--I'd have it made.

Surfing the paranormal

Do you like reading stories about paranormal activities?

I do. Since my novels all include a paranormal element, you could probably guess that. I have a few websites bookmarked. A favorite is my friend Cullan Hudson's blog called STRANGE STATE. Cullan updates frequently, covers a wide range of stories, and adds interesting commentary. This website links to a list of livejournal paranormal-themed communities, arranged in order of last update.

Once I start surfing, I'm rarely methodical. I stumble around following links, seeing what catches my eye and matches my mood. Occassionally I find something that makes a nerve tingle or triggers an idea or two I can use in my fiction. That means I can justify my time spent paranormal surfing as research.

If you answered yes to my original question, I'll leave you with another: What types of paranormal stories do you find the most interesting?

New blurb for STRUCK

I try not to get carried away and post here every time I get revved up about something that happens as STRUCK -- and now DARK KNOWLEDGE -- moves through the publishing process. Really, I do. But everything's new and exciting for me, and today is an equinox, and the equinox is a huge factor in STRUCK.


So that's my justification for posting my new blurb, graciously given to me by author Greg Lilly.

"Keith Pyeatt is a combination of Tony Hillerman, Anne Rice, and Stephen King who intertwines the legends and mysticism of the Southwest with a jolt of energy and thrills. From the first page, he keeps a low rumble of danger on the horizon, but the approaching storm still catches you by surprise."

--Greg Lilly, author of Devil's Bridge and Fingering the Family Jewels

There's an added wow factor for me in the blurb. Part of my process in deciding whether or not to query a publisher is to check out their product. The novel I bought to check out Regal Crest was Greg Lilly's Fingering the Family Jewels. Not only was I impressed with the quality of the product, I loved the writing, characters, and story (purchase one of Greg's novels and see for yourself). So I submitted my novel, and now we're both Regal Crest authors. Then he went the extra mile and agreed to read STRUCK. You can imagine how thrilled I am with his impression.

Thanks, Greg!

Entering the world of eBooks with DARK KNOWLEDGE

I'm thrilled to announce that the fine people at Lyrical Press will be bringing my novel DARK KNOWLEDGE to an eBook reader near you. DARK KNOWLEDGE is the psychological, paranormal thriller I describe as Flowers for Algernon with a Dean Koontz twist.

I've been watching Lyrical Press for some time. Their website caught my eye first, then their covers, their books, their sales, their relationships with authors... My research kept turning up good news. My next step was to decide how I felt about electronic publishing, and it didn't take long to get excited about that too.

So after monitoring and pondering for months, I queried with high hopes. A week later, we had a deal. Such a quick and enthusiastic response from Lyrical Press piled excitement on top of excitement, and I'm still beaming a week later.

I hope you'll join me in all this exited fun and watch for the release of DARK KNOWLEDGE. I'll write more about my novel and this new (for me) process of electronic publishing in later blog posts. But let me end this one by writing: WooHoo!