Clive Cussler - A Great Storyteller

There are great writers (think beautiful, creative sentences and paragraphs, thoughtful intriguing characters) and great storytellers (think fascinating story subjects, larger-than-life characters, dramatic action, riveting tales that prevent you from sleeping). Great writers and great storytellers are not mutually exclusive concepts. But writers often fall into just one of those camps.

Clive Cussler was in the second category. His stories entertained millions. And all writers who pen stories with an adventure component probably owe him a debt.

Cussler wrote a couple of dozen bestsellers and - with multiple co-writers who were eager to join him in his writing projects - he directed the writing of several dozen more novels.

Cussler died February 24th, 2020. He was 88. The world of entertainment writing has lost an icon.

Second Edit On Next Owen McKenna

The book production pipeline is long. For me, about 18 months.

Each significant step stands out. I finished the first draft of my next book some months ago. My first editor (my wife, an expert at story flow and finding my sometimes-adolescent BS that needs to be deleted) handed me a marked-up stack of 400 pages. I dove in, did a rewrite, and sent the new version out to two more editors, story and sentence and paragraph and punctuation experts. I recently got those back.  These editors are all such a gift to a writer. Find what doesn't work. Figure out how it can work better. The pipeline flow continues.

I'll do another rewrite, then send the book off to my fourth editor. She'll identify the remaining problems, many of which I'll create as I try to fix past problems. I'll do another rewrite and send the book along to the next phase of publication. Come August, I have McKenna #18.

I like this new book. It's quite different than the previous McKenna adventures. I'll post details in coming weeks.

(For those who are curious how it works with an 18 month publication schedule, but a new book every 12 months, the answer is that I've already started writing the next book after this next book.)

Thanks for your interest.

Finally, Serious Snow

It's Friday, and the sun is out, the air is warm. Some tendrils of aromatic smoke from controlled burns wrap the trees. Our diminishing snowpack is under assault from the sun.

BUT.

Tonight, a storm rolls in late and is due to hang around until Monday. The forecast is for 2 - 4 feet above 7000 feet, possibly more still on the sierra crest. On the National Weather Service map, it's all red for the next few days. 

It's been awhile since we've had a snow day. By the time you read this, we'll be in the thick of white stuff. Yahoo.