Tim - First Blog

Hi, Everyone. You can thank Carrie or TJ over at Focus House for setting up this forum for me. I am actually not bad with technogy and social networking sites (especially after all my friends at Facebook helped me figure much of it out :-) But I am not sure how I would have found the time to establish a new blog without the help. In short, thanks Focus House!

A couple of friends over on Facebook asked me earlier tonight what I would blog about. My response, of course: You got me :-) 

"Be accessible and available," Carrie Rourke at Focus House Publishing told me, but she didn't have any other guidance.

As you all likely have heard by now, I've decided to stay with Focus House Publishing. Though there are higher dollars available with the larger publishers, I just couldn't see losing the control I have on book projects now. Also, I think in the long run I'll do better with my current royalty arrangement. It also doesn't hurt that I know the boss pretty well (my brother :-).

On Facebook, I promised that I would update everyone on the upcoming release schedule. Please forgive me if the timeframes are skewed, but this is what they're telling me. Also, keep in mind this is the ebook schedule. Hardback and Paperback timeframes are apparently a few weeks beyond this:

"Ripped From My Cold Young Fingers" - May/June 2011
"Zachary Pill, The Dragon at Station End" - June/July 2011
"Ancestor" (horror that was originally slated under a pen name) - July/Aug 2011
"Vampire Way" (paranormal romance-title not final) - Aug/Sep 2011
"Heroes With Fangs" (big maybe if you ask me :-) - Sep/Oct 2011

Carrie emailed a little frustrated that I intended to blog about the release schedule (they're still working things out on the marketing end and apparently haven't committed to Ancestor and Vampire Way timelines). Let's just assume they're coming out someday :-)

Carrie did think I should mention Fat Duck. Anyone that know me knows that I live here in Southern Maine on 7 acres with a large pond and brook beside my house. We actually built a 60-foot porch along the waterside just so we could watch our "outdoor family" splash around. Sometimes in the winter, we can have as many as 300 Canadian mallards just fifty feet from my front porch (when they're not blocking the driveway :-( Anyway, quite a few years ago a local farmer found one of his domestic ducks had mated with a mallard and wound up with a huge duck that looked exactly like the Canadian breed. The only difference was that he was twice the size and couldn't fly. Well, in the summer he sometimes has no other ducks visiting for days on end so I went and purchased several other domestic ducks as friends. Little did I know, they would all be afraid of the water (or at least they didn't like it much). Fat Duck is the last of that group (the others disappeared--likely fox or hawks). He doesn't like to go in the water and is especially fond of sneaking up onto our porch whenever we're not looking (I do work from home when I'm not touring, but my office is on the opposite side of the house). It was cute at first, especially the day he knocked at the front door and while I was looking out to see who was there, he poked his head inside and would have gone right in if my wife and I hadn't stopped him. The non-cute part is that Fat Duck, like all ducks, can't seem to or doesn't want to control his "waste functions" and even when he is sleeping, he seems to be messing at the same time. For months, I have steadfastly shooed him away whenever he came up to visit BUT less than a week ago we found him on the porch one morning all covered in blood. He's white, which made him look all the more like a character out of Stephen King's "Carrie." I was horrified and soon learned that the fox had taken a surface chunk out from under one of his wings. I quickly rigged up a cage on the porch and kept him inside there for two days. The last few days, he and I have had a standing agreement: he shows up on the porch just before dark, and I usher him into the cage. First thing the next morning (when all good foxes should be sound asleep) I let him out again and, of course, shoo him off the porch. It seems to be a good trade off. We're still negotiating the "stay off the porch until dusk" part, but I have faith he'll come around.

The last note I got from Carrie about tonight's blog is that I should mention something about "needing your help for reviews," and, "Getting the word out about Tim Greaton books." If there ever was an author who loves what he does, it is definitely me. I write because I love to. I also write because I had what a lot of people would call a "crappy childhood." My dad is gone but my mom is still thankfully with us, and I love and will always love both of them dearly. Unfortunately, they didn't get along very well together and my childhood could best be described as a domestic war zone. NEVER did either of my parents physically or intentionally abuse any of their children (six of us) but the unintentional mental abuse and our living conditions were beyond description. If it weren't for the time I spent at my local library and the time I spent reading about normal people with normal lives, I'm not sure I would have come through even remotely functional. Today, with each book I write, I hope to provide a safe haven like the ones I enjoyed during my childhood. And with each Tim Greaton book you purchase, and refer, and talk about, you're allowing this writer to live a life that unhappy boy could only have dreamed of way back then. In short, THANK YOU for all the support.

Fat Duck also thanks you for the support :-)

Please don't forget. I need your online reviews, and I need your online chats, and in return I promise to keep writing the best books I possibly can.

I'm even thinking of getting a low-to-the-ground keyboard for Fat Duck :-)

See you all Wednesday!

Tim