I’ve just uploaded the prologue to my forthcoming novel, Sins of Omission, a story based on real events in North Florida in the 1950s and 60s, but as current as today’s headlines. Get your free copy of the brief prologue that sets the story in motion, or read more about the novel.

I’ll be releasing updates to my mailing list as we near publication and will publish at least one free chapter before the release date, so download your free prologue and join the mailing list today. (No salesman will call.)

At lunch today, I sliced a tomato after removing a sticker reading “Home Grown.” To me, this means grown in someone’s garden, although I wouldn’t mind if it were grown in a farm with its own market. This tomato came from a commercial farm somewhere near here and had traveled through a distribution center before reaching the grocery store of a large retail chain where I purchased it. So much for homegrown.

The bakery within this supermarket has racks filled with “home baked” loaves of bread, cakes, pies, and cookies, none of which will have seen a home until I take it there. Why do we debase our language in this way?

Is it because we are “unique” or “exclusive,” two terms that are often misused. Being “unique” beats being “rather unique,” I suppose. WNEW Radio in New York used to advertise itself as being “unique in all the world,” by which I suppose it meant “totally unique” or even “uniquely unique.”

There’s so much of this, it makes me “nauseous.”  I have nothing “farther” to say on this, but I’m “definitely certain” you may. If so, “write me.”

My first novel, Sins of Omission, is in the hands of an editor. I’ve done three revisions on my own, helped by two software programs and a word-by-word edit using Mac’s text-to-speech tools. All that plus reading the thing for what seems like the umpteenth time to see if it hangs together.

Along the way, I’ve uncovered inconsistencies, leaps of logic, and sections in which I’ve left too much to the reader’s imagination. I’ve also found ponderous passages in which I’ve described how a character gets from Point A to Point B (or even Point C) rather than merely placing him (or her) there.

Version 4 beats Version 3, which is better than Version 2, etc. But I know that fresh eyes are going to discover more and find many things that just don’t work.

Here’s hoping that the result will find its way into print (or what passes for it in our digital world) and that you will soon be in a position to read it.