then will upload it to Amazon.Once it is uploaded, I will be looking for a few readers. Not as reviewers - although these are always welcome - but for a few willing to read it through looking for glaring errors in grammer (there will be those - some of them intentional, some not), spelling (spell check is never 100%, and I know myself a poor speller) and in syntax (LOL - again, there will be those as well, some intentional, some not).
I will be willing to pay a small fee for readers (LOL - very small, and Amazon rules do not allow payment to reviewers, which is fine by me). Paperback Amazon books are generally printed-as-ordered, and Kindle books are electronic anyway, so it will be easy enough to make (small) corrections once it is uploaded.
I am feeling like a bit of a weight has lifted - I originally wrote the outline for this novel more than 30 (!) years ago, before children, divorce and general life got in the way. I have read this thing so many times that my eyes are about ready to fall out. True!
I had gotten so bored with it a year ago this March that I put it aside, and published my "Christmas Jones" book instead. Until about a month ago, I had not looked at it since, so had pretty much decided to delete it from my computer and just forget about it. Instead, before doing the delete thing, I read a few pages, decided I liked it, and have now finished it.
Now. . . what is it about? That's kind of tough, without revealing too much. It is very different from "Jones", which was a Western, aimed at children, and was only about 10,000 words, give or take (LOL. A hundred pages if the font was really big
). This new book does not have the "aw shucks" language that a few readers suggested be changed.This new one is about 90,000 +/- words, and around 350 - 400 printed pages (still playing with fonts and margins). A female protagonist this time, firmly planted in the science-fiction/fantasy genre, aimed primarily at young adults. I say "young adult" because it doesn't have the explicit sex and violence that most "adult" books have these days. Quite a few "adults" read my children's book and liked it, so hopefully adults will like this one as well.
I guess I still am not answering the question of what it is about.
How about this: it is about a young girl, on point of becoming a woman, that shares a close and loving telepathic union with her constant, four-legged companion. Their planet is under siege by a threatened disaster, and they must go alone on a trek to a distant place in order to save themselves.
I layer a lot of mental-telepathy, planet ecology and natural disaster stuff over all of this. There is shattering loss, and the wonder of redemption. The end is a happy one. Sort of.
I guess I would say that it is, at bottom, the story is about a girl and her "dog" (although I don't call her companion that) and the bond that they forge together.
It is also "about" how dogs teach us to be human, if we let them, and are open to it. At the very bottom, since most fiction is probably some sort of distillation of the author's experiences, the book is probably 'about' me, and 'about' all the dogs that I have ever known and loved.
I never had my own dog until I was grown, out-of-the-house, married, and in my middle 20's. My parents didn't care too much for dogs, so I never had a dog as a child - I had to wait. Not knowing - at all - that I was waiting. But one day I found "my dog", and by her love my heart was opened, when I had not known it was closed. New room was made inside, for all things that came after. Room I never knew was needed, room I had never missed. Room for children, for other, dogs. . . later on, after she had gone. Room for life.
She was my heart.
Probably this book is, in a way, written for her, so that her memory, and of what she meant to me, wouldn't be lost. I hope I have succeeded.
Anyway, if you are interested in being a reader, I'm looking at about October 1st to "get 'er done", and uploaded. Again, no charge to readers, and the possibility of being paid a small fee.
Please PM me if you might like to participate.
Click here for a brief excerpt: http://www.heartdogs.net/CalFires/Rhond ... -15-20.pdf
Anne
