My book is on sale!

MomToo is in charge of everything, including me. She wrote another book, but I'm not in it. To celebrate, she's offering my book for sale. Only 99 cents, she says. Regularly $3.99.

I don't know what these numbers mean. Or "sale". I just know she's pretty excited about the new book and wants to let everyone know that she writes good books about horses.

Of course, we know I really wrote my book, right?


Here's where you go to get my book. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D0HDYRQ
It's only 99 cents until May 21.

Try it. You'll like it.

Did you guess yet?

MomToo is busy, so she wanted me to tell you that my foot is feeling much better. Auntie Niki let me trot on it today, but I tried to jump and buck and she said no, stop it. Sometimes Auntie Niki is strict.

Yesterday she asked a question. Anyone who answers it can get a copy of my book. I told MomToo that no one would want my book if they hadn't read a little bit of it, so here is a part of it:

MomToo says that people love baby pictures.

* * * * *

There were two goats in the pen next to us. They were girl goats, about half my size and brown, and had funny little tails that stuck straight up. I usually ignored them, since they were not very interesting. It’s not like they ran around and played. They spent most days standing in the corner and eating, or looking for food to eat.

One night, I lay down to sleep and somehow woke up in their pen. There was a space underneath the metal bars just big enough for my body and I guess I scooted around to the other side while I dreamed. I don’t really know how it happened, but I went to sleep in the pen with Uncle Snowy and woke up in the pen with the goats.

At first, they liked playing with me. They ran around the pen and I ran after them. Then they came over and sniffed my legs. That’s when I saw their little tails wiggling.

I couldn’t resist. I reached over and grabbed one goat’s tail in my teeth and lifted. Her back end came off the ground, so I shook her up and down. She started yelling. I let her go and grabbed the other goat’s tail. I shook her, too, then I dragged her up to the gate. She yelled even louder.

I dropped her and ran after the first one again. It was a fun game, chasing the goats and grabbing their tails. I couldn’t quite throw them, but I could shake them up and down and drag them around the pen.

One of the ranch men came running. He caught me and took me back to Uncle Snowy’s side of the pen. He wasn’t happy with me. Neither were the goats. Uncle Snowy wasn’t thrilled, either.

“You are a doofus,” he said. “Leave the goats alone.”

“But it was fun.”

“It wasn’t fun for the goats.” He shook his head, making his white mane wave in the hot sun. “Look, I’m a pony. I’ve lived my entire life being a pain in the butt. But I’m small, so they don’t get that mad at me. I get cute points. You’re six months old and already as big as me. No one will think you’re cute when you’re as big as a tractor, especially if you’re pulling pranks.”

I trotted a big circle around him. “But Uncle Snowy, fun is fun. Who cares about cute points?”

“You will when they whip you for being bad. Listen to me, Snoopy. The humans here are very nice. Some of the nicest humans I’ve lived with. They do everything they can to make us understand what they want. But if we misbehave, they spank us, sometimes with the whip. Just learn your lesson now. Leave the goats alone.”

Even now, I don’t know what everyone was so mad about. I thought it was fun.

 

* * * * *

Would you like to read more? You can win a book - just go to yesterday's post and answer the question!

Would you like to make a reservation?

One of the unfortunate things about producing books with CreateSpace is that I cannot specify an exact release date in the future and allow Amazon (and other outlets) to accept pre-orders. What I CAN do is accept pre-orders my own darned self.

The bad news? Well, I'm not as rich as Amazon, so I do charge for shipping costs, plus it might take a little time to get your copy, since the books have to be delivered to me, then I ship them to you. As a (co)author, it feels weird to be the middle man, but them's the breaks.

The good news? You can get your copy autographed. TO YOU. This is something you can't get on Amazon.

The button to your right will allow you to pre-order your autographed copy. After June, when the book is available, the button will still exist, so you can order your autographed copy.

I'm trying to line up some signings, too. If you can make it to one of those, you can save shipping costs.

Maybe I'll see you there, instead!

To reality and beyond

How do you categorize a story that's true but not true? Snoopy's story is true, in the timeline, historical sense. He was born on the ranch, raised in pens with different horses, started with the groom, shown by Tina, broke his leg, etc.

But when I wrote his book, I took many liberties with the characters, especially those in the hospital. He was there for a long time. I don't know how he passed the time. So the horses he encounters there are completely fictional.

When it came time to write that first page of the book that says, these characters are fictional, I was in a pickle. How to I write that it was true and not true?

Here's what I went with:

This is a work of fiction, based upon a true story. Some of the characters are fictional. Even the characters that truly exist have been modified to suit the author’s needs. Unless you believe that horses really talk. Then it’s all completely true.

Think that works?

Cover reveal (insert trumpets here)

I had such a clear vision of what the cover would look like. Snoopy would be running, kicking up his heels, full of life's joy. Lynne took the photos. I handed several to Joe, along with the title, etc.

What Joe gave me wasn't at all in my vision... it was better.

Look at that face. It's so full of personality. The red is a perfect shade of brick, the font whimsical, and I like that dark line close to the spine.

It's not what I asked for but it's everything I wanted. At first, I was disappointed that we didn't use the full photo, but Niki pointed something out that I needed to hear. She said, "We needed to take those action shots just to get his expression."

Soon, Joe will have the back cover and spine for me as well, and I can start assembling the book. Those ARCs are practically in the mail!

The cover is coming! The cover is coming!

"Publishing a book takes too long for an author and not long enough for a publisher."

Jennifer Silva Redmond told me that, and after self-publishing five books, I agree. My little author's foot is tapping while I check my watch and wonder why my book isn't out there yet. In the meantime, my inner publisher is looking at the calendar and asking herself why she promised ARCs at the end of February when the end of March would have given her so much more wiggle room.

The pieces are finally beginning to knit into their final tapestry. Lynne Glazer, the photographer I can never praise enough, got me all the pictures last night that I might use for the book. "Might?" I hear you say. Yes, you heard correctly.

I work with a wonderful cover designer, Joe Felipe of Market Me. All of my covers have so far been a collaboration - I give him some key images that define the book and he gives me three sample covers. I take the one I like best and we hone that one until it best represents the story I'm trying to tell (at least, in my opinion).

But this cover will be different, in that it will have a photo on it. No playing with images. Just Snoopy. So I thought giving him more than one pic would keep him from being locked in with a photo that he may or may not be able to work with.

These are the two photos I chose for the cover.

They show Snoopy looking at the camera, plus a nice shot of his broken leg, and I think that they will translate in thumbnail as being a horse instead of a weird blob.

For the back cover, I also gave two options. If I don't use the one of me and Snoopy on the back, I'll certainly use it on the "About the Author" page.

I love that he has the lead rope in his mouth. It's so Snoopy.

Hopefully, I'll have a cover to show you soon. And ARCs to hand out. I just have to keep Author Me in check while Publisher Me does her job.

P.S. This is my favorite photo of the whole shoot. I've got to find a way to use it. I just don't know where yet.

That was FUN!

On Wednesday, MomToo came to see me. She got me all cleaned up and shiny looking. While I was drying in the crossties, she decided to get my Mom out and let her stretch her legs. Since she was busy, I thought I'd inspect my grooming bag... and dig in the geraniums... and chew on my new halter and lead rope.

I did have to unhook one side of my crosstie chains. Is that a problem?

MomToo didn't think this was a good idea at all.

Soon, her friend, Miss Lynne came. Auntie Niki took me to the big arena on the hill and took off my halter. Miss Lynne sat in the middle of the arena and Auntie Niki chased me back and forth on the rail, while MomToo tried to keep me from crashing into the fence.

I got to run and jump and buck and play. I never usually get to play so much. It was so much fun! I saw that Miss Lynne had a black box that was making clicking noises, so I ran and jumped even more.

After I was tired, MomToo took me down to the other arena and walked and stood and sat with me while Miss Lynne pointed the black box at me and made more clicking noises. Then I went back to my stall and MomToo fed me candy canes. There was more clicking noises.

It might have been my best day ever.

From listening to them talk, I figured out they were taking pictures for my book. Miss Lynne took a lot. Here they are.

http://www.photo.lynnesite.com/event/Snoopy-2013/MWMncPVKV7TxE
I think I look pretty good. What do you think?

What have I done?

After I finished writing Snoopy's book, I did my best to edit it, meaning I looked for all my normal over-used words (apparently I use apparently a lot), I read it aloud, and I read it into my digital voice recorder and played it back.

And I still didn't know what I had written. On the plus side, I had somehow organically managed to make his injury the exact middle of the book, so the arc was right where I wanted it. On the minus side, there was so much I wasn't sure of. Was it too detailed? Not detailed enough? Would non-horsey people understand it? Would horsey people be bored? Did the pacing work? Was Snoopy someone you learned to care about?

With my fiction, this is where I turn it over to beta readers, but this is kind of non-fiction fiction, and it's close to my heart, closer than I suspected when I started writing it.

Enter a friend of mine who is also an editor, Jennifer Silva Redmond. Last February, I was in her workshop (co-taught by the fabulous Marla Miller) when I pitched my idea for Snoopy's memoir -- "A young horse tells his story of becoming a champion, breaking his leg, then fighting to return to the show arena to prove he's the same horse, only different." Jennifer sounded intrigued by the premise, so much so that it encouraged me to actually write it.

Jenny and I are friends on Facebook and talk about various things. One of these various things led to another and before I knew it, I hired her to look at what I had and tell me whether it worked.

According to her very professional opinion, it does. She had suggestions, of course, which were all marvelous and I was happy to implement (who hires an editor and doesn't take their advice?) and today I feel like I've got something people will want to read.

There's still much to do, like arrange for the cover photo and figure out where to place the interior photos, marketing plan, etc, but I'm loving this particular journey.

Here's another excerpt:

* * * * *

When I was young, I spent every day in a big pen with Mom. It was on a hill and made of thick metal poles that kept us from going anywhere else. The ground was hard. Across the path from our pen was a pasture. It wasn’t very big, but there were trees and some green stuff on the ground that looked like it might be good to eat.

There were horses over there. Mostly, they wandered around the pasture. When it was hot out, I could see them on the hill, under the trees. Sometimes I watched them paw at the ground, then bite something.

At the bottom of the hill I could see four white barns and three arenas, a round wood pen, and two human barns. When I pointed them out, Mom corrected me.

“Those are houses. Humans live in houses. Horses live in barns, in stalls.”

Mom taught me a lot. For example, she taught me it wasn’t nice to chew half her tail hair off. I didn’t mean to do it, but once I started nibbling, I couldn’t stop. Afterward, she chewed some of my tail hair and half of my mane, then told me, “See? Not very nice, is it?”

I already looked kind of weird, according to Mom. From what she described, my hair had started out black, then changed to brownish-gray, then it started rubbing off in patches. And my bottom was growing bigger than my front end.

Of course, I didn’t care. I couldn’t see me.

When I was a few months old, Hilde the groom came to our pen. He put a halter on Mom and led her out. I waited for her forever, but she didn’t come back. I decided to call for her.

“Mom—where are you?”

I heard her call back to me right away. It sounded like she was down in one of the white barns. “I’m over in one of the stalls. Don’t worry, we’ll still see each other. And Hilde is going to bring a friend to keep you company.”

She was right. Soon Hilde came back with one of the horses from the pasture. He was a grey horse, and not very tall, not even as tall as me. Hilde walked this horse into my pen, took off his halter, and left him there.

I greeted him right away. “I’m Snoopy.”

“I have no doubt,” he said. “You will call me Uncle Snowy.”

The way he said it sounded like there was no choice. “Okay, Uncle Snowy. You are a very short horse. Why are you so short?”

“Because I’m not a horse, I’m a pony.”

I thought about this. I knew I was a horse, because Mom told me. She said I looked like her. I had four legs with hooves, a mane and tail, a long neck, and two pointed ears on top of a long face. I trotted around Uncle Snowy, checking him out. He had the same thing.

“So you’ll never grow bigger?” I asked.

“Pfft, you know nothing, do you? I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

“What work? And how do you cut it?” I reached forward to run my teeth across his hip—just for fun—but he kicked at me and trotted off.

“I am the teacher. I am put into pens with young horses to teach them how to behave.”

“Oh. Mom said I was getting a friend to keep me company.”

“Not exactly.” He looked at me and laughed. “You look moth-eaten.”

I didn’t know what that meant. “What?”

“Like you’ve been chewed on by a flock of moths.”

“No, just Mom.”

Uncle Snowy rolled his eyes. “Well, at least you aren’t raising a fuss. Some of the young ones I teach are such babies when they’re taken from their moms. You only called after her once.”

“Well, sure. I asked her where she was and she said she was in a stall and would see me soon.”

“And you’re built downhill,” he added. “Your butt is enormous.”

I looked at my behind. It was true, my butt was pretty big. “So what?”

“Well, I suppose it’s a big enough engine that you could jump, but I don’t know how anyone’s going to ride you, and I hope your hind legs can carry all that extra weight.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Ride me? What’s that?”

“It’s when humans get on our backs and tell us to go here and do that. When I was a young pony, they told me to gallop to a fence and jump over it. It was fun and I won a lot of ribbons. Now that I am older, I teach children how to ride.” He turned and trotted away from me. “But it’s something you don’t need to worry about now. Built like that, you might never need to worry about it.” I followed him and pushed at him with my nose, but he kicked me again.

Uncle Snowy taught me a lot of manners. I couldn’t bump into him or nip at his butt like I did Mom.

“Get away from me,” he’d say. “You can’t just run over everyone all the time. I’ll tell you when you can come scratch my back.”

I’d have to back away or he’d kick or bite me. His feet and teeth weren’t big but they hurt. Sometimes he’d nod and I could scratch him, but I had to stand very still and scratch gently. If I bit or started chewing hair, I got a bite on my own bottom and a kick in my chest. Uncle Snowy was strict, but that was okay. I liked living with him.

* * * * *
And here's one of the pictures that will be included.

 

 

Oh, and the book's title is From the Horse's Mouth: The Memoir of One Lucky Horse.