Summer. Ah, yes, I remember it well. Seems like only yesterday. But hmm, well, summer’s gone, and school starts, well I guess it’s officially started. Classes start Monday and we welcomed freshmen to the campus last night. So just like all those good intentions I will have on my deathbed, whatever I planned for the summer either happened or it didn’t.
In the meantime, some crazy and curious things are happening around here. My writing project–Tesla’s Ghost–was put on hold while I got ready for classes, but in the process of sharing it with one of my colleagues, award-winning film director and professor Kyle Portbury, he suggested that we work on submitting it for a possible $25,000 screenplay grant. So when someone says money, I usually listen. It will require me to make some adjustments in the plot to meet the requirements for the grant, but that would be for the screenplay, and not for the book. I’m still on board with my plans for the book, and as soon as things settle down here, I will be cranking out more chapters. Stay tuned and I will be sharing more.
I’m continuing to work with a woman in the community who is trying to get her late son’s book published, and we hope to get that done in the next month or so. And now I am answering the call of a 95-year-old friend from church who wanted to publish a children’s book and has apparently gotten in over her head with a vanity publishing company. In an hour, I’m dropping by to take a look at her 10-page contract to try and explain what it is saying AFTER she has invested $4,000 in the publishing endeavor. Hmm.
The communication department continues to grow; we met our five-year goal for students two years early. And we are talking about doing some things organizationally that will give us more creative latitude with the students and as faculty. Can’t say more than that because it’s in the works and the walls have ears, if you know what I mean….
Anyway, I got a cruise to Alaska, a painted hallway and foyer, my dog’s surgery, two edited books and three chapters of my new book out of the way this summer, so it wasn’t totally a lost cause. Let’s see what happens with the 2016-2017 school year. Maybe we will get lucky and get published.
Stranger things have happened.
The Great Adventure 