Slow and Steady Gets Books Written

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It seems to take me forever, but generally speaking, I do eventually work to finish up my plans. Some of them I even manage to accomplish in reality, not merely simmer internally until they’re fully formed imaginings. Another book, for example, that has finally hatched.

Photo: Hot Flash Fiction (photo credit: Blurb.com)

The newest baby from a past-childbearing-aged person….

Hot Flash Fiction is coming your way.

Yep. I have completed another book, and there are several more in the proverbial pipeline. This one, of course, joins its predecessor Miss Kitty’s Fabulous Emporium (Vol. 1), which is still conveniently available at Amazon, and the new book, Hot Flash Fiction, will be for sale both at Blurb.com and Amazon as soon as it ‘goes live’—I’ve submitted the posting materials and only await the gnomic decree from Amazon to finalize the book’s availability. While MKFE-1 is only available in soft cover/paperback, it has hundreds of poems and graphite drawings. Now that I’m going full-color and making the new book available in both paperback and hard cover versions, it is necessary to keep the book shorter in order to make it affordable enough to be worth my while (and yours!), but then I think a shorter book, since this one is dedicated to ultra-short fiction, is entirely apropos. And I’m pleased with the rich color and crisp details of the print. I think you will be, too.

MKFE-1 (photo credit: Amazon.com)

The one that started it all.

Hot Flash Fiction is a collection of tales with tiny twists, terrible turns, and ticklish tidbits everywhere you look, both in their texts and illustrations. A jot of the ridiculous here, a dot of the delirious there—from science fiction to steampunk, from romantic follies to childish fancies, from cradle to grave and back again, it’s all squeezed into the compact form of exceedingly brief flash fiction. The illustrations, collages of my photographs interwoven with vintage finds and digitally drawn and painted elements into complex treasure-maps to enhance the stories, are a complete turn-about from the entirely hand-drawn black and white images of MKFE, but merely reflect another aspect of my many visual loves.

I look forward to returning with somewhat greater frequency to this blog in the year ahead, but am working in the meanwhile to put together yet more and further different books, so I shall leave you for now with this invitation to dive into these two while the others are still in their formative stages. Happy reading, image-gazing, and most of all, a happy autumn to you all!

Oh—and lest you think I’ve been lounging around listlessly while not posting and only writing books of my poetry and short fiction and art, I have also produced, with the help of a nice company in France called BlookUp, the first of a series of books documenting this blog. Which, I suppose, is yet another book of my poetry and short fiction and art. Never mind! But in case you’re interested, Art-Colored Glasses is now available, too. I recommend the e-book version of that one, because it’s printed on lovely glossy paper in full color and loaded with content, so it’s expensive. But pretty darn entertaining, too, for all that.

Photo: Art-Colored Glasses 1

Book 1 of my blog-documenting series, Art-Colored Glasses. With a Certain Someone silhouetted on the cover, no less.

24 thoughts on “Slow and Steady Gets Books Written”

    • Dearest Rosemary, I am already blessed in having sweet family and friends (and I count you in both categories, so I’m doubly blessed in your case!). Thank you for your steadfastness and kind heart!
      ❤
      Kath

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  2. Congratulations my dear Kathryn….I have been thinking about you and wondering how you are ….and here you are filled with wonder and amazing books for me and many others to enjoy. I will be looking at them all, and at the same time sending loads and loads of magical hummers in your direction, although by the sounds of things they have already been with you….weaving their magic:) Sending buckets of love and wishes for a beautiful family Thanksgiving. Janet. xxx

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    • Thanks so much, my sweet! We did have a lovely Thanksgiving getaway for just the two of us (courtesy of Mom & Dad Sparks, who gave us 4 nights in a condo in Texas Hill Country). Wish we’d not both been full of respiratory junk, what I’m guessing is a combination of the usual late-semester stuff that gets passed around among singers in a uni setting every term + the dreaded TX allergen of “cedar fever” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juniperus_ashei—the latter being a *less* lovely gift of prolifically pollinating junipers (not actual cedars at all) that are one of the most numerous plants in the very area we visited.

      Still, the distractions of a pretty region (connect with me on Facebook, if you use it, and you’ll soon see a boatload of photos from the visit) made the health frustrations less onerous than they would’ve been if we’d stayed home, as witness my present state of grunge-collapse since our return. I’m looking forward to feeling muuuuuuuuuch better soon; R seems to be recovering finally, and he came down with the stuff a few days ahead of me, so I’m lying low and drinking tons of tea and water and taking all of the other usual cautions. If all goes well, perhaps….

      Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to getting some new art/writing work done on the home front, so am trying to get my bits of exercise by doing preparatory chores like post-holiday laundry and housecleaning between naps!

      And I thank you for the hummingbird messengers you sent. I’ve no doubt that their magic was present in keeping the worst of the head/chest miseries at bay during our trip, and that was a marvelous treat. Perhaps despite the lack of visible hummingbirds in late November here, they handed off their task to our most prevalent and delightful local avian companions, the vultures. I do delight in those, too, and we got to see masses of them, as dozens of them were roosting in the electrical towers near where we stayed and in several places along our driving route! Not as pretty as their delicate humming cousins, perhaps, but quite the majestic flyers. 😀

      Sending wonderfully germ-free cyber hugs your way!!!
      Love,
      Kath

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      • Oh my dear Kathryn…do hope you are starting to feel fully recovered….and I must send you a friends request on FB. I have driven through Texas and spent time in different places….mostly Huston where I have a good artist friend….One year she and I drove from Huston to Santa Fe New Mexico. We stayed for two nights on a ranch belonging to friends….can you believe I can’t remember the name of the place. I remember that next to the ranch where we stayed there was a very famous horse ranch where some extraordinarily expensive race horses were boarded. The stables (for want of better words) were the equivalent of multi million pound/dollar homes:) I remember that some of the horse we saw were truly magnificent. There was also a golf course in the town where some very famous people stayed and played…I can’t remember much else except that we have a wonderful time. Texas is such a vast State…there is so much to learn about it. Certainly I have not heard of Cedar Fever….! We are experiencing some very cold but clear and crisp weather for us…I am rather enjoying it…and other than a trip to Chester/Liverpool next week, am laying pretty low for the holiday season… May hummingbird and vultures fly in your direction and bring good health and wellbeing during the holidays. Here’s to much creativity, especially as we move into the new year. Sending love Janet. xxx

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        • Thanks, love! Still coughing up a storm, but at least I’m ‘upright and taking nourishment,’ as the old saying goes, and it truly does beat the alternative. 😉

          We loved Santa Fe this summer, too—when we connect on FB you can see those photos as well—and now I see I’ll have to do a little research to learn about the equestrian “spa” you described! Sounds worth visiting if/when we get back that way.

          xoxoxo!
          K

    • My sweet, I thank you! I’m just looking forward to enjoying pretty much *anything* again, at the moment (see my long, rambling note to Janet, above), but glad to have pushed through another little milestone on my journey nonetheless. Love to you!
      Kath

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  9. Congratulations, Kathryn! Such wonderful news and not just that you’ve another in print. It’s that there’s a “pipeline” of goodies to come. YAY!!!!!

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    • Thanks, dear John. I know you understand just what a labor of love books are!!! Still enjoy diving into yours whenever I get the chance, of course, so rest assured it *is* worth your trouble to the rest of us. 🙂 The one plus of my being a virtual invalid with respiratory crud these days is that I’ve no excuse *not* to sit at the computer and dig further into the next-next-next batch, so I’m doing just that. 😀 Ciao!
      K

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