Read the first book for FREE on Kindle, Nook, or other formats.
Listen to the Audio Book for free.
Read the first Book for FREE from Amazon, BN, or Smashwords.
Listen to the Audio Book for free.
Sunday, October 30, 2011 at 11:43PM 
Here you go, folks - the complete 5-book series, clocking in at something over 300,000 words. This version is *not* illustrated. This is just the text. If you wait for the illustrated versions or the audio, it will probably take about a year longer to get the story. I'm giving you choices.
Friday, October 7, 2011 at 08:31PM A few weeks ago, Heather Ross started asking me questions about illustrated eBooks. She ended up doing an interview for her blog. If you're interested in the topic, also check out the other interviews she's doing with authors of illustrated books.
Friday, August 26, 2011 at 07:25PM It's here! Thank you to Jeff McDowall for an awesome cover design. :)
Eve is an inquisitive baby rat who regularly escapes from her cage. One night she meets a strange creature in a glass tank across the room - a boa constrictor named Malachi. The snake is amused by Eve's questions, and he awes her with stories of the wilds where he was caught. What will happen to their fragile friendship when Eve discovers what Malachi eats? Can they devise a solution that will save both Malachi and Eve's family of rats?
Feeding Malachi is a 6,000-word story, divided into 10 short chapters. The story is illustrated with beautiful ink drawings by the Sarah Cloutier, who is also the cover artist. The story has a few scary moments, but also a happy ending. If you and your child enjoyed the whimsical dialogue of The Little Prince or the loveable characters in Janell Cannon's Stellaluna and Verdi, you will enjoy the adventures of Eve and Malachi.
Here are the first 3 chapters, minus illustrations.
Chapter 1. In Which Eve Makes a Strange Discovery
“Eve, if you go out again, I’ll shut the cage!” said Phineas to his little cousin. Phineas was a black hooded rat, and he stood bristling beneath the water bottle.
Eve looked down at him from the top of the bottle. “You’re just jealous because you’re too big to go out, and you never thought of it when you were smaller.”
This was true. No rat had considered going out of the glass tank until Eve decided to try. They all thought her rather strange.
“Be sure to bring back a good story!” called Athena, her sister.
“Yes, but mind the cat,” said Moses, her father.
“Do be careful,” said Maribel, her mother, and her aunt and cousins and brothers and sisters said the same.
Eve turned to look at them and nearly lost her balance on top of the water bottle. She was a cream hooded rat with pink eyes, still very small. “I’m always careful. I’ll bring back a lovely story, Athena.” Then she pushed the screen lid with her nose, wriggled her head through the crack, and squirmed out of the glass tank. Eve made sure the lid remained a little ajar. She didn’t worry about Phineas closing it because she knew he wanted to hear her stories as much as the others.
Eve dropped to the shelf beside her home. She waved to her brothers and sisters and cousins and aunt and mother and father, and then started into the dark, quiet house for another adventure.
The cat, she thought, is she out tonight? Eve tested the air with her nose and scanned the dark room. Not a whiff of cat!
Eve took a running start and jumped onto the big, soft chair just across from the shelf where she lived. She bounced once and then scampered up the other side. From the top of the chair, she jumped onto a bookshelf that ran along the far wall. Eve liked the bookshelf—so many hiding places that smelled of leather and paper and ink. From the top of the bookshelf, she could see almost to the end of the room. Eve had never gotten quite to the end before. Usually the cat came, and she had to run. She’d nearly been eaten twice, which was terrifying, but made wonderful stories.
Tonight, thought Eve, I will reach the far end of the room. If the cat comes, I will bite her! Of course, she would do nothing of the kind, but saying so made her feel brave. She started off: from the bookshelf to the desk, from the desk to the rolling chair, from the rolling chair to the plant stand, and from the plant stand across the floor to the sofa. All this took a great deal of time, as Eve was obliged to stop and sniff and clean the dust from her whiskers and bathe herself (for no self-respecting rat would go without a bath after getting dusty) and chew a pencil on the desk and nibble the cookie crumbs left by the boy.
By the time Eve reached the sofa, she was tired and had nearly forgotten why she’d come. But then she looked up and saw the table against the very back wall. Eve gave a little squeak of excitement and cried, “I did it! I reached the end,” and then she ran under the sofa for fear the cat had heard her.
Cautiously she put a whisker out and then her nose. Finding herself still in one piece, she emerged and looked up at the table. “I wonder what’s on top.”
Eve was not the sort of rat to stand idle when there are strange tables to explore, so she shimmied up the sofa and climbed onto the arm to have a look. Or two looks. Or three.
In fact, Eve couldn’t take her eyes off the table. “It looks just like our home,” she whispered. “I didn’t know there were two, not in all the world.”
The glass tank on the table did look like Eve’s home, and as Eve crept closer she saw something moving inside.
Chapter 2. Meet Malachi
Something was alive inside the new glass tank. Eve did not think it was a cat. She hopped onto the table and inched closer, sniffing, but the glass kept her from catching the stranger’s scent. Finally she grew so impatient that she went right up to the tank.
Immediately there was a loud bump and Eve started back. A face with a long neck moved up and down in front of her.
“Oh,” it said and stood still, “you’re on the outside.” A pair of bright black eyes examined her curiously. Eve thought she’d never seen so odd a creature.
“Please, sir,” she began, “are you a rat or a human or (she gulped) are you a cat?”
The stranger smiled. “I’m not any of those things.”
Eve looked confused. “What other things are there?”
“Well…there are snakes. I am a snake—a boa constrictor, actually. My name is Malachi.”
Eve had never heard of any creatures besides rats and humans and cats. He certainly has a very long neck, she thought. Eve kept seeing more and more of his neck, but she couldn’t find where his body began.
“Where are your shoulders?” she asked.
“I haven’t any.”
“And your whiskers? Your belly, your tail?”
Malachi smiled. “I’m all tail.”
Eve thought this extremely odd, and she was trying to imagine what it would be like to have her head attached to her tail, when the snake spoke again. “What is your name?”
“Eve.”
“You’re a brave baby rat, Eve.”
Eve bristled. “I’m not a baby! I’m almost a month old.” (She was only two and a half weeks, actually, but she thought that was close enough.)
Malachi put his head down next to her. The distance from the tip of his nose to the back of his jaw was bigger than her entire body. “You’re not that old,” he said.
Eve was feeling sulky and tried to change the subject. “The cat isn’t out tonight. I didn’t need to be brave to come across the room. I just needed a lot of energy.” (And with that she yawned.)
“Not brave?” laughed the snake. “Don’t you know who I am?”
“Yes, you’ve just told me. You’re a tail with a head, called Malachi.”
He laughed. “That’s not what I mean. I mean, don’t you know the relationship between you and me?”
Eve looked very much surprised. “I don’t think we’re related…and if we were, I don’t think I’d admit it.”
Malachi cocked his head on one side. “You really don’t know, do you?”
“Don’t know what?” Eve came to the glass again and put her nose against it. She could see a stick inside and some water in a big dish.
The snake hesitated. “Nothing.”
“I do most certainly know many things!” retorted Eve. “I’ve been out of my glass tank, and not even my father will do that.”
“I’m sure he won’t.” Malachi seemed to be thinking of something else and not really listening to her.
This annoyed Eve. “The boy must not love you very much,” she said slyly. “I can’t see that he feeds you.”
“Oh, he feeds me,” said the snake quickly.
“Where’s your food, then? I don’t see any grain or apples or grapes in your tank.”
“I don’t eat very often—only once a month.”
“Oh?” Eve was much astonished. “You must eat a great deal at one time!”
“Yes…” said Malachi slowly. “I eat a great deal.”
“I’m tired,” said Eve, “and I shouldn’t be standing around in the open like this. The cat might come.”
“Oh, the cat won’t come here,” said Malachi. “She never comes on my table.”
“What makes you so sure? Aren’t you afraid of the cat?”
Malachi flicked his tongue and grinned. “Nope.”
“Why?”
He thought for a moment. “Because I’m bigger.”
This seemed to Eve like a good reason. She sighed. “Well, I’m not. I have to go home now. Good-bye, Malachi.”
He raised his head and watched until she was out of sight. “Good-bye, Eve.”
Chapter 3. “A tail with a head that sees with his nose and smells with his tongue”
When Eve got back to her tank, she told her whole family about the strange creature called a snake with no body and no whiskers, and whose head was attached to his tail. Most of the family was skeptical, and Phineas announced that he didn’t believe a word of it. “You’re just making up stories because you really didn’t do anything interesting tonight.”
Eve squeaked at him and tried to nip his ear, but her mother intervened. “Now, Eve, try to get along with your cousins. Remember they won’t be here forever.”
“I’m not a liar,” she pouted. “I really did meet him.”
“I believe you, Eve,” said Athena, but Eve could tell that even Athena wasn’t sure.
Only her father, Moses, seemed to have no doubts about her story, but his reaction was not what she had expected. “Eve, you must never go near that creature again.”
“But, father, he’s not a cat!”
“No, but I think he is dangerous.”
“He’s in a tank,” laughed Eve. “What can he do to me?”
Her father didn’t answer for a moment. “Long ago,” he said at last, “when I lived in the pet store, I heard rumors about snakes. I think you should stay away from it.”
As soon as he mentioned the pet store all of the youngsters began to beg for a story. So Moses told them about living with many other rats and seeing many kinds of people and sometimes other kinds of animals. “If you are a good rat, someday the boy will take you away to start a family of your own,” said Moses, “just as he took me from the pet store and brought me here to be with your mother.”
“I don’t see what being good has to do with it,” grumbled Eve, still in a bad mood. “Everyone gets taken away when they get old enough whether they’re good or not.”
But the young rats were busy asking questions about the strange people and animals, and they told her to be quiet.
The next night Eve went to see Malachi again. The snake was curled up under his log, and Eve had to tap and squeak to get him to come out. She was afraid of the cat, but she reminded herself of what Malachi had said: “The cat never comes on my table.”
When Malachi finally woke up, he came to the glass and looked at Eve. “You’ve come again.”
“Yes,” said Eve. “I wanted to ask you a question.”
Malachi dangled his head over the edge of his log. “And what is your question?”
“Did you ever live in a pet store?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“My father tells all kinds of stories about the pet store. It sounds like an exciting place.”
Malachi flicked his tongue. “If you have never been anywhere else, I suppose it is an exciting place.”
Eve looked surprised. “There are other places besides here and the pet store?”
Malachi’s bright little eyes looked amused. “Eve, there are more places in the world than there are hairs on your body.”
Eve’s eyes grew round. She sat on the table while Malachi told her about a place he called the jungle. He talked about trees and grass and wind and sky and sun.
Eve interrupted. “I don’t understand grass. Is it like carpet in the house?”
Malachi thought for a moment. “No, it’s more like fur that grows on the ground.”
“And a tree—is that like a chair?”
“No, but I think chairs are made of dead trees.”
“What about the sun. Is it like the lamp on the desk?”
“Yes, only more so.”
Eve wasn’t sure she believed Malachi, but she liked to listen, and in the nights that followed she came back often. Sometimes the cat was in the room, and this prevented Eve from visiting Malachi, but she was becoming adept at crossing the room quickly, and many nights she spent beside Malachi’s tank. The snake seemed to know something about everything. He told her stories about the outside, about humans, and about other animals like birds and lizards.
Sometimes he said strange things. One day Eve asked him why he stuck his tongue out all the time.
“To smell,” said the snake.
“You smell with your tongue,” said Eve doubtfully. “Malachi, that’s silly.”
“It’s true. I see with my nose.”
“What?!”
“I see heat with these pits around my nose. I can see your body because you’re giving off heat.”
Eve started to laugh so hard that she nearly fell off the table. “A tail with a head that sees with his nose and smells with his tongue!”
Malachi frowned. “I’m very efficient!” he growled. “You wouldn’t laugh if you—”
Eve sat up, still snickering. “If I what?”
Malachi curled his head against his log. “Never mind.”
“Oh, don’t be a grouch. What were you going to say?”
But the snake only flicked his tongue. “Nothing.”
“You would be happier if you had a family,” said Eve. “Why don’t you have a family, Malachi?”
“I don’t know. Probably because snakes are expensive pets.”
“What does ‘expensive’ mean?”
“Nothing.”
“You say that a lot.”
He pretended not to hear her. “Why do you think I should have a family?”
“Because we rats always have families. When we get old enough, they take us away to have families.”
Malachi looked uneasy. “Oh?”
“Yes, that’s what happened to my parents, and when I get old enough—”
“It’s late, Eve,” he interrupted. “You should go home.”
She twitched her whiskers. “Well, alright. Goodnight, Malachi.”
_____________________________________________________________
This book is designed to look good on your eReader. You can get it from Amazon, BN, or Smashwords. It is currently $3.50. If you want to see it, but you don't have an eReader, I recommend the Kindle app. It's free for most smartphones, and there's a desktop version as well. You can view your kindle books in any kindle app as long as you're logged in. You can easily switch between devices. For instance, I switch between my Kindle and my iPhone frequently. I'm told that Nook also has an app, which may be just as good, but I haven't used it.
Friday, August 12, 2011 at 12:10AM So, I have this 6,000-word children's chapter-picture book called Feeding Malachi which I almost sold to Arthur Levine ye these many moons ago (2007/2008). It was the closest I ever came to selling a book to a traditional publisher. The editor manifested nothing but interest from query letter to partial to full, and then...nothing. I found out later that the editor had moved to another job. I sent several requests for updates, but the new editor did not even give me the courtesy of a form rejection. I just never heard from them again. That was one of several experiences that ended my querying days.
Now, here we are in the brave new world of self-publishing, but children's picture books are still a tough sell as a self-pub. Early-reader chapter books are always kind of an awkward pitch. After kicking around ideas for several years, I finally had Rah illustrate Malachi with adorable ink drawings that I think will look good on a Kindle. I have no idea how this will go over with buyers. Poorly, I suspect, at least at first. But I believe the hour of the children's eBook is coming.
The illustrations have been finished for months, but I've been waiting on a cover. She finally got it done. Yay! So shiny. :) Now, it just needs to be lettered.
I'll post a real teaser when I have a real buy-link, but here's the cover art for those who are interested. Click to enlarge:
;)
Also, for those who are curious, here are my stats of Books sold:
Total is about 1,700 if you count books sold this month.
Saturday, July 2, 2011 at 06:56PM I give you folks a lot of fiction. Here, for a change, is a true story.
In 1998/1999, between my sophomore and junior years of college, I taught English in Taiwan. It was a fascinating experience that shaped my fiction. Foreign travel gives you the sense of being in another world. You have no idea what you’re eating. You can’t read. You can’t write. Toddlers know more Mandarin than you do!
I fell in love with the food, with the night market, with the friendly people and their singing speech. One thing bothered me a lot, though—the dogs and cats. They were everywhere—pitifully thin, mangy, often with half-healed injuries from fights or car accidents. Skinny puppies would follow me hopefully home from the park. Wild kittens would skitter across the road and then watch me with their runny eyes.
If you’ve read my fiction, you know I love animals. You also know that I can write some gritty stuff. In spite of that, the things I saw on the streets of Taiwan made me sick to my stomach. Some animals sustained hideous injuries and then dragged themselves around for weeks before succumbing. In the summer, nearly all the dogs were bald. I saw animals with active distemper staggering around, spreading the disease.
And everyone pretended not to see them. What could you do? You couldn’t possibly take them all home. If you fed one dog, you soon had 5 following you. The cats were wild. If you tried to do anything for the street animals, you quickly became overwhelmed. They were a city-level problem, not a personal one.
After a few months, I adjusted. I did what everyone did. I ignored the street dogs and the feral cats. I pretended not to see them. When a miserable dog with a prolapsed uterus crossed the street in front of me, I turned away. There was nothing I could do. It was not my problem.
Until one day as I was coming back through Kaohsiung Airport after a week’s vacation. I was standing between the domestic and international terminals, about to get on a bus, when I heard a kitten crying.
She was a tiny calico, no more than 8 weeks old, huddled against a concrete barrier. Some misguided soul had left her a plate of chicken bones. The bones were as big as she was and certainly nothing she could eat. I don’t know how she got into the terminal, but she would never get out. She was clearly too exhausted to crawl. She just sat there and cried.
I should have walked away. I had no place to keep a cat. I was leaving the country in a few months. The town where I lived was several bus changes away, and the bus didn’t allow animals. She probably wasn’t even tame. She might have a disease. Taiwan is full of homeless cats. Kittens die every day. I couldn’t save all of them. She was not my problem.
Only she was. Because I made her my problem. Because I opened my eyes and saw her. Because if I walked away from one more starving animal, I couldn’t have lived with myself. Because I couldn’t help all the animals in Taiwan, but I could help her.
I thought she might bite me, but I figured she was too tiny and exhausted to bite hard. I scooped her up, put her in my backpack, and got on the bus. She didn't bite me, and she slept all the way home.
Turned out, the kitten was tame and free of disease. She was also curious, smart, and vocal. She soon earned her name—Beetsway, which means “shut up” in Chinese. My little town grocery didn’t carry cat food (cats were not common pets in rural Taiwan), so I braved the meat market to buy her chicken. When she got sick, I badgered the local veterinarian (who had no medicine for cats) until he gave her puppy pills for diarrhea. When it was time to leave, I took her to the big city, got her shots and quarantine papers, and a passport. Beetsway was amazingly well-behaved on the 20+ hour transit back to Florida.
My Taiwanese street cat had many adventures with me, including a stent in Indian at veterinary school, before settling down to live with my parents back in Florida. She’s 12 years old now and a little arthritic, but still feisty. She’s the smartest cat I’ve ever known and also the tiniest—about seven pounds soaking wet. In spite of this, she rules the house—including the 70 pound Labrador—with an iron paw. She sleeps every night cuddled up to my father and greets my mother when she comes home from work.
Beetsway was with me during some of the most tumultuous years of my life. She is a loyal companion, who welcomes me every time I come home to the house where I grew up. I have never been sorry that I made her my problem.
