GONE THE SUN

Some good news to report. After a six plus years, my novel, GONE THE SUN, has been published and is available at barnesandnoble.com, amazon.com and iuniverse.com.

The idea of doing the book came from a discussion with old camp friend, Mike Klepper. He proposed an idea, and I ran with it. For a year he and I would meet, he giving me his thoughts, me giving him mine, followed by my getting back to the computer and fleshing the ideas out and writing what became a first draft that ran longer than WAR AND PEACE. Then, working like a mad man, there came a a second version and now, finally, a book that I am very proud of, GONE THE SUN.

What's amazing to me is that reading the novel as an actual book and not as the text I have been working on at the computer, the book and its characters take on a new life, and I read it as though reading it for the first time. Though I have written many magazine articles and interviews in the past, this was a totally new and exciting experience.

Hopefully, those of you who know me will buy a copy. If you do, and you like it, please leave a comment on the b&n and/or amazon website. I'd really appreciate it.
More later.

Getting Easier

After a week, the raw, initial pain has lessened, but the reminders of Willie are everywhere. A friend just lost his dog yesterday and to see how devastated he is shows me how we are all in this together. Those without animals for companions cannot understand this, but those who have had them and have lost them know only too well what I am speaking about. (Those of you who know me well know that I am reticent to speak of such things. This blog, being sent into the ether, helps.)

Willie

The pet cemetery in Hartsdale, New York was built at the end of the 1800's. Acres of pets are buried there, their headstones filled with the love of their owners. The pain of losing a loved companion is palpable as you walk through the paths between graves of yesterday and today and in some strange way that makes the pain of saying goodbye to your loyal friend a bit easier to take.(King Claudius' line in HAMLET came to mind again today as it did when my Dad passed away fifteen years ago, and I paraphrase, "Know not that your father lost his father and he his." It doesn't take away the pain, but it somehow puts it all in perspective.

We had Willie cremated and took him home to the city. His ashes sit on a shelf in the bookcase in the living room overlooking whatever we do. Whatever comfort there is, is to know that he is with us again, safe at home for as long as we live.

Willie

Everyone who owns a dog feels that theirs is by far the most beautiful and smartest creature ever created. In my case, it was true. His name was Willie and I adopted him from a shelter in Pennsylvania in 1998, one day before he was going to be euthanized. (The shelter had thirty cages, and if the dog in the first cage wasn't adopted, he would be put down and the next dog in line would take his place.) When I first saw Willie he was in the first cage slowly wagging his tail as he saw me approach. It was love at first sight and it stayed that way until yesterday when, after suffering from lymphoma for a number of months, Willie in the safety of his home, surrounded by those who loved him, was put to sleep by a kindly visiting veterinarian. Tomorrow he will be cremated and his ashes will be brought back to the city that he loved and that loved him. It is astonishing the amount of joy a small animal can give you and the amount of pain you feel when he is taken away. He was one of a kind, the beautiful part Golden, part Spaniel, part Australian Sheep Dog, part Collie who was all love. I will miss him until we are together again.