Sent the copy edited manuscript for Ashes back to my editor tonight. It was all done electronically using track changes which really does speed things up and ensures you’re always working with the same manuscript. With all the tweaks and refinements the book is clocking in significantly bigger than The Light of Burning Shadows did. It’s not a matter of quantity for quantity’s sake mind you, just that there was a lot of story to tell in this one. For example, one character actually – oops, guess I don’t want to let the cats out of the bag just yet 🙂 Suffice it to say that there a few twists in Ashes that I hope catch you off guard.

Things will really start moving at Gallery now. From this manuscript they’ll generate first page proofs which are often used to create galleys or ARCs (Advance Reading Copies) which get sent to reviewers and sometimes buyers in stores as a way to generate buzz. Last week I worked on the flap copy they sent me so the cover is pretty much complete and should be released soon. How soon I don’t yet know, but soon.

I’ve been a runner off and on since highschool. I ran track, played football, rugby, cricket and more, but even then I was bothered by shin splints. Over the years I would drift away and then come back to running, and each time it would start out great then devolve into pain and suffering as the shin splints returned. The last time even crept into the dangerous territory of stress fractures. As my Olympic dreams only revolve around dating gymnasts I decided to stop and let time work its magic. After a three-phase bone scan, a hellish two and a half hours in an MRI, rehab and more rehab, I was ready to run again, except nothing had changed. I started running, and the pain came back. This time, I stopped before I crippled myself and finally decided to use my brain for a bit.

Clearly, my running style was doing real damage. I’ve always been a heel striker, landing heavily on the heel then pushing off with the toes. Sounds normal, but in fact we humans only run that way because of the invention of cushiony running shoes. Have you every run in barefeet? You lean forward, and run lightly, landing not on your heel but your midfoot to toes. That’s the way we were designed to run. Whether you call it natural running, Chi running, or any of a number of styles the result is the same – running the way we were originally designed to. Armed with this knowledge and prepared to try just about anything, I found this new shoe company that was designing shoes with this more natural running gait in mind. I was skeptical, not least because the color of the shoes is ghastly, but having tried almost everything else I decided to give them a try. A miracle, no, but I can run again. Between the new running style which I’m still working on and these shoes I’m slowing building up the miles and not crying all the way home to spend the next two hours with ice bags wrapped around my legs. It’s a nice feeling.

Now I just need to stop eating ice cream as a reward every time I run a couple of miles!

So it turns out this recession has been good for one thing anyway, it’s forcing manufacturers to cut back on the use of plastic as petroleum prices rise. That means those tough as nails plastic clamshells are being phased out for more eco-friendly packaging which also happens to be much easier to open. http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112852/retailers-greener-packaging-nyt

And in sci-fi entertainment news, here’s the latest trailer for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and wow, does it look cool. So much better than Burton’s attempt a few years ago:

http://www.deadline.com/2011/06/hot-trailer-rise-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-2/

http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/billionaire-larry-ellison-hedges-bets-buys-40-million-pad.html

Reminds me of the RUSH song, The Trees – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWHEcIbhDiw

Just read an article in PW (Publishers Weekly) that there is at least one serious buyer interested in purchasing and reviving the Borders book chain. That’s definitely good news for all of us in the industry and for book lovers everywhere. We need diverse markets, everything from the big chains to smaller independents. A smaller, but better run Borders would have to be a plus overall.

I’m not a wiz at linking articles yet, so here’s the full piece courtesy of PW (and the Wall Street Journal)

Gores Group, a private equity firm based in Los Angeles, is in discussions to purchase more than 200 of Borders’s 405 remaining stores “in a deal that would keep the bookstore chain operating as a going concern,” according to the Wall Street Journal. “People familiar with the matter” said the stores and other assets could fetch “roughly $200 million or so” and that “other suitors, whose identities couldn’t be learned, are also in discussions with Borders.”

The company headed by Alec Gores “is known as a distressed investor, scooping up stakes in ailing companies and trying to rehabilitate them,” the Journal noted, adding that “interest in Borders has increased since Liberty Media Corp.’s recent bid for Barnes & Noble, valuing the chain at roughly $1 billion.”

A brief profile of Alec Gores in the Journal noted that he and his brother Tom appear to be intent on assembling an entertainment conglomerate. They “recently joined forces to buy Alliance Entertainment, which distributes DVDs, CDs and video games to stores such as Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Target.” They have also explored “buying at least three Hollywood movie studios, including Miramax,” and in 2008 the Gores “plowed about $100 million into radio programming company Westwood One.”

The Journal called the Gores brothers “a three-headed Los Angeles powerhouse. Brother Tom heads another private-equity firm, Platinum Equity. Sam Gores leads Hollywood talent agency, Paradigm. Sam has acted as a consultant for his brothers’ forays into the entertainment business.”