Back to The Vase

Now that my John Dunn book is completed and awaiting its release in July, I have decided to make the most of my time with one of my other books The Vase. It was an earlier novel I wrote, and the one for which this blog is named. And now I have this opportunity to go back and improve it much like I did with Killer of Killers, and like I did all these past months with the John Dunn manuscript. That is, I was going over it and over it and finding any and all typos, and making improvements in the prose wherever I thought it was needed.

And because of that the manuscript is better than ever. I wasn't quite happy with The Vase when Penumbra Publishing released it some years ago. And now that Penumbra has gone out of business, and all rights to The Vase have been returned to me, I will make it the ultimate piece of literature and then get it published again.

To be frank, Penumbra released The Vase before I believed it was ready. I wasn't quite finished revising it when my editor decided it was good enough and pulled the trigger for publication. Well, it's flattering to think an editor believed it was good enough, but I didn't think it was. And I'm the author. I believed it needed more work. But I wasn't the boss. The editor was the boss, and he published it. It was good, sure, but I'm a perfectionist, as all artists should be.

And what makes a perfectionist? Being PICKY! Yes, PICKY, PICKY, PICKY. Truth be told, if you are not picky about your own work, you are not a perfectionist, and your work will always be less than what it might have been had you been PICKY.

I'll never forget someone called me picky because I wanted an art piece to be rendered better. I wanted this part better, and I wanted that part better. They were little things, but nevertheless, they were things evident in the composition, and I wanted them fixed. Oh, but that took more work, and since the piece was a joint effort, the other person was unwilling to put in that extra work. I insisted, and therefore came the name-calling. Well, PICKY, was the word this person used.

And I will freely admit to being picky when it comes to anything that I want to be PERFECT. And as I tell my students, art is really the only thing in this world that CAN be perfect. So make it happen! Make it perfect!. And right about now, The Vase is nearly there. Sure, it's not quite there yet. But soon enough it will be. And when it's released again, be it by one of my current publishers, Knox Robinson or Melange, or yet another, the manuscript will be perfect.

And what a story it is. A unique and original concept. Ancient scenes recorded in the grooves of a ceramic vase. And being released by accident in the form of solar-powered holograms. And of course all the subplots that go with it. The people who see the images, not knowing they are holograms projected from a spinning ancient vase, think the images are ghosts. And all the other happenings, and all right there in Nazareth, Israel.

Of course, we all know who spent time in Nazareth, Israel, don't we? Yep, the one and only. So The Vase is being revised right now, meaning all the things I wasn't happy with in the first release are being taken care of right now. Can't wait to see this one in print again. It could be the best story of all. At least of all the stories I've written. But, you know what? Maybe the best story of all stories ever written. That's how I feel about it. We'll see how that goes over. At the earliest it would be a 2018 release. Stay tuned.