RACING FROM DEATH Goes to The Black-Eyed Susan.

I packed an optimistic forty books, two pens, and my cash box. I stuck a feather fascinator on my head, a Pimlico parking pass on the rearview, and drove north to Baltimore for black-eyed Susan Day.
 
The Black-Eyed Susan is a horse race with a purse of $300,000. It would be run that afternoon, followed by the million-dollar Preakness the next day. The Black-Eyed Susan is Maryland’s derby for three-year-old fillies, and is named after the Maryland state flower. It’s a day of festivity, excellent racing, and fashionable hats. Please note that the boys get the million-dollar purse and the girls get the three hundred thousand-dollar purse. Some things never change.

Men at work.

 
Pimlico was blessed with fabulous, sunny weather the whole weekend. That special mix, when it’s not too hot, not too cool, and the air is clear.  I walked into a grandstand that buzzed with excitement. I’d been lucky enough to be invited to sign my new mystery “Racing from Death.” After arranging my books at the table provided by Pimlico, I realized the key to my cash box was still in the car. It is possible I cursed.


An extremely nice Sasscer Hill fan, named Natalie, volunteered to watch my stuff. I dashed out the entrance, then fought like a fish swimming upstream against the incoming crowd, before jogging across acres of pavement to reach the car. I snatched up the pesky key, and dashed back to the grandstand. I composed myself and sat. 

A Wendy Wooley Photo.

Several other authors were signing that day. Next to me was Ann Hambleton, with her children’s book, “Raja.” 

Ann Hambleton 

Nearby were authors Martha Dugan Hopkins, and Phil Dandrea. My friend Frank Vespe, the man who runs the “That’s Amore Stable” syndicate and racing blog, stopped by.

Frank Vespe and Sasscer

  


A stranger stopped by and bought a book. He handed me his card. His name was Thomas and he was small, wiry, and wired. He asked me to sign the book and to write “Go Army.” I did. I started to hand him his book, and he said, “Can you do one more thing? Can you write ‘major?’ I’m a major, in the Army, Major Tom.”

In certain instances I don’t bother to restrain myself. I looked him in the eye and sang, “Ground control to Major Tom.” A line from the old David Bowie song “Space Oddity.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhSYbRiYwTY


He said, “I get that a lot.”


I said, “Why am I not surprised,” and handed him his book. He promptly blasted off toward the track.  



A little later, two photographers with lenses the size of Zenyatta stopped before my table and started shooting pictures. I stared at them in full blonde-moment non-recognition. Amazing racing photographer, Matt Wooley had to remind me who he was. Ah, duh. Only the guy that took my all time favorite photo of me and Paula Marie Weglarz.

Me and Paula Marie! Keeneland 2010.

And Matt's adorable, super charged wife, Wendy. I’m so mad I neglected to take their picture. The two of them together blaze with energy. Awesome couple!



The thing about book signing is, you can’t leave your table. Not if you want to sell copies. Since I was coming back for the Preakness the next day, I planned to rocket out of there mid afternoon to avoid the worst of Baltimore Friday afternoon rush hour. I did, however, wait around for the highlight of my day, the arrival of TV personality Donna Barton Brothers who was signing her book, "Inside Track: Insiders Guide to Horse Racing." 

Donna Brothers Barton

If you’ve ever watched a triple crown race or the Breeder’s Cup you have seen Donna. She is the gal followed by the NBC camera truck, who rides out on the track with her microphone and interviews the jockey as he gallops the winner back toward the grandstand and winner’s circle. Donna used to be a jockey and she really knows her stuff.


After I got a picture with Donna, I hit the road.

Donna and Sasscer

 Late that afternoon a filly named “In Lingerie,” won the Black-Eyed Susan. By the time she ran and with a name like that, you think  the fellows deep in their beers had bet her off the board? 

In Lingerie winning the Black Eyed Susan

HEADING FOR THE PREAKNESS: Me and Everyone Else!

KY Derby winner, I'll Have Another galloping at Pimlico

Derby runner-up Bodemeister stretching his legs

Kentucky Derby winner, "I'll Have Another," is hoping to do exactly that on Saturday when he runs in the Preakness. It is also rumored that Bob Baffert's runner-up "Bodemeister" has vowed not to get baffled again at the wire.


Trainers, grooms, gamblers, exercise riders, jockeys, and sports writers are anxiously studying the stats of all the high dollar races to be run at Pimlico during the upcoming Preakness weekend.


Being entirely female, it's most important to me that the horses are happy, nobody gets hurt, and the fascinator I ordered arrives in time so I can wear it to the Preakness!

On Friday, May 18, Black Eyed Susan Day, I will be signing copies of  my two mystery novels, “Full Mortality,” and “Racing from Death.”  Catch me from noon to 2:00 p.m. in the Pimlico grandstand. 

An entirely different hat will be worn while signing the two novels. It wouldn't do to wear the same fascinator twice. Not on Preakness weekend.

I'm delighted to report NBC and TVG news personality, Donna Brothers Barton, will show up at 2:00 p.m. in the grandstand to sign her new book on handicapping. I look forward to seeing her again. 


My sister, Lillian, bought me a Preakness ticket! On Saturday, I have a seat in the Turfside Terrace where I can watch Donna Barton gallop by on her track pony followed by the NBC camera truck.

Donna Brothers Barton covering the Preakness.

 I can scream as "Bodemeister" and "I’ll Have Another" battle it out down the stretch. Unless an unknown explodes into the picture.


I am a bit emotional about these two days at Pimlico, the Maryland track where I won my first horse race with a home-bred colt named Sea Surge. An amazing full circle, a journey that led to my third, just completed Nikki Latrelle novel, “The Sea Horse Trade.”


 Maryland racing and every racetrack provide a microcosm for life. In one place at one time, there is greed, crime, treachery, cruelty, love, heroism, bravery, determination, and underdogs who reach deep into their hearts to get the win. Terrific fuel for the writing of novels!

THE FIRST WIN!

Rough Sailing in the Kindle Sea, or Death By E-Publicide

“Other people do it, so why can’t I?” And with this brave premise I launched into the Kindle self-pub sea.

My short story, “Steamroller,” was written as an entry for the MWA Anthology previously called “Dark Justice.” They are calling it something else now, and since only ten stories out of hundreds of submissions were accepted, “Steamroller” didn’t get in. 

Okay, I thought.  I’ll sell in on Amazon.

My first problem: I am a Corel Word Perfect user and have never learned anything but the basics on Microsoft Word. And I have a bad attitude – I hate the way Microsoft keeps changing, forcing users to upgrade, face yet another learning curve, and spend their money. And what really amuses me is Kindle says they cannot take a Word 2010 file!

Rant finished.  I converted the story from Word Perfect to Microsoft Word and made sure I put manual Word page breaks where needed (after title page, reviews page, etc.) Still it took all day to get the text file up on Kindle.

The file I submitted on Tuesday was up on Amazon Wednesday morning. The Kindle "preview" looked fine Tuesday. But I ordered the book and opened it on my computer’s Kindle application to make sure it looked professional. The cover and front matter were fine. Actual story was a disaster. Some grafs had no indent, some had indents, still others were in block form. Shoot me. In the meantime people were buying the story. It went to #28K in sales rank. I had sold multiple copies of a story in a lousy format. Shoot me again.

I wrote Kindle, then “unpublished” the book as soon as my Kindle bookshelf page dropped the limbo "publishing" status listed next to the book. When your book is “publishing” you can’t unpublish or make any edits. The good thing about Kindle is that any time the drop down arrow next to the word “action” on your bookshelf page is working, you can click on edit, then reload a different copy of the book’s text. Happily, Kindle writes over what was there. 

Magically, I heard back from Kindle! Whoever wrote me even said they saw that I had most recently uploaded a PDF file, and kindly told me why that hadn’t worked either. Believe me, I feel like I have tried everything other than paying someone money I don’t have to do this for me.

Mr./Ms Responder said that I needed to take my word file and justify the text. I did. Mr./Ms. Responder said to save it as a “web page, Filtered (*.htm, *html).” This direction confused me because my Word offers save as “web page, Filtered” – nothing at all about “*.htm, *html.”   

Not knowing what else to do this morning, Friday, June 24, I saved the text as a “web page, Filtered,” reloaded it onto Kindle and looked at the preview, which, of course, looked fine. I republished. Now I wait to see what it really looks like when it comes out tomorrow and I spend another $0.99 to buy it again.

For what it’s worth all the rest of the stuff you fill out, title, rights, price, was easy to do. I was very lucky with the cover because the pro-photographer Rick Samuels let me have a picture he took of a horse named Stay Thirsty. The horse was ridden by an exercise girl that could surely be Nikki Latrelle. Sisters in Crime member Beth Hinshaw took the photo and made a terrific cover. All I had to do was give her the pixel size that Kindle asked for, none of which means anything to me, and she sent me a JPEG that looked great on the Amazon page when the story was up on Wednesday.

And now while I wait on Kindle, I am holding my nose and jumping into deep Nook waters. Wish me luck.