When last I wrote here, it was June of last year. I read that post and I thought some of it occurred in September. Oh well. This is one of the things I’ve noticed about getting older. Time frames don’t actually jibe with my memory anymore.

Since that post, I participate in another craft festival. This time in December. A holiday fair that I thought would produce more sales because people would be buying gifts. Nope. I did just about the same amount of business as I did at my first art festival in April. Although, I did sell more books. What I’m learning is that the vast majority of people won’t spend more than $20-30, which means my bigger prints just don’t sell no matter how many people walk by and ooh and aah over them.

But I haven’t given up. Two things are coming up. First, on March 17, I’ll have a booth at Sip & Shop, a semi-regular event at South Slope Wines, a winery about ten minutes from home. The event will include about 10 vendors, live music, and food and wine provided by the winery. I’m hoping drunk people having a good time with the music and food will be willing to spend more money. But my sister who has done some events at wineries says they don’t.

Once that event is done, at the urging of the missus, I’m going to have a trial run at a local vendor market that is permanent. I can rent a space by the month. I’m going to try for three months and see what happens. I don’t have to be there when the market is open for business. They have staff who handle sales.

And don’t forget my website I’m slowly adding things to the website. My latest addition includes black and white images and 8 x 10 prints. Soon, I’ll be adding more individual pictures of coasters and more metal prints.

All of this means that I’m making more coasters and ordering more prints … and hoping that I’ll find buyers for all of this stuff. The website has been up for three months and I haven’t had a sell. But I also haven’t done much to promote it. I’m hoping to do more of that this year, as I add to it.

Meanwhile, in writing land …

I’m working with some authors to put together and publish an anthology. Each story has to loosely address this theme … what happens in that extra hour we get when daylight savings time ends. We’ve got nine authors contributing stories. I’ve seen most of the stories. Some are dark, some are speculative, some are more gentle. It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.

And contrary to my last update, I have not worked on Carlota. Instead, I’ve been making very slow progress on my lighthouse story. I’ve researched lighthouses and the specific lighthouse where the story will be based. For the last few months I’ve been struggling with writing the thing though. What else is new. But … I’m about 3,000 words in and a few light bulbs have turned on.

One aspect of this story is that I’m writing it completely different then any other story I’ve written. I usually write from “the beginning” and just go from there. With this story, I’m writing in bits and pieces. A little bit here. Some over there. I have absolutely no idea how I’m going to organize this story.

In some ways, it is a return to the type of story my first novel, One Night in Bridgeport, is. Some back story, some history, several pieces of story bringing together the real story. I still don’t know how exactly I will begin it. I don’t know where to include the history. And I don’t know when to bring in the main characters. But I’m starting to write the disparate pieces so I can eventually figure it all out. After months of pondering, I’m excited to finally start putting more words on paper.