Author portraits don’t lie…

I created this for my author picture on my Amazon Author Central page:

D. W. Weaver sitting in a dark living room by the fireplace writing his next novel on a laptop. A cat is watching his work from the armrest. A glass with an adult beverage is sitting on an end table next to the chair.
Author’s Dream

This is what writing is all about, right? Peace and quiet. A blazing fire. The glow of a laptop–unromantic, but easier than trying to read my handwriting. A kitty purring contentedly nearby. An adult beverage nearby so I can purr contentedly. And plenty of time to just think.

The words should just flow, right?

Well, the artwork doesn’t lie, but it does stretch the truth…

  • Fireplace: We don’t use it that much, and I don’t sit that close to it, but there is a fireplace in the living room where I work, so this is moderately accurate.
  • Laptop:  Mine’s a Mac, but other than that, it’s accurate.
  • Occasional adult beverage: Usually tea, occasionally spiked with something, never as fancy as the crystal in the artwork, but other than that, it’s accurate. Come to think of it, a mug of spiked tea might carry even more literary romance!
  • Me: Not as young and not as skinny as my avatar. Hey, it’s the Internet.
  • Cat: The cat in the artwork does look like one of our cats, but she’s not as young and not as skinny as her avatar either. The big problem accuracy-wise is that she never just sits there and observes. Either she’s not around at all, or she crawls into my lap, tries to squeeze under my arm in search of scritches, and/or walks over the keyboard. If you have a cat and a laptop, I’m sure you’re shocked–shocked–to hear this.
  • Time: I work full-time and write when I can. What’s this “time” of which you speak?
  • Peace and quiet: Here’s where accuracy goes right out the window. For one thing, when either cat does decide to play the crawl-all-over-us thing, our dogs get agitated, and I have to put down the laptop to restore order. For another thing, Mrs. Weaver is an interactive news junkie. When she’s keeping up with the news–either on TV or her tablet–she likes to interact with it. Usually by commenting on dumb things and yelling at the really dumb things.

So if the next story is slow in coming, I blame the news. And the dogs.

“The Invitation” is up!

My first Kindle book, The Invitation, is now on Amazon!

Cover image for The Invitation

What would you do if you could read your classmates’ thoughts?

Or change them?

Jon Thompson could, and he was scared. Scared of what he could do. Scared someone would find out.

When someone did find out, Jon feared the worst until Alison, the cheerleader who caught him, introduced him to the Guardians and invited him to join them.

As the Guardians teach Jon about their work, he’s surprised to find himself becoming friends with women who have virtually nothing in common with him–nothing but the same secrets and abilities. And he’s surprised to find that Alison and his other new friends have given up on dating, romance, and a normal social life because of those abilities. It’s hard to date when your always-on abilities won’t let you ignore your date’s shortcomings, no matter how hard you try.

He’s relieved to discover that his abilities don’t make him a monster, and he’s relieved that the Guardians’ work isn’t the constant battle against all-powerful evil foes that he imagined. But he’s frightened by the lengths the Guardians are willing to go to stop the few who refuse to be stopped.

Meanwhile, Alison has to face surprises of her own. Her Guardian-induced dating embargo leaves her ill-prepared to confront her growing feelings about the new would-be Guardian. Are those feelings coming from her heart, or from hormones and desperation?

Will Jon accept the Guardians’ burden? Will Alison take the risk of acting on her feelings? Or is their relationship doomed before Jon even knows it exists?

Crystal balls and pen names

In my first post, I said I was sending my first two books to Amazon in the next few days. I guess that’s secret code for “I’m sending my first book to Amazon in a couple of months.”

I’ve been working on three smaller stories that I planned to publish separately, but one of my editors pointed out that the three stories worked better as a single book. That single book should be in Amazon in the next few days.

OK, that’s not quite true. The book’s in Amazon now, but I need to fix one minor detail: my name.

“D.R. Weaver” is my pen name. Actually, it’s one of my pen names. My original pen name–more on that in a later post–is Dreamweaver, but I didn’t want to use that on Amazon. I wasn’t sure if Adobe’s lawyers would like it, and I had no desire to find out.

So I went with Plan B: “Abbreviation of Dream As Initials” Weaver. D.R.M. Weaver was the most logical choice, but that was already taken. D.M. Weaver was next closest, and it didn’t seem to be taken when I checked several months ago, or so I thought. So I plugged D.M. Weaver into my Scrivener document. Eventually, that’s also what I plugged into the cover, this web site, and that’s what I plugged into the “author” and “publisher” fields when I submitted the book to Amazon this morning.

That was followed by a few hours of “Is it up yet? Is it up yet?” checking. One time, I got the bright idea to do a “D. M. Weaver” search on Amazon.

And got some other guy.

And he already has his Amazon author’s page, plus a couple of Kindle books published over the past couple of years.

Whoops.

Looks like “D. R. Weaver” is still free, so I’m fixing that as soon as Amazon allows me to make those edits.

So, uh, hello, I’m D. R. Weaver. Pleased to meet you!

Hello world!

Let’s see…domain name created: check.

Web site created: check.

Temporary home page created: check.

Temporary home page replaced with web site that doesn’t look like a time machine from 1995: check.

Introduce myself: er…OK.

I’m married with kids. I’ve been writing and posting stories on-line for over a decade. It’s an escape from work, and until now, that’s all it was.

Over the past few years, I’ve seen other authors put their stories on Amazon, Smashwords, and so forth. I never really considered going pro myself until the kids got to college. And then I looked at the bills and my paycheck, and one thing led to another….

I’m sending my first two books to Amazon in the next few days–more details coming soon!