For a while I was blogging all the time. Right here. Some really, really good stuff. I cranked out blog post after blog post– at least once a week– usually on Saturday mornings. I would consistently check my stats and it looked like, depending on what I wrote, I’d have quite a few people dropping in. Then something happened. I got so tied up in writing and editing my second book, I couldn’t pour any more creative energy into sustaining my blog. So I didn’t.
Now “Fighting for Ms. Rios” is complete and soon to be released. It is a story told by a highly gifted fourth grader named Aiden who is not only an extraordinary young writer, but he is amazingly perceptive about adults and their schools. And he can fight. Aiden writes a series of nine journals over the course of the school year, chronicling his experiences with his friends and with his remarkable first year teacher– Ms. Rios.
I had lots of people edit my book and at one point even had it placed with a publisher called Park East Press. But I realized publishing can be a sleazy business if you get caught up with the wrong folks– and Park East Press turned out to be the wrong folks. So I wrestled my manuscript back from them and decided instead to join the hundreds of other entrepreneurial writers and inventors and musicians and filmmakers who value their voice… and I placed my book project on Kickstarter. Check it out. There is even a book trailer there.
In the meantime… “Fighting for Ms. Rios” will be released on bookshelves and Kindles in September. But that’s not all. I’ve nearly finished a sequel called “Broken in the Middle,” where our gifted little writer, Aiden, is now in 7th grade and struggling to rise above the worst adversity that a kid will ever face. The theme of the book is resiliency, and it is a hopeful story.
And of course there is a sequel to the sequel. In “Catching In A Crowd” Aiden is a senior who attends a very unusual charter high school. He is a decorated high school athlete, but the real offers are coming in from schools that specialize in creative writing. In the final book of what has now become the Milagro Trilogy, Aiden’s journey through the K-12 system is complete.
So that’s where I’ve been. Writing the Milagro Trilogy instead of blog posts. But I intend to resurrect my blog, if for no other reason than to update you on the progress of the Trilogy and Aiden’s latests exploits.
Let me know what you think.
"El Milagro Weblog" 