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Hello, Reader

I hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving and that the entire Holiday season treats you well. My November has been a busy month. Actually, it started the last weekend in October when I went to Los Angeles for a long weekend and got to hang out with longtime friends including my old Hollywood writing partner. Then it was flying home to Texas, driving to Kansas City for a family thing then flying from there to Las Vegas for a weeklong indie writers conference. So much good information, and it changed my outlook on a few things that had me truly vacillating. A bit more on that is below. We've also made a couple of drives into Houston to visit the new (and only) grandchild who recently surpassed the month old mark. She's still refusing to talk, eat solid food or get a job, but I hold out hope. Why, yes, I will share a photo.

New to View

I'll share a couple of things. As I mentioned before, in conjunction with the Rice course running from March to May, I'm doing a book version of Undertold Texas, Volume 1. I can see an eventual three books in a series. It's a curated trip through lesser known Texas history, and I've broken it down into eight regions. I'm just over a quarter done with the book, having completed West Texas and the Metroplex. I'm working on Central Texas now. There will be 64 short stories per volume, same as the online course. In West Texas you'll hear stories such as cowboy Nat Love, Kiowa war chief Satanta, and artist Tom Lea. Some Metroplex stories include civil rights advocate Juanita Craft, bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson and the very debatable James Fannin pocket watch. Hopefully there is plenty of compelling history to be learned.

I have also been working on the Prick the Balloon podcast of American history. Episode 6 just dropped on Monday. In this one, I weigh the evidence to determine which state is the most politically corrupt from an historical standpoint. It follows a fun one on the Pilgrims and Puritans. You should be able to find it wherever you find podcasts, or at my website podcast page. I've included suggestions on further reading there, too. I really hope you'll check it out, hit "follow" on your podcast platform since that is a very important metric, and then spread the word far and wide. Thanks.

What I'm Working On

The first novel I ever completed was over a year ago. Thing is, I had no idea what to do with it. It was way too long at 150,000 words. Mostly, though, it didn't fit any genre at all. It's a fictional memoir that has to do with baseball and love and life lessons. Then there is the huge dilemma over whether to publish myself or try to find an agent and let them find a traditional publisher. In today's publishing world, the vast majority of authors get very little going the latter route except the opportunity to give up a full 95% of the book's profits. At the conference in Vegas, I finally heard enough people say a book does you no good in a drawer, and I made a decision. I'm dividing the book, called Wingo, into two books and will release it under my own imprint Dos Dogs Press. I'm doing a final pass. I'm buying software to do the layout. I'll get a professional custom cover designed, and I hope to release book one early in 2024 and follow with book two, tentatively called Wingo's Redemption, two or three months later. I know it's a very niche book, unlike the historic crime fiction series that I have going. If all goes according to plan, I'll have four new books out in 2024 plus one or two new movie-length history documentaries. Some of the work dates back years, so I'm so looking forward to getting it all out there. I'm still having the internal dialogue about the historic crime fiction, btw. Thanks!

MIKE VANCE - Home

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