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Ever wonder what’s inside an author’s head when he’s writing? Day 6 of the Aransas Morning Book Blog Tour provides two glimpses inside my head. First, The Page Unbound has an interview where I talk about the origins and motivations for writing in general.

And then Syd Savvy has a playlist of music that kept my feet in the sand while writing Aransas Morning. First is music and artists that are mentioned by characters in the story – music that they like and that I happen to like too. It doesn’t get any richer than Mozart’s “Clarinet Concerto in A Major,” or any more mellow and forlorn than much of the work of Miles Davis.

The second category is songs that I listened to while writing or to get myself in the mood for writing. Guy Clark and Gary P. Nunn helped keep my head close to the sights and sounds of the Texas Gulf Coast with “The South Coast of Texas” and “My Kind of Day on Padre,” respectively. While a trio of songs by David Gilmore – “On an Island” / “The Blue” / “Then I Close My Eyes” – helped keep my soul in the location as well.

You might want to cue up some of these and listen while you read.

It’s hard to believe we’re halfway through this tour. On the one hand it seems to be going fast, and on the other it feels very slow and intense. The latter is due to the sensibilities of an introverted writer. I do want people to buy and read Aransas Morning and enjoy the characters and the story as much as I do, but when it comes to promotion I feel a lot like Sam, my main character in the book: hesitant and reluctant.

So I’m pleased to have others talking about the book, and that includes the Tangled In Text blog, which today has a review. I like these words because they capture the spirit of what I was trying to do:

“This story had a group of shy, recluse, broken people coming together and relearning how to interact with others again. The characters’ backstories were incredible and clever. They meshed together beautifully and each story complemented the others.”

Read the whole review here: Tangled in Text.

Admittedly, it’s a quiet story. As I tell people, there are no car chases, no exploding buildings, no space aliens or super heroes. Just real people going through what real people go through. If you go to my Aransas Morning book page on this web site, you’ll learn that some of the story comes from my own real life.

And there will be more about that in an interview at tomorrow’s stop on the blog tour. See you then!

Day 4 of Lone Star Literary Life’s Aransas Morning Book Blog Tour brings a review from Texan Girl Reads. In the review she says:

“As you start to read this book, you think to yourself, ‘Where is this book going?’ It starts slowly and then there comes this pivotal moment that everything changes within the story, and you start to realize what’s really going on that made Sam the way he was. There is also a moment in this book that will make your heart sink for what is going on and what will happen, but you just have to read it to figure out what part I’m talking about! I also have to warn you: it will make you want to visit Port Aransas just to see how this author made this story seem so real!!”

I especially like that last sentence because, yes, you do need to visit Port Aransas. It’s a great town that has been a favorite vacation spot for generations of Texans, but it was hit hard by Hurricane Harvey in August. In true Texas style the folks down there are working hard to recover and rebuild and they’ve put out the welcome map once more. They depend on tourism for their livelihood so I’d encourage you to put a trip to Port Aransas on your calendar.

If your calendar is full, you can still visit Port A and help the town simply by buying a copy of Aransas Morning. With every purchase of Aransas Morning we are giving 75% of the proceeds to four agencies working in the region. You can buy it online from this web site as well as Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Good Reads. Go to this link for details: Aransas Morning.