A Year Later

Greetings, friends ...

I'm glad to be able to return to this blog after over a year of inactivity. In case you weren't aware, I had gone a couple of rounds with a disease called dermatomyositis, an autoimmune disease in which the white blood cells attack the muscle cells as though they are foreign invaders. It's similar to many AI diseases ... for example, MS is an AI disease where the immune system attacks the central nervous system.

The upshot of the story is I ended up in the hospital for all of November and the early part of December in 2007. I was better by early January 2008, then ended up relapsing in February and didn't recover 100% until early June. Thanks to good medication, a great rheumatologist and the world's greatest wife, I am here and writing again. All of this is chronicled in a book I'll be publishing in early 2009 called The Year I Lost November. Profits from that book will be donated to The Myositis Association.

Because of my disease, I couldn't publish my first anthology of short stories and poetry until July 2008, called In The Foothills. The collection covers material I've written between 2005 and 2007. If you like short stories, I invite you to take a test run.

Besides editing the new book, I've been particular busy with NaNoWriMo this year. Unfortunately, because of my illness in 2007, I couldn't participate in the novel-writing fall classic. This year, I'm definitely in the hunt. As of this post, I have over 12,000 words written in my own someday bestseller (entitled Lens Flare), an action-packed thriller of arson and political intrigue.

That's all for now, folks. I hope your respective Muses are kind to you this week.

Best,
Michael