All posts by D.A. Adams

D.A. Adams is the author of the Brotherhood of Dwarves series and the Sam Skeen saga. He received a Master of Arts in Writing from the University of Memphis in 1999 and taught college English for 16 years. He is the father to two amazing sons and resides in East Tennessee.
General Posts

Friday Afternoon Ramblings

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Today is the anniversary of the coldest day on record here in East Tennessee, -24 degrees back in 1985.  I remember it vividly because my father and I got stuck in the snow (we had well over a foot, I do believe) about a half mile from our house and had to walk the rest of the way.  That’s the coldest I’ve ever been in my life.  The walk up and down hills in that snow was strenuous, and my lungs burned from breathing the frigid air.  I was 12, so to me it was a big adventure, but I remember my father being gravely worried about our exposure for that long.

The next morning, we left early to open his store, and my grandfather helped get us unstuck.  We used a woodstove to heat the store, and before I got the fire going, I remember every surface inside the building being ice cold.  Some items in glass jars had busted from freezing, which had never happened before and didn’t happen again for as long as he owned the store.  By noon the temp was up to 26 degrees, and Dad pointed out that the temperature had risen 50 degrees and was still below freezing.  Remembering that night and morning makes the weather today seem not so bad.

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General Posts

Thursday Afternoon Ramblings

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I finally found the time to format both my books for the Kindle.  It’s a project that has been idling on my to-do list for two years.  When I would think about it, I would be up to my eyebrows in work, and when I had the time, I wouldn’t remember to do it.  However, both have been submitted for approval by the Amazon team, so I should know by tomorrow if they’re approved.  I’m not 100% satisfied with how they looked on the preview screen because the Kindle strips away most formatting, but hopefully they’ll be legible enough for the average Kindle reader.

It’s fairly obvious that e-books are the future, so I’m going to try to get mine out there in as many formats as possible.  Next, I’ll submit them to Lightning Source, my current printer, for them to distribute in their network.  I’m hoping that these new outlets will help to get the series wider exposure.  With book three nearing release, it would be nice to broaden the audience.  My fellow independents can attest, often in this industry, we work and work and work without seeing much in return because making a dent in people’s consciousness has become extraordinarily difficult recently.  People are so overwhelmed by commercials and marketing that a lone voice from the independent realm is often lost in the din.

Yet we still press on, hoping to build an audience and hoping that one day all of this effort and energy will be worth it.  Even though we all proclaim that we don’t write for the money, most of us want at least to make our living solely from our writing, and while that doesn’t sound like an unreasonable wish for a novelist, in this country at this time, it often feels like an absurd pipe-dream.  Maybe it was always this tough, and I just had unrealistic expectations.  Country musicians used to call it “The long, hard road” to success, and maybe writing has always been this difficult to break into.  All I know is that I’ve gotten a tremendous amount of positive feedback on my books, but to the large presses, I’m not up to par.  Either my readers are fluffing my ego or the editors are out of touch.  Either way, I’ll press on, writing a series that lives up to my standards and promoting as much as I can.

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General Posts

Wednesday Afternoon Ramblings

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I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but I feel like a kid most of the time.  When I’m standing in front of a class full of students, I often think, “What in the world makes me think I’ve got the right to pretend like I’m an expert in anything?”  In social circles, even if I’m not the youngest, I often feel like I’m the least in seniority of anyone there, and when around my peers, I rarely feel as if my maturity level is as well-developed as theirs.

On the plus side, I still have childlike wonder about things that I enjoy. Because I often feel young, I rarely feel old, which I’m certain is a good thing.  Despite the aches and pains in my physical self, my spirit is still vibrant and positive, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

On the down side, I often defer to others because I so often feel as if their maturity and judgment must be better than mine.  Despite having experienced and overcome a lot of obstacles in my life, I still don’t feel as if I’ve earned the right to consider myself wise.  I often wonder if I’ll ever feel like an adult, if there will ever come a day when I look at myself and see a grown man instead of a kid.  Does anyone else feel this way?  If so, please leave a comment and share your experience with this feeling.