"Stay-at-Home" Writer

Today was a very good day. First, after catching up on some much needed beauty sleep (my kids let me sleep in till 10:30 this morning!), we dropped by Maple Hill Vintage Market in downtown Ashland where shop keeper Mary Millar gave me a check for the copies of Naked Snow Angels that she sold last week. It was the first "paycheck" I have earned in over three years. You read that right: Three. Years. After thanking Mary and buying some treasures for the boys, we walked across the street to the Turtle Club where we had lunch with Bruce Wallace, the publisher of the Boone County Journal. Bruce and I had a great conversation and discovered that we are birds of a feather, and Bruce officially agreed to hire me as a columnist for his paper. My first installment will appear in the June 29th edition. I have wanted to have my own weekly newspaper column ever since I started writing this blog, and as I try to find the words to express how elated I am to be given this opportunity, I am stricken with writer's block. Suffice it to say that Travis is a very happy camper. To subscribe to the Journal, click here.

After bidding my new editor farewell, I took the boys to the Ashland branch of the Daniel Boone Regional Library. There I spoke with the head librarian Tim about the copy of my book that I donated. He said that someone on the library board read it, loved it, and agreed to add it to the library's collection--and possibly purchase additional copies! Tim also invited me to do a reading/signing sometime in the future. Of course I said yes. While still floating around on Cloud Nine, we drove up to Columbia and checked in with the folks at Get Lost Bookshop where they reported that several copies of the book have already sold. I may do a reading there sometime in the fall, so if you buy a copy now (because really, who could wait to read such a gem?) just bring it in with you for me to sign. Speaking of signings, I will be at Kerley's Bar in downtown Hannibal on Saturday, July 2nd at 2:00pm to sell and autograph copies of the book. Hannibal peeps: you'd better be there! I ordered 50 copies just for you!!!

So as you can see, for a guy who vowed to never have a job again, I sure am doing a pretty good imitation of someone who is "working" for a living. When people ask me what I do, I usually tell them that I am a stay-at-home dad (for lack of a better term) or a stay-at-home writer. After today's flurry of activity however, I may have to rethink that. Call me whatever you like, I think I'll just call myself a writer. That sounds pretty good to me.