What are you doing now?

I was waiting for my wife the other day in a hair salon on the West Side of Manhattan when a woman whom I hadn’t seen in 25 years since we both worked together at Newsday, suddenly appeared. She asked the natural question, as so many others have before her, “What are you doing now?” I gave my usual answer: “Writing novels nobody buys.” My wife, Rae/Ginger, said, “That was pretty negative answer.” She was right. The upshot of all this is that I have decided on a new answer to those who ask “what are you doing now?” My answer will be: “I’m exercising my imagination.” Some will let it go at that, others will want to know what I am doing with my imagination. “Writing a novel” will be my response. That is what I have done through most of my adult life, work on a novel. Actually, I have sold thousands of copies of my two traditionally-published nonfiction books and a few hundred of my novels. In search of an audience, I have made four of my seven novels free as ebooks. So far, 60,000 plus readers have downloaded my free novels from Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Apple and Sony. Not very impressive in the context of John le Carré, but I’m happy.

A suggestion: My novel, THE PENCIL ARTIST is available as an e-book on Smashwords, Kindle, and Barnes and Noble; as a paperback on Amazon.