Another Mention in Dispatches

My ego is flagging on a gray, cloudy morning that brought four inches of overnight snow and promises all-day sheets of sleet.

It's not so much that I'll be stuck in the house all day with a gimpy knee and a touchy back -- it's the uncertainty of being a midlist author in a terrible economy for the publishing business. When will I hear from my agent that Hang Fire, the fourth Steve Martinez mystery, has either been accepted or rejected? It's been almost three months since I sent off the manuscript.

But there is a glimmer of sunlight in the gloom. One of my old books, Flight of the Gin Fizz, got a very nice mention in a roundup of aviation reading posted on General Aviation News.

There's nothing that bucks up a despairing writer more than a kindly nod to an almost forgotten book. Especially when his name appears on the same page as those of Lindbergh, Saint-Exupery and Ernest K. Gann. And when there's a copy of his book in the photo that accompanies the piece.

Let it rain.