The Journey of Heart of Stone

      This is the continuing tale of my novel Heart of Stone from conception to publication and, God willing, to sales.
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     Heart of Stone began as a nightmare.
     I dreamed a fight sequence.  I dreamed a sailboat that fought with death rays to protect its master.  I dreamed this dream more years ago than I care to tell.
     I determined to turn this dream into a short story.  But the story got out of hand and became a novella, 30,000 words long.  I titled it Joyce.
     I wrote Joyce in 10 days in June of 2001 (2001.06).  Yes, I sustained an output of 3,000 words a day for 10 days.  Furious, it was, living in the jaws of the muse.
     I put it down for a month before I read it.  I thought it was decent.  (To date, I have made only three small amendments to the original.)  But when I finished reading it, I said to myself, "This story is not done."
     So I began to turn Joyce into a book.
     I liked Joe Haldeman's structure of his novel All My Sins Remembered:  three novellas with short interludes to link them together.  I adopted that structure for the book.
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     Today, Heart of Stone is in the hands of Rob and Amy Siders [http://www.52novels.com/].  Has been since 09 March 2011 (2011.03.09).  That date would have been 08 March 2011, but I sent them a bad manuscript not once but twice.  Third time was the charm.
     I also have cover art scheduled with Carl Graves [http://extendedimagery.blogspot.com/].  I first contacted Mr Graves 26 January 2011 (2011.01.26).  On 18 February 2011 (2011.02.18), Mr Graves confirmed he had enough information to begin.  What information?  27 January 2011 (2011.01.27) Mr Graves asked for the "title/genre/synopsis of your book"; he said he would "be able to do so [come up with a cover art concept] by the second week of March if that suits[.]"  Note that.  Mr Graves is scheduling a month and half in the future.
     More to come.