Okay, so I wrote these books, three of them. What am I going to do with them? Publish them my wife says. Easier said than done, it turns out.

I have an English degree from a good university, but still can’t spell for spit (see?). If I had stuck with writing when I graduated from college, I would have paid my dues writing crap I hated and built up a portfolio of work and achievements. That would have been the easy way, but I never could see past today.

Instead, I went to work to feed my family, owning my own business for twenty years before walking away from it with my sanity intact and little else. For reference, I had just finished the first draft of ‘No Free Air’. It took almost nine years to get back to it.

I told myself I would not publish anything until I had completed three novels, to prove to myself that I was serious about another career change. For seven years now I have shut myself away for an hour or two every night and four to six hours every weekend and worked on my books. Why? Hell if I know.

Writing is like an illness with me, a subconscious itch that, unless released, grows and builds up inside my mind until it festers. The people in my stories are as real, more real in some cases, as the people I have to work with every day, because I know more about my characters. The stories have become memories from the repetition of rewriting. Sometimes I sit here and stare at a single sentence for long minutes while I struggle to get it to sound right; sometimes I have typed as fast as my fingers would move across the keyboard, trying to match the flow of words coming from my brain. It has been the best of times and the worst of times, the agony and the ecstasy, and my struggle, with apologies to Charles Dickens, Irving Stone and Adolf Hitler.

Once I had written three novels, mostly (because you never really stop rewriting a book), I faced the dilemma of: what to do with them now? The Internet is filled with warnings and horror stories of the trouble that awaits the inexperienced writer, along with list upon list of agents, publishers and clearing houses. I found people making money off authors, not just vanity publishing, but contests, classes and volumes of advice for sale or rent. W.T.F.? I don’t have time for this.

E-publishing was the answer. Decatur Clary books are now proudly available at Smashwords: Decatur Clary, a literary sampler (Free E-book), No Free Air , The Lady Lu , and 7 Crows, A Secret .

When you buy a Decatur Clary book, you know you are getting the finest product, hand crafted and fermented over years to bring out the full flavor of the words. Every page has been meticulously edited by the lovely Mary Clary (who also took time out from her restoration of Civil War photographs to create the covers. I think they’re beautiful, but I acknowledge a prejudice).

Please take time to read the samples at Smashwords and tell your friends about Decatur Clary’s work. Every purchase is deeply appreciated and feeds the dream.

Who knows, I might find more time to write this blog if I didn’t have the 8-5 taking up so much of my life. I would definitely put more time into my next novel, ‘Black Veil’. I’ll tell you more about that soon.