It’s fairy standard for writers to squawk about their publishers, but I can’t really complain about mine. They pay me to write about my farm, my dogs and my life and to write novels and short stories, and my publicists are helpful, attentive and creative. I suspect I drive them nuts some of the time, but this promises to be a wild book tour. Got up early, ate breakfast, am fiddling with my Ipad, trying to get photos. I am excited to see the new “Dracula: Stoker Family Edition” e-book from Ibooks next week, which comes complete with songs and the movie “Nosferatu.” It’s $4.99.

I came across this photo of Murray one of my goats, now living in Vermont. Goats were a mistake for me, a symptom of my confusion between acquiring animals and knowing them. One of the best moves I made, aside from marrying Maria, was to pare down the animals at Bedlam Farm. It was disturbing to have goats, cows, sheep, dogs, chickens and cats. Rita Mae Brown says it’s good and important to be emotionally disturbed sometimes, because that’s when you grow and allow yourself to feel things. It seemed to me that she was talking about me.

Animals teach one all sorts of things in all sorts of ways. Sometimes you learn as much from what you don’t do as from what you do. The book tour is a wonderful conversation between my readers and me.  Writing a novel is good for me, because people talk about  my writing as well as my dogs, and that is important, because it’s how I grow as a writer. I learn a lot from the people who read my books, from their smiles and nods, from their photos and stories, from their support and encouragement, from the people who show up with their cameras and talk to me about their photos. I am experimenting on this tour, with new was of reaching people – Facebook, libraries, “guerrilla” appearances. I’m trying to arrange one in Hadley Massachusetts when I go there for my book tour to the Odyssey bookstore. I want to meet with a book club or some readers with Izzy and talk about writing in a small, more intimate setting. Writers need to loosen up, get out there, talk to people, listen. Heading to the train and back to the farm for one day before all Hell breaks loose and we pile Izzy into the truck and head West. I am so grateful that Maria is coming along for this part of the tour. First time as my wife. Interesting to see how so many people want to see her as much or more than me.

And I don’t blame them.