Introduce Yourself : Author and Adjunct Professor of Englsh by John Roane

I'm on the network but have not been too active in the last months. Those who have communicated with me have given me a lot of support and valuable information. My publisher just sent back the final manuscript for me to do a deep edit for errata. I just completed that and sent it in. It's amazing what your eyes miss. Your brain wants to see the correct words and lies to you. The only way I can defeat this process is to edit only 50 to 75 pages on a particular day. I skip every fourth of fifth day and plow through until I am done. My publisher asked me if I could write a romance novel. That is harder than you think, especially for someone like me whose imagination is filled with violence, murder, forensics, and general blood and guts. The first thing I had to do was get in touch with my warmer side. Another project is attempting to covert my first novel, Across the Tigris, to a script. My first effort was so bland one might think it was written by AI. I think the romance novel work had diluted my dark side. So now I've had to move away from the light. It's like riding two horses the old Roman way. But it's a good exercise. I'm developing literary schizophrenia. In the interim, as an English Professor at the community college level, I have a class of 17 to teach in the fall. It is hard, due to the inadequacies in our education system. I am no longer a lecturer. I'm an entertainer. It's like trying to teach chess to a bunch of chickens. As I'm sure you know from the news, the State Board of Education has taken over the Houston Independent School District. I have no idea of what it going on. We just hope it all isn't a bigger mess than it was when they finish. Teachers are quitting. A lot of the problem falls on the parents. Anyway. Let me get down from the soap box. A big hello to everyone.