I got an email from a reader and they want to know what I look like. Others, such as editor person have suggested posting a picture. To them I said, look my picture is up at samhilliard.com already.

However, some readers feel this shot obscures my face. Right now, it’s popular to post a picture of one eye. I considered that for a moment, but seeing one eye reminds me of Big Brother or the symbol on the back of a dollar bill. Remember I read the site too, and I don’t want me staring back at me.

So, I’m reasonable. You want a better picture of writer guy on the site, you’ll get a better picture. Check back one week from today.

I’m taking a crack at being funny again.

While the pain of taxes still burns like a hot fire poker jabbed repeatedly through my soul, I’m trying to move past that minor annoyance. Forgive and forget. Why would any of us need more of the money we earn anyway? Besides, I’m happy to surrender a substantial portion of my earnings so that I may enjoy many of government benefits available to me, like streetlights and stop signs.

But before getting to the humor, here’s an update on the second novel. I’m close to hitting critical mass and moving into a heads down writing phase. Output has increased in the last few days, I’m now pushing 45 pages on book number next. Tomorrow, I’ll reveal the title of the second book, which I’ve promised to do for…hmm…how old is this blog? Ah, but Wednesday is the day.

By my calculations, my query letter is now in the hands of an agent, or perhaps their assistant, or perhaps their mail screener. Then again maybe it’s still rotting in my local post office. The clerk did give me an evil look when I dropped the letter in the box.

Oh, man. I said I was going to be funny, and here I blew the whole blog being serious. Well, tomorrow it’s sam the funny writer guy again.

OK, so this was as a big a week as anything can be in the absence of something concrete happening, since all the movement was on my part.

1) At long last I have a query letter. It reads well and makes a strong case for my novel.
2) I sent out said query letter, thus increasing the audience of samhilliard.com by at least 1. Maybe even 2 or 3 if they ask other people in their office to check out the site.
3) I managed to talk myself down from a panic attack without scaring my cats.
4) I learned a lot of interesting things about a number of agents thanks to google and some other resources.
5) I saw the last real mangement type boss I had back before starting on my contractor phase. His hair is all gray now. When we parted ways, his hair was jet black with a touch of gray. It’s good to see the voodoo is working.

Tech guy went nuts and made a bunch of enhancements to the site that will appear in the next few days, including a search piece and some other niceties. I’ve been asking him to take care of this stuff for awhile, but he’s busy, so he gets to it when he gets to it.

A new poll and weekly pic is coming, maybe as early as tonight – once again courtesy of the Pollster.

Thanks to everyone for spreading the word about the site. samhilliard.com has gotten many, many thousands of hits since January 1, 2004. So to everyone who blabbed, many thanks. Please go blab some more. That’s all I ask, if you like the place, send somebody a link to it. It’s just good karma. Hell, even if you don’t like it, send somebody a link to it anyway as penance. Yep, I am shameless.

Unless I’m run over by a water buffalo, the query letter should hit the streets early next week. Enjoy Super Bowl Sunday.