About five years ago I started writing vignettes about various incidents that happened while I was a cop.  The only thing that tied the stories together was me.  One story might be about an incident that happened while was on patrol in San Marcos.  The next might be an arrest we made while I was at task force twenty years later and miles away. 

I was curious to see if I could string three sentences together, that I would want to read again, much less somebody else. The project got picked up and put down sometimes for months at a time. I picked it up in earnest in the Summer of 2015.  I found vignettes with connecting threads and suddenly I had a short story.  Several short stories suggested themselves as chapters.

About this time I just could not take the Texas Workforce Commission any more, something had to give and it was me.  This caused me to step up my writing and add responsibility.  I decided to add a BLOG PoracPonders.  It was late September early October 2015 and I started spending every day at the computer writing something.

By November, 2015 I had two hundred pages in some semblance of order. I started saying well If I get 600 pagers (double spaced) I’ll call it a book. By Christmas I was writing a book.  By March, 2016 I was done. The book had reached a logical stopping point. It could stand on its own or be the pivot for a continuation of the series.

My mother’s illness and subsequent demise caused a delay but by May, I was ready for field testing.  I gave out beta versions over Memorial Day weekends. Silly me, I thought a summer read was just one of a several books one would read over the summer. I didn’t realize it could also mean the only book one would lead over the summer.

Anyways the book is about Cops more specifically about narcs.  It is also about the task force.  There are also crooked cops, crooked politicians, and perverted informants.  I point out the complexity of working joint investigations and the mutual respect all agencies have for one another. Yeah, right!

Anyways the cops seemed to like the book and the characters. They seemed happy with the law enforcement aspects.  The civilians seemed equally positive With their input I made some changes and rearranged and rewrote the first four chapters, strengthen the ending and changed some aspects of Sophie’s routine

I won’t go into the three reedits I went through trying to get the Table of Contents to Sync.  I ran out of excuses this weekend.

I sent my query letter and the information that each agent requested out this afternoon.  Now it is wait six to eight weeks, no phone calls allowed. If we like it we’ll call, if we don’t we won’t. Come on Thanksgiving.