It’s been an interesting week, folks: my dog died, I’m working on postings for two blog tours, a marketing consultant I’d started working with told me I was speaking to the wrong people, and readers of my novel let me know my blog—this blog—wasn’t exactly what they expected when trying to connect with me.

I’m out of my element here…

First things first: my heart is heavy and I am sad. I have to bid farewell to the newest member of our pack—Laylah Redd, Rocky’s colorful sidekick, passed away yesterday. She pawed at the sky, let out a howl and was gone. Just like that. She hadn’t been with us long, maybe a month or so, but she left an indelible imprint on all of us and will be sorely missed. The Wife and kids cried for her, Rocky keeps looking for her, I can’t bring myself to get rid of her toys. Laylah was a good, good girl. Yes, she was. Yes, she was.

[sorry–just need a moment]

I had a really good conversation with a marketing consultant this week—she looked at my blog, my Twitter account, my Facebook fanpage, my Google+, my blood count, a urine sample, and my Amazon author page and concluded, correctly, I was a doing a fantastic job marketing to all the wrong people. Then I had a couple readers tell me the EXACT SAME THING! Dammit. I’ve talked about this idea before, this incongruity, with what exists in the pages of The Road to Hell and the stuff I post here. It is separate in my head; it is a hot mess to my readers.

What I saw was a connection between the darker side of the characters I write (hey, Lucifer is my protagonist, after all) and the twisted things I can bring through our exploration of villains, my abject frustration with DMFRH, and my unwavering commitment to actually destroying all things Disney. It all seemed like the same things to me.

For the readers of my book, yeah, not so much.

See I’d forgotten one important thing in this cycle of writing and blogging and promoting: connecting. Connecting with real live individuals who’d been touched by the words in that book. Finding those people whose lives had been impacted by my words on the page and sharing that experience with them. And if what I write here, if the way I approach my subject matter here interferes that connection process, something has to change.

But not this blog.

Crooked Letterz isn’t going anywhere. You might see some cosmetic changes to the site and the URL will probably get updated but this baby is here to stay. Truth is, I am having waaaayyyyy too much fun!

So I’m not stopping; I’m EXPANDING.

In the next couple weeks, you’ll see an official site for me as an author and for Sanford House Press, my publishing company. There you’ll get links to interviews, sneak peeks at new writing projects and the latest on my upcoming novels—particularly Come Hell or Highwater, the sequel to The Road to Hell—and my diatribes on the writing life. And I’m starting a Facebook fan page for the Heaven Falls series. Swing by there and join the discussion about the themes in the novels, the characters themselves, and whether I got it right or am totally insane.

So stay tuned. Be patient and stick with me. I’ll be back with another villain shortly and with news from the “formal” side of life.

Gotta run, boys and girls—can’t hold the brave face much longer.