March 28, 2007 FIRST, THE DIAGNOSIS... The doctor entered the little hut I call an office. He set down his black bag and opened it. He pulled out a stethoscope, attached it. “There, on the desk,” I told him. “Yes, I see,” he said. He walked over, put the stethoscope to the patient. He put the bell in several spots, felt for a pulse, tapped a knee with two stiff fingers. He took a deep breath and turned to face me. “Well, doctor, what’s the verdict?” I asked. “I’m not a juryman,” he said. “I’m a doctor.” “All right then. The diagnosis?” “Your journal has a case of the sporadics,” she said. “The sporadics? What’s that?” “It comes out sporadically. Give it two pages or so, and call me in the morning.” “That’s it?” I asked. “Not quite,” Doctor Rankin said. “That will be $65.00.” “Sixty-five dollars? Why?” “Everything costs at least $65.00 these days. You’re lucky I didn’t have to put the Journal on life support.” I paid Dr. Rankin the sixty-five bucks and put two pages into the printer. Before he left, he said: “I hope you’ve learned your lesson, Sherman.” I have, and so here is another journal. It still looks a little peaked, a bit under the weather. I guess the sporadics lingers a while in the system. BLOOD SKY AT MORNING…. Am getting a lot of email on this book, which hit the stands on March 1st, 2007. Mail from people I do not know, but who have read the book. Most of them want to know if the last few pages of the book are missing. They tell me it stops at Page 227, and that the book is listed at 240 pages. No, the book is complete. Publishers don’t always list the correct number of pages. Zak Cody is still on the trail of the villain, one Ben Trask. This book is like scenes from life. The story is not always resolved in a single book. This story continues in the next one, APACHE SUNDOWN, which should be out later this year. Late summer; early fall, perhaps. I wanted the book to end this way. But, I wrote three alternate chapters just in case the editor kicked up a fuss. He did not. He loved the book and so I used some of those chapters at the beginning of the next book. The writers who asked why there was no resolution liked the book, too. They just wondered why everything wasn’t wrapped up in a neat little package. This is a series. The series is called SHADOW RIDER and BLOOD SKY AT MORNING was Book One. It may wind up as a trilogy, however. Publishers with whom I have contracts are not renewing after 3 books. They are all shutting down their western programs. I have already written APACHE SUNDOWN and the third book is entitled GHOST WARRIOR. It will end like most books, at trail’s end, everything resolved. And, that will be it. I don’t expect the series to last beyond that third book. So, too, is the fate of THE VIGILANTE and THE SAVAGE GUN, both designed as series for Berkley. I’m writing the third book in THE SAVAGE GUN series now. I have completed 3 books in THE VIGILANTE series and that’s probably as far as that one will go. What lies ahead, then? After SHADOW RIDER, no more western novels from this writer. I will write the last book in THE BARON saga for Forge this year and that will wind that one up, with 8 books. What next? I don’t know. I have some proposals out to publishers. I will continue writing a short story every month, and I have some novels I want to write. Some are in progress, others are gestating. None of these are “westerns.” I am going to attend my last Western Writers of America convention in Springfield, Missouri this June. Then, I will ride off into the west and slowly fade away. But, I may reappear. Sporadically, of course. J.S.