New Issue of Truckin'... Coming Soon!

I have been working on the Jan 2004 issue of my blogzine Truckin'. This month I hope to add another new writer to the staff. So far, I have stories from three other writers (two fellow poker bloggers who are also writers at heart), in addition to some prose that I wrote this past week. I am in the middle of working on my Miami NYE Phish story... something that could definitely be expanded into a bigger PHISH BOOK! My only problem is: what parts should I publish?!? What started out as a 750 word piece has morphed into a 5,300 word monster (that's 20% of a novella!) I need to stop and pick out the best stuff for the issue, which I hope to have up by the end of the week (before I head off to Foxwoods).

The good news is that Truckin' is chugging along and traffic is increasing every issue. Just when I thought Truckin' was doomed to become another shelved project of mine (I have dozens of unfinished projects...), a new life was breathed back into my blogzine. Let's not forget, two main characters from one of my novels, Sweet Nothing, were spawned from Truckin' short stories.

Why did Truckin' survive a serious rough patch? I focused on the content instead of traffic (or lack there of). I know that there were a few months (in early 2003) when only two or three people read Truckin'...  but now, readership has jumped to impressive numbers thanks to a link from NYC Bloggers, and picking up residual traffic from the increased readership on the Tao of Pauly, and the insane amount of hits that the Tao of Poker generated.

A lot of pressure was taken off my shoulders when I found new writers to submit stories. For months, I penned four or five stories per issue, and that took a toll on my creative juices. Now, I can relax and focus on writing one or two main stories an issue.

Yes, some days, I'm still shocked that it's going strong. The new issue will be out soon. If you have not read last month's issue or missed some issues from 2003, feel free to browse the archives for some great reading material.