Sorry it's been so long since I got into the message board. It got really slow for a while, around the same time I got really occupied with Cloud Catcher, my horse, and a myriad of other things, and I got out of the habit of checking in.
You bring up a subject that I would love to talk about, and that's poetry. I have some 150 poems, most of them Western in nature. There are both serious ones and comical ones, and I very much want to do a book of them before too much more time goes by. However, there's a danger in entering that new turf. I have never published nor tried to sell a book of poetry. I am always up to new challenges, but my fear is that the learning curve will take up enough time and tie up a few thousand dollars for long enough that I won't be able to put a novel out, and of course that is where the bread and butter lies.
So I'm trying to keep up on horses (like the one you ordered, Sheila) to keep enough money in the book account to do the next one, and also trying to do some artwork, which I'd like to branch out into a little more. In the meantime, I'll keep the idea of a book of poetry in my heart, and as I get illustrations done for it one day you will see that emerge. I may do as a friend of mine did and do it in conjunction with my paintings in full color. He came up with quite the incredible book. A very beautiful and lasting tribute to him for his wife, as he is now passed over that Great Divide we're all heading for down the trail.