Sammy Hagar is my favorite singer. I loved his work with Montrose and Van Halen, as well as his solo career. In fact, I paid homage to the Red Rocker by naming the Flip-Flop Detective after him.

Sammy Hagar had been his dad’s favorite artist. It’s how Sam ended up with his name. Samuel Roy Strait—named after the Red Rocker. 

(from Strait Over Tackle)

 One of my favorite songs from the Red Rocker is “Growing Pains.” It’s on the album Street Machine (pictured above). The song’s theme is what you’d expect—things are tough when we’re trying to change.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve gone wide with all my books, including opening a store of my own. It’s an exciting but challenging time. I’m learning new platforms, studying graphics, and analyzing data. It’s not something I’d usually do as an author, but there’s more to the writing life than just creating stories.

There is still work to do. The Cozy Up Series and the Charlie-316 books need to be moved. That will happen by early November. Then I need to do the same thing with all the paperbacks. My goal is for readers to get physical copies at more locations than just Amazon.

 Also, I moved things around in my newsletter’s onboarding sequence to make a better experience for new readers. Unfortunately, some folks who subscribed recently might get a duplicate email. I apologize in advance.

I got growing pains
I gotta rearrange
Got them growing pains, yeah

- Sammy Hagar/“Growing Pains”