This morning I awakened the usual way, which is to say I put on some coffee, washed down the daily medication, and retired to another sector of the manse for normal relief of bodily functions. Then I returned to the kitchen, stirred Sweet ‘n’ Low into the coffee — which, I might add, was recently on sale at Bi-Lo — sat down, and punched the remote so that my day could continue the way it usually does, with CBS This Morning on as I investigate the overnight oddities of my Twitter and Facebook feeds.

At which point, the coffee I was sipping made me ill, which was mildly alarming but perhaps not when one considers that my stomach was empty save for prescription medicine and a few sips of Colombian.

Coffee. Colombian coffee.

Before you get to suspecting stuff, I didn’t overindulge on New Year’s Eve, or even indulge at all in alcohol. (Note the rhyme: … indulge at all … in alcohol. Wasted in a blog.) In fact, I haven’t had so much as a beer since the last Presbyterian College football game, which was, as best I can tell, late in November and hazy in hindsight. Theoretically, I could drink six today, but it’s unlikely. I’m not against it. It wouldn’t send me spiraling off into oblivion. Why am I defending something I didn’t do? I’ve had breakfast now. I feel … fine.

I’ve got a lot to do. I’m on it. Finishing a fifth novel — well, first draft, anyway — is on my mind, as is going through the editing process of the fourth, Forgive Us Our Trespasses, so that it may be published expeditiously. Today I plan to write about the stupidity handed down to a kid from his father, which doesn’t take much imagination, given some of my past misadventures and some of my old man’s, rest his soul.

In order to prepare you for the spine-tingling excitement of Forgive Us Our Trespasses, a tale of greed, corruption, and politics, undoubtedly you’ll want to read Crazy of Natural Causes, which has been available since way back in July, in the unlikely event that you haven’t already.

By the way, watch this brief, delightfully amateur video I put together as a “trailer” (which, it seems to me, ought to be an “advancer” since it comes before the movie) for my third novel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngNwy3iPHvE

Download Crazy of Natural Causes for $3.49. As they say at the local “rent to own” place, you can’t afford not to.

Crazy is my third novel. The first, The Audacity of Dope, reached the breathless reach of the public in late 2011. The Intangibles followed at about the same time in 2013. Forgive Us Our Trespasses will follow Crazy of Natural Causes by seven or eight months, though I don’t have a release date for you yet.

Cowboys Come Home is working its way down the long assembly line because, until one of these works of art captures the imagination of the broader public and makes me famous and rich, it behooves me to keep going.

As George C. Scott, as George S. Patton, said in the aptly named movie Patton: “L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace!”

As is often the case, French loses something in translation to nettlesome English: “Audacity, audacity, always audacity!”

              Most of my books, including non-fiction offerings on NASCAR and music, are available here: http://www.amazon.com/Monte-Dutton/e/B005H3B144/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1416767492&sr=8-1