Where I've Been

 

     I know I haven't been posting much this month. In my defense, I've been busy publicizing and marketing my new novel, The Final Bullet. Plus, I've been working with my narrator, Marnie Sher at Sweet Tone Sound in Chicago, for the audio book version. Add to that my revamping a Scott Carson novel I'd started back in 2018 when my darling Barbara was still hale and healthy. That book, A Game of Hangman, got up to about 125,000 words when I realized to my horror that after chapter 13, I found myself in the weeds and, being a typical pantser, I literally lost the plot.

     But it felt so good getting back in the saddle with Final Bullet's launch that I decided I wanted to stay in the saddle and to get back to publishing one or two books virtually every year as I was accustomed back when Barbara, my number one fan, eagerly awaited each new release. As I'd written in Final Bullet's introduction, getting back my writer's identity was devilishly difficult after transferring it to being Barbara's caretaker. I happen to like being a writer, I like not feeling like an imposter as I continue to embed myself in one writer's community or another like an Alabama tick without any new releases to show for it.

     So, I have a new book out. Not content with resting on my slender laurels, I want to put this new book to bed and start that audio book sometime early next year. I discovered, after an examination of what I'd written, where and how I lost the plot's kinetic energy. It has promise, it always did, but I need to unsnarl the plot, to ensure that each characters' syntax is unique and that one character writes their narration with hypotactic clauses (subdued clauses) while this other character continues writing his in less subdued paratactic clauses. I've finally gamed out a denouement that may work and discovered, after seven years, who my bad guy is. And today, I wrote a new, pivotal chapter in Teddy Roosevelt's journal that will set the rest of the plot on a smoother, more even axis.

     Still, you few readers who surf in here do so looking for political content. And while writing fiction is where my mind and soul really lives and gives me the closest thing to happiness that I've felt since Barbara died in September 2023, I acknowledge this is a political forum. I'm not getting rich doing this and I also know that blogging, while it may have been the balls 20 years ago, is now passe. But when things are a little less hectic, I guarantee I'll be back fighting the good fight for whomever will continue reading my words.