Coffee Novelist

My dream team

Coffee Novelist

May 20, 2022

Allie

The alarm rings. 4:45 a.m. I wake up way too early for another morning and more writing.

I stagger downstairs and head to the coffee maker. Once in the kitchen, Allie, my motivation coordinator, hands me today’s coffee already poured into my favorite pre-warmed mug. She tells me what I want to know: today’s brew is Costa Rica La Minita Finca Verde y Grande. I don’t like surprises first thing in the morning and make it clear to Allie in our preproduction meetings that in order to keep my mind free for the important writing that I’m about ready to sit down and do, that she must brew only single-origin varietal coffees. I can’t be left wondering.

Allie came to work for me after I had to fire her predecessor, who I will not name here. I came downstairs one morning to him having brewed me a cheap off brand coffee which I tasted and immediately knew it was part Robusta. It’s high acidity and nerve-jangling caffeine content proceeded to spoil my writing mind for the entire morning. I had to fire him on the spot, telling him to take his Robusta coffee and go to work for James Patterson.

I nod to Allie a job well done and take a seat at the kitchen table.

Priya

I sit down with Priya, and we quickly go over my 5-minute morning yoga practice I will do just before I begin to write. I usually approve the asanas she had laid out for me. These too are covered in our weekly production meetings. However, Priya must be able to adjust on the fly depending on what I need to bring to my writing that day: Energized calm? Gratitude? Third Chakra Spiritual willpower? If I don’t already have it, she must find the asanas to get me there.

This morning, Priya thought Pigeon would be good. My mind needed to release some pent-up frustrations I encountered while writing yesterday’s scene in which my main character discovers she has unwittingly staffed her newly opened, post-divorce dream coffee house with preternatural creatures.

“I was fooled.” Angellique Basque mused, sipping her now cold latte, “They all interviewed so welI.” I agreed with Priya this morning.

That done I roll up my mat for Priya to clean and store and I am ready to write.

Dan

I leave the sacred space where I do my yoga, step to my writing table and greet Dan, my IT support. By now DAN is almost finished cleaning my laptop screen. Dan, like Allie and Priya arrive to my house by 4:30 every morning. Dan checks the laptop and printer, wi-fi connection and feeds the cat. At times the cat distracts me at this peak time of productivity, and I can’t have that.

Nikos

I almost forgot Nikos. He goes thru my G-mail and cleans up anything I need to respond to. Nikos drafts my blog posts, creates and schedules my social media, and scripts my You Tube and Tik Tok spots. He is also in charge of developing all my Web 3.0 platforms. He works remotely but I am grateful for him, nonetheless.

I am lucky to have my dream team show up every morning to encourage me to grind away morning after morning, half an hour at time. Or some mornings one paragraph at time. And maybe rework that same paragraph the next day. I am lucky to have the support to keep me going even as my first novel sells at a snail’s pace.

I am lucky to have my dream team cheering me on to push through all the challenges and setbacks encountered in trying to get a second, and even third and fourth book out. They energize me so I can keep the blog going and rewrite what I once thought was 75,000 words of perfection. My team knows that I love to write and yet, at times, don’t want to do it at all. My dream team is here for me when no one else is, empowering me.

You were dreaming.

The alarm clock rings for real. I wake from the dream recounted above. I stagger downstairs, make my own coffee, delay any yoga, flip on my own dirty screened laptop and check my Gmail. Then I can greet my real-life support team, pictured below:

THE REAL TEAM

Hey, I ain’t complaining. It’s part of the deal.

Gone fishing

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May 4, 2022

See the source image

Hello from Rainbow Lake!

I’m not really at a lake fishing. I haven’t been posting much because I am getting closer to publishing my YA fishing basketball novella, Ironjaws. Yes, it is a novella that combines basketball and fishing. Can’t be too many of those out there.

But the world at large doesn’t seem to be waiting around for me to publish this novella. It is keeping me busy without extending the length of any given day. I am still working, paying bills, buying groceries, cleaning the house and all that jazz. Yet, I feel compelled to check in to let you know I haven’t forgotten about you.

So, I will resort to the time-honored bullet point format for now. Then it’s back to work.

I have just received the final pass from the wonderful editor from the Lafeyette Writer’s Studio. The only thing I feel like I need to do is add chapters with titles.
I am saying that because I think a map at the front of the book will both help and appeal to the YA readers of Ironjaws.
To that end, the map artist and I have begun visualizing said map of Rainbow Lake
I have been fishing for blurbs for the cover and may have caught one already.
The cover is underway. I kept the info for the photographer who did my head shot for Tripio and he has agreed to discuss the concept shot later this week. By the way, I strongly recommend using a professional photographer for a head shot. It adds a lot of credibility to your back cover and can be used over and over.
I am also ruminating a name change. I like the idea of a pen name. Sure, I think my last name is little confusing. However, I like the artistic freedom that I think it would give me.

That is all for now. I will be back soon with more. I hope I caught you at a good time!

Did you catch the two bad fishing puns? Wait, was that another?

Finding your best voice

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April 20, 2022

A man singing into a microphone Stock Vector Image & Art - Alamy

Your story matters, so sing it. Or write it.

Finding a book

No, I have not chucked writing for singing. You may not think much of my writing but take a moment right now to count your blessings that you have never heard me sing.

Nonetheless, I have found a book which has confirmed that I do have a writing voice. It has come to me when I needed it. When I noticed it, when I was able to see it, when I was paying attention. But I will leave the sometimes inscrutably self-indulgent metaphysics behind for the rest of the post.

I was on lunch break at work, eating a cold cut sandwich and some chips and listening to Joanna Penn’s podcast, the Creative Penn. She was interviewing Nikesh Shukla about his new book, Your Story Matters. Five minutes or even less into the interview I knew this was the book I had to read as soon as possible. I had no idea who Nikesh Shukla was.

Finding my voice

I felt so much weight coming off the writer in me as Nikesh told his story. I kept exclaiming back to him, “You are so right!” or “Hell yes!” Everything he said struck me as familiar truths I have experienced along the way as a writer. And he confirmed a lot of what I suspected regarding the environment of the writing world. Nikesh, in so many words, said that so much of it is best left ignored. It was such a relief.

Image result for Potato Chips Clip Art

I felt immediately grateful to Nikesh for taking so much weight off of me. I felt lighter and freer to let the writer in me just be who I am, without looking over my shoulder. I heard that I didn’t need a massive social media presence or a degree in Creative Writing for me to matter. If I were able to I would have given Nikesh some of my chips. But I couldn’t do that, so I bought the book as soon as I could. My break ended before I could, or I would have bought it then and there, even though I had not read anything Nikesh had written.

Buying my voice

That was a couple weeks ago. I have the book next to me now. I’ve read some of the words. I was so excited that I bought the book hardcover from Waterstones in England. It took a while to arrive. This morning, I found the bit that I already knew was there:

“This isn’t even really a book about making your work publishable. This is about getting you writing and helping you get the best out of your voice.

All that other stuff: getting published, getting rave reviews, prizes and so on is great-if that’s what you’re after-but it that’s the case, I recommend some other books.”

“We have to trust our storytelling instincts first and foremost. Before anything else.”

Hearing my own voice

I write to get the best out of my voice. Boom. I wanted to hear that, knew it was there in the book. That is why I write. To get the best out of my voice. But I will walk back my intention to a place even before that, I write to get to a place in which I am able to get the best out of my voice. Meaning that my mind, body, and spirit are in a place from where I can generate my best voice. That place is a calmed, energized mind placed firmly in the present moment and with the writing in front of me. From there, I write, and it doesn’t matter all that much, by comparison and to me at least, what happens to that writing.

I don’t mean that my best voice writes only about lambs singing and dancing on a field of daisies. But an inclusive and expansive mind that has room for all things-the good, bad, happy and sad. But not judgement, doubt and fear. That comes later. But I can’t just drop my mind at the laptop and tell it to write. I can’t command my writer’s mind to write and tell it “Don’t forget that part about the best of my voice.‘

My mind is attached to my body. I hit this so often in my posts but I’ll repeat it: What we do to the mind, we do to the body. So I take care of both, sometimes separately, sometimes together but always with the intention of uniting them so that I will be able to access my best voice later at the laptop. I do this via yoga, mediation, journaling and other practices I have done over the years.

Try selling this

I felt like all that I do to access my best voice was validated by Nikesh. I told a bit of my story just now. It felt good. I matter to so many people! People who want to see me in the place where my best voice can come from. In fact, I am headed to Bloomington later this weekend because my son texted and wants to shoot hoops and play pickleball with me. I matter to him. Yes, I matter. And I count. Indeed, I mean something to lots of people, whether my books sell or not. I mean a tiny, tiny bit to you. And so, you mean something to me! That feels good doesn’t it? Such a good feeling, such a relief.

Sure, I hope someday that my books produce a secondary revenue stream, or even occasional drip. Hell, if they sell enough, I can share my sandwich and chips with Nikesh at some grand literary affair. “Want a chip, Nikesh?”

For now, though, I’ll be happy finding my best voice. because that’s the one I want you to hear. Read, I mean, which is definitely best case for both of us.

Try it from the top one more time…

Is this fiction?

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April 13, 2022

Is this fiction?

“Is this fiction?” But he wasn’t asking me. The young man checking me out at Von’s on the campus of Purdue University had asked his colleague if my purchase, Don Quixote, was fiction. With the category clarified, he returned to face me with an apology along the lines that he “should know”. Being who I am, I began a lengthy response intended to soothe the young man’s emotional state. I began with a rambling explanation of why I had decided to buy Don Quixote downstairs in the wonderful, cramped, used book section, which is the basement of Von’s, and ended with me apologizing to him for my ever learning to read in the first place.

I stepped outside intending meet my son and his friend, who were finding food somewhere nearby, the used copy of Don Quixote in hand. I didn’t buy it for this year as I have other books to read yet, porch reading weather permitting. I will read Don Quixote as part of next summer’s porch reading. It has become a tradition for me to let a “classic” or two come to me and then read them outside on my front porch where my ability to concentrate seems easier to access than indoors. Don will have to wait his turn.

Is this reading?

My mind and my feet then headed for the venerable Rice Cafe for the rendezvous. About a half block out of Von’s, my feet and mind went their separate ways, as is the norm. My mind took me back to this summer’s reading. It has included lots of Oscar Wilde, Hamlet. The Shakespeare Requirement, some H.E. Bates, the Bhagavad-Gita and The Longest Road by Philip Caputo. I had taken The Longest Road and Tristam Shandy with me on my annual vacation trip to the Ohio River. This is a highlight week of the summer reading campaign. I was encamped in my delightful reading space on the deck facing the Ohio River on an almost too warm summer afternoon. The deck is raised two stories off the ground in case the Ohio River chooses to flood. I can reach out and touch branches and leaves while the river flows by me, powerfully indifferent. It is a wonderful spot to place the mind on a book.

Raindrops falling on my book

That afternoon some clouds formed rather quickly. This happens almost daily on the river. Since the deck space has a roof covering half of it so I did not stop reading The Longest Trip. My mind on the book, on the deck on the river, I did not, at first, notice that it did start to rain this time. I heard a “smack!” about two feet in front of me at eye level. I looked up from my book. A large leaf was still shaking and a few tiny drops of water were dripping of it. A drop of rain had hit the leaf. The sound was so clear and close that it caught my attention. The leaf waved gently up and down a few times in confirmation of what I heard. A few scattered small drops of water clung to the leaf. “That” I thought, “Is what reading is.”

Is Don Quixote fiction? Hamlet? The Gita? The Longest Trip? It don’t matter. Categories are created to help us find books in book stores. The “Best of” and “Must read” books lists can be useful. However, it strikes me that reading what is prescribed implies that it is your fault that you are sick.

This is reading

At the core, reading a book is simply energy meeting energy. Like a drop of rain hitting a leaf.

Picasso Don Quixote Windmill

That moment of the raindrop falling from the sky among uncountable others on its never before falling path, hitting one leaf from uncountable others from a tree on its own slower, steadier, original to it, path was, for me, my mind colliding with my book. Not just The Longest Trip, but Tristam Shandy, Hamlet, all of my summer reading, in fact all the books I have ever read.

It makes perfect sense to me. If only perhaps, because I have written a novel and am rewriting another, do I come to this conclusion. The mind is constantly moving. Easy enough to see. Yet, I think, so is a novel, or any book for that matter. I put mental energy into Tripio. It is held there on the page and in between the covers for the reader to take that energy into their own mind. When they meet, a unique combination of energy is created. The raindrop and leaf replicated.

Back to my feet

Where does that leave me? Still looking for the Rice Cafe. I got a little lost. I hadn’t been on Purdue’s campus for a couple years. As for Don, he will have to wait his turn. I wanted to go back to Von’s and tell the young man who checked me out that Don Quixote should be filed under “mental energy’ or “leaf meets raindrop.’ But , luckily for him, after a couple more blocks, I stumbled upon the Rice Cafe.

A repost from about a year ago. I feel even more strongly about this today.

My Writing Prompt

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March 30, 2022

Image result for Juan Valdez Coffee. Size: 183 x 170. Source: dailycoffeenews.com

Describe the scene outside your window.

I bailed out on my writer’s group prompt last Friday. It was a long workday on a Friday and that was before the two-hour skull session, which concluded with a 30-minute prompt. I will be revisiting the writer’s group a good deal in future blogs. For now, I wanted to send a gratitude to A Writer’s Path blog post entitled “The Benefits of Joining a Writer’s Group“, from a month or so ago. I read it and took courage from it. Who knows? I may not have attended that group for the first time ever, if I had not read her blog. Thanks! And the best part is that the group is letting me come back.

My writing prompt is brewed

As I said, I did have to leave before the last half hour writing prompt. I felt a bit bad at leaving early as I was the “new guy”. However, on the way out, I said, “I know I will do my writing tomorrow morning.” Why? How could I be so sure? Write without a prompt? Have you taken leave of your senses, new guy?

I have never been a big practitioner of writing prompts. I took part in one a couple years ago in a class on blogging. Maybe it wasn’t a good fit for the intent of the class. But it didn’t change my overall ambivalence toward writing prompts as a whole. I haven’t used one since.

I think the main reason for that, and why I knew I would write the morning after writer’s group is that I drink my writing prompts. That is, my prompt is whatever type of coffee is in the cup that is always, always and always within reach when I write. I have previously addressed this in my own post, Coffee and Writing. Not all traditional writing prompts are the same. Neither are the liquid ones.

This week’s drinkable prompt has sparked a lot of creativity and imagination in yours truly. It is the fairly humble Kroger Private Selection Sumatran Mandheling. It is so humble I think they used Sumatran incorrectly.

You say Sumatran, I say Sumatra…

I have only seen it as Sumatra Mandheling and I’ve been consuming coffee before they even knew there was coffee outside Juan Valdez’s back yard. But it is every bit as earthy and full bodied as Sumatra(n)s costing way more. As a varietal, Sumatra’s strength is it’s early body and smooth full mouthfeel. A fine coffee for drinking while contemplating what your novel’s protagonist is going to do after escaping narco-terrorists during a breathtaking chase through the corridors of a random east Asian palace.

The above novel will need a base, a backbone a solid foundation. So do all the blends we know and love. Sumatra’s body and earthiness make it a great base for any and many espresso blends out there. It is also my educated guess that Sumatra is included in the house blend your local bearded roast master has going right now.

So, if you need a prompt for your writing and can’t get to, or don’t yet have a writer’s group to get to, try the Kroger Private Selection Sumatra or Sumatran. Either one will prompt those words. Happy brewing and writing!

Do writing prompts come decaf?

Blink, think and click

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March 22, 2022

Blink, think and click

Say that three times fast. Blink, think and click.

I just tried typing it three times fast and it didn’t work out once. Anyway, on with the show.

Have you heard the classic marketing joke? Even the best marketing only works 50% of the time. But nobody knows which 50%.

Click, blink and think

With that in mind, I have been reading and researching book marketing, book covers and so on. The main challenge for me is finding an audience, category, and genre. The overall wisdom from my reading and research is that one has go out there, find your potential readers and ask them what they like to read. And, even more importantly, find out exactly what they will spend their money on.

Luckily, I have found a wonderfully informative podcast hosted by Joanna Penn. She covers everything one could think of related to direct publishing, including marketing. And, in the most recent episode she talked with and guy who wrote “Fat Vampire”, which is now being turned into a series on Syfy. It was not an overnight success, but you can see from the title and word vampire, that it is so easy to find an audience, category, genre. I think if you wanted to find books on vampires, then putting the word vampire in a search engine would be a good start.

Think, blink and click

Sadly, my characters happen to be human. The thought did cross my mind of turning Jay in Tripio into a time traveling, kickboxing, preternatural creature who feeds on Starbucks baristas. It could even be topical. Starbucks corporate knows of the creature but does nothing. Thus, providing the baristas with incentive to unionize.

But serious folks, buy my book, please. For the youngsters reading, that’s a riff on the classic Henny Youngman joke.

I have read two books on the above topic-not Henny Youngman, on finding and getting to know your readers. One was quite predictably called, Book Relaunch. I found the book helpful. I will use a good deal of it, I am sure. I have even started on survey questions, set up a Mailchimp account and began to construct a marketing campaign in order to ask as many readers as possible exactly what they think want to spend their money on.

Then I read Malcom Gladwell’s, Blink. A mistake, I think. Because, in Blink, Malcom Gladwell goes into wonderful, readable detail that makes a great case that, when asked, people seldom know they want, what they would buy and why. The failure of New Coke is used as a test case. Buy New Coke, please.

So, I feel like I’m back to square one. If I do launch a marketing campaign to find my readers, will they even know what they want? So, the old marketing joke above probably does apply. Which gives me 500.5 chances to get it right this time. Because the next book I plan to read is 1,001 Ways to Market your Books.

How about, “Fangs of the Barista” or “The Caffeinated Count?”

Ten more leave ins for the mind

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March 15, 2022

The Thinker Coffee | Canvas prints, Cool artwork, Poster prints

10 more “leaves ins” to apply to the mind, not the hair

Writing is a harmless way of expressing something inside is that has to come out.
All you are ever going to be is the person you are today.
In empty handed stillness, the mind can become clear.
(I find that) journaling first thing in the morning is like defrosting my windshield before heading out to start a cold winter day.
The mind cannot be at the right place at the right time until it is sitting still.
The small disruptions and interruptions of daily life are there not to pursue, but to bring attention back to our intentions.
Asking money to bring you happiness is like asking a pebble to explain the mountain.
If you “find” yourself in a bad mood, then you’ve probably been following someone else’s directions to get there.
To sleep deeply, live simply.
Our needs never change, our wants always do.

I think “empty handed” means “device free”

If only

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March 1, 2022

If only I..

Writing a novel is difficult, time consuming, mind consuming affair. It takes a lot of time just to find the best time for you to write, and even then, it may not go well. If you are a writer, you already know this. If not, this pretty much applies to any and all of life’s endeavors, “If only I had done this, or not done that.”

“If only I brought a bigger boat.”

I am in the last, final, terminal, final and last rewrite of my metaphysical road novel, Back outta the World. The challenge for me on this project is presenting a main character to the readers who doesn’t know quite why he is on this road trip on he has found himself on. If Jay doesn’t know, why should the reader care? This struggle between where his mind is and where the body is going, must be interesting enough to keep the pages turning. So, I’ve had to be careful as the book goes along. It is hard to keep a character from himself yet show enough to keep the reader “in the book.”

If only I…

I found myself attempting to revise a critical line in the novel. The protagonist is about to declare his thoughts and reactions when suddenly being asked to go much further on the trip than expected. He had told a friend on page three his intentions. On page 12 he is asked again. I was stuck on the answer because Jay revealed too much of the answer. In other words, If Back outta the World was a murder mystery, then Jay would have revealed on page 12, “who done it“. So, I had to change is response. “If only Jay had not said that on page three.”

I went back to page three and did just that. I went back a day in the book, changed it, and it made the present work. Nice work if you can get it, right?

If only I…

If only we could do that in real life.

But I did capture what is great about writing a novel, or novella or short story. You can change an ” if only” in the past to make the present better! In the present moment of revising that line I was stuck, frustrated. In my example, I went page a few pages to clarify and reshape what my protagonist said about his trip back outta the world.

I did just that

That, in turn made my real-life present day enjoyable. Fixing an “if only” changed, cleared and energized my mind. I felt like I had achieved something positive, and unique to me. I could carry that energy with me the rest of the day, which is all we really get anyway. Yes, writing is hard but within it is contained the chance to fix the past. It is nice work, and I have it.

If only the search engines had a sense of humor.

Time for an editor

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February 15, 2022

Talk is cheap

It is time for an editor.

If it were that easy. Just like any piece of advice given away, it is given away for a reason. It is easy to say and not easy to do. If you have read this blog for the last year, you know that I have found it to be a challenge to do just that.

Find an editor. Simple to say. As I alluded to, easy to say, harder to hear. When I hear it, I translate it as “find someone to finish raising your children because so far you’ve sucked at it, buddy”.

The kinder, gentler me would advise instead to “Find the point in yourself when you know can’t do your work any good anymore.” Then find an editor. Simplified it, right?

How do you know it is time?

One hears a lot of wisdoms on how many times you should rewrite your work before turning it over to an editor. I’ve heard three the most. I have seen more than that more times more than I’ve seen it fewer times, most of the time. I am currently reading the “Book Relaunch” chapter on editing and their suggestion is “several”. So, how do you know?

I am sure I have completed three passes on my own for my metaphysical road trip novel, Back outta the World. I had not looked at it since last spring. In that time, I had somehow told myself that it was farther along than it was. Not sure how or why I came to that conclusion. Wishful thinking played a big part, I’m sure.

After reading the first page or two, I knew. It was not close to being ready to leave. I had no choice but to go back in full edit mode. The first couple paragraphs told me that my memory was faulty. I had not changed narrative voice in some spots. There was way too much showing and not enough telling. This child still needed me.

Your time has come

The reason I had been excited to get back to ‘Back outta the World‘ in the first place was that I have recently finished a shorter work, Ironjaws. Ironjaws is awaiting editing by a professional at the end of this month.

I can do no more for Ironjaws. It has resisted attempts to be a novel. It has evolved, changed, gained gravitas and even developed a sense of humor. I love it of course, but that’s what I’m supposed to do and how I’m supposed to feel about it.

But how to know it’s done? How to be sure it is ready for an editor? How to know when to stop writing and self – editing? How to know this child will not move back into his/her old room? The most decisive way is to experience what I did- realize that I have had NO urge to go back and tinker with it. None. No separation anxiety, if you will. My Ironjaws file has been sitting at this very keyboard, at my fingertips and been ignored for about a month now.

We both know it is time

It is the same with parenting. If you sacrifice your own time, truly give of yourself while raising your kids, then they are secure enough in themselves that when they are ready to leave, you know you’ve done your best. They know they are ready. You say something like, ‘Call if you need anything” but you both no they won’t. If your story or book hasn’t called to you for help, then off it goes. It is telling you it is ready, and who would know better??

If you don’t have older kids who have left the house, then still try listening to your story or novel. Put it away for a time and see if it calls to you. It’s your story and unique to you. You will know.

If you put in the time, you will know.

I haven’t got time for this

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February 1, 2022

One finger at a time

Have you got a second?

A few days ago, I was texting my brother. My daughter was watching me and commented, only partially joking, that she was “horrified” at how slowly I texted.

Yesterday, I finished writing my novella, Ironjaws. Please don’t tell my daughter this, but I started it 34 years ago.

It was not a case of writer’s block, procrastination, lack of ideas or problems with execution that prevented me from completing Ironjaws. The same applied to the text I was sending to my brother from my living room. In the case of the text, I replied, without looking up from my index finger only texting, that “He won’t be able to tell how long it took me when he reads it.”

I remembered that throw away comment just this morning. I didn’t really think about it when I said it, only recall being mildly irritated. Out of the mouths of one fingered texters come great truths. Which begets the question, why this obsession with speed, quickness, instant gratification & convenience? I’d like to answer that for you, but don’t have the time right now.

But I do have time to tell you that I started Ironjaws on Maynard Drive in Columbus, Ohio in the summer of 1988 or thereabouts. I was living in a double, with a tiny third back bedroom upstairs. It was only called a bedroom by the landlord so he could charge more to rent the place. It could have held a bed and possibly a tiny nightstand but not much more. I bought a secondhand desk and chair and turned it into my workspace. During that summer, I opened the window which looked out on the alley and the parking spaces for the double. There, without AC, I hacked out Ironjaws on a typewriter. Onto paper. One finger at a time.

Have you got 34 years?

The one finger at a time bit isn’t true, but the rest of it is. Written into paper or onto a laptop, the intent with Ironjaws was to write it, not finish it. I know I say 34 years to write it. It is more accurate to say that I was in my twenties when I started it, and in my fifties when I finished it. The intent. That is what really matters. Good luck measuring that. A quick text and novella are two very different things of course. Made more different if one is measuring each by using the amount of time needed to complete them. But, for me, they were way more similar than different in one way: I fulfilled my intent on both.

When I started writing Ironjaws, I was just a little more than a decade removed from the ages of the five main characters in the novella. The five are a basketball team who are just about ready to enter the 8th grade. They are on a fishing trip together on the last weekend of summer. A couple hours into the evening on the lake a stranger tells them about a legendary catfish named Ironjaws, who lives in the farther away, deep end of the lake. The five decide to head out into the night and try to catch the giant fish.

But there is so much more to Ironjaws than that. I figure it took me about 48 hours to physically write it and rewrite it with lots of life happening in between versions. I couldn’t finish it mostly though, because it wasn’t done. The story was waiting on me, in other words.

Buried in Ironjaws is the fate and futures of those five young men. Are they fated to be like their working-class fathers? Not a bad thing at all. But in the novella, Ironjaws is a metaphor for their hopes and dreams. Any and all dreams are still there in middle school. Or are they? Is it just a fisherman’s tale?

How long does intent last?

Ironjaws always contained a sense of romantic loss and wistfulness, of what might have been. The boy’s futures were never going to be playing shortstop for the Reds, driving at the Indy 500, or becoming the Hugh Hefner of the secondary auto parts industry. Back in my twenties in Columbus, Ohio I only suspected that, but now I know that, thanks partially to Facebook. I do know what did happened to those five 8th graders. I know now what I thought I knew when I started Ironjaws. And I put that into Ironjaws, more fully this last revision. Thus, making it the story it had waited 34 years to become. The intention was finally fulfilled, thanks mostly to the time it took.

Oh yea, you may be wondering what the text to my brother was? – “Almost done with Ironjaws, already thinking of starting the sequel.”