A Long Long Wait

It has been 22 years since I had a new book launch. I've done a lot of writing during those years. I've had an agent, well, two agents actually, who have worked with me, one I found and one who found me. I've written book reviews, lots of them, for newspapers and for Amazon. I've written a screenplay that's being passed around, and I've kept this blog (granted not as much in recent years) since 2009, but that kind of writing doesn't count much to readers. It's book they want. And it's books I want too. 

At my core, I'm a novelist. I need that long form to create a believable world, and that time to bring characters to life. I will never be a mystery writer, or a horror writer, or anything that requires a heavy plot line. That just isn't my style. It isn't even the kind of books I read. I don't fit easily into a category. My novels are too literary to be genre romance, even though they are romantic. But they're not literary enough to be classified in that category either. They're historical, but not generic historical romance. They don't always had happy endings. Sometimes I like to write from the male point-of-view. A few times, the entire book has come from the male point-of-view. The main thing for me is it has to hold my interest. I figure if I can hold my own interest -- someone so easily distracted by life -- then maybe it will hold a reader's interest, too. 

Anyway, the point of this blog post is, my 22-year drought is about to end. I have a new book, my fifth one, finally coming out in just a few weeks. The official pub date is April 26. Here's the cover art. I have to admit, I'm pretty excited. I'll let you know when you can go buy a copy, because I just know you will want to do that, right? 

I started working on this novel in 2000, made two research trips to England, read a hundred-gazillion books on World War II. I sat in the cockpit of a Spitfire, and watched one fly in an airshow in Duxford where the Americans of the 8th Army Air Corps were stationed. I met the president of the Hurricane Fighter Pilots Association, who showed me all around the south of England to what remained of old airdromes. And I made friends with an American WWII fighter pilot, a real-life one, who flew and fought over the skies of Europe, a generous gentleman who gave me so much material it overwhelmed me. He opened his home to me after a single email, showed me his war chest full of souvenirs like his flight helmet and his bail-out kit, all still intact. We became real friends, phonecalls, lunches, library visits. He lived in San Antonio, it wasn't a far drive for me. I do so wish I could give Jack a copy of this book, but sadly he passed away a few years ago. I know he would recognize some of the good ideas he gave me. Our WWII heros are passing quickly. We have to cherish and honor them. They saved the world. (I believe the world is going to need saving once again. And soon.)

But back to the journey I traveled writing this book. In the middle of it, I got a divorce. My 34-year marriage, when it ended, stopped the writing. And then I met a new man, fell in love at age 54! and that stopped the writing, again. Who has time for writing when you're falling in love, learning about a new person, making trips together to places like to Ireland, and Montana, and Alaska? Oh, and did I mention getting a "day" job, which required, you guessed it, hours and hours on a computer. Last thing I wanted to do when I got home was sit in front of a computer for another few hours. In short, for the past -- let's say 15 years anyway -- I have been living my life, and mostly daydreaming about finishing this book. I even took to calling it The Endless Novel before I heard a line in an old WWII song and the real title finally came to me: 

"It's still the same old story, a fight FOR LOVE AND GLORY, a case of do or die, the world will always welcome lovers, as time goes by...."  

That's all. My big announcement. Next, comes the part I hate -- promotion. But that's a little bit of what this blog is all about, promoting. So I hope I haven't bored you to tears, or seemed too full of myself. It's more relief that it finally got done than beating my own drum. Now, let's see what happens with it. Keep. your fingers crossed for me!

Onward...

On the Road in New Mexico

Leaving Raton, NM on a cloudy, cold morning. The thermometer in the car says 28 degrees, but it feels colder than that because it’s more humid than we’re used to now than we’ve spent a week in Colorado. But this is a pretty town with some interesting history, and I hope we can come back this summer, maybe around July 4th when they have a big balloon festival with the mountains in the background.

We stopped here on our way to Denver, and in fact, stayed in the same hotel. They remembered us because of our dog. Not everybody comes with a big black dog with pointed ears. There wasn’t much of a place to walk her, but more than the other places we saw when we came through this town the first time. A frozen creek ran behind and below the hotel parking lot, but there was really no grass to speak of. She didn’t care. She finds something to interest her everywhere she goes. Great dog. She really is.

Last night, we asked the hotel clerk where to eat and he gave us a good suggestion. The restaurant used to be a candy factory and they had vintage photos on the walls. The chandeliers were made of old taffy paddles. Pretty unique. I had grilled Rocky Mountain brook trout and my SO was hungry for pasta. Both of us were full as ticks when we left, and then had a lazy evening at the hotel. He watched TV and I started a new book I’d brought to read. That was at about 6:30. By 9:30 I had finished it. Wonderful true story, and it inspired me, made me tear up a little at the end. I had the desire to jump up and start working on something. Been thinking about my WWII novel -- the endless novel -- an awful lot on this trip.

Before I went to bed I opened my email. Lo and behold, an email came from the filmmaker in response to my long and detailed criticism of her script. She was very positive about my objections to the changes and explained why she had made some of them, but was generous in offering to make new changes that would incorporate my suggestions. The only thing she was not able to accommodate me about was the location changes. That’s due to the fact that they’ll be filming in Alberta, and the mountains there are going to be very hard to disguise. So I get that and even have a few ideas myself about how to make that work better than it does in the present version.

So I’m feeling better about the whole deal and am prepared to sign a new contract with her. I have already expressed that I want this one to have a definite time limit. We’ve been at this for almost ten years now, and enough is enough. I still want to try to write a screenplay myself, think I could be good at it, although there’s nothing that says a screenplay, just because it's written, will make it onto the screen. I understand how hard it to get something produced. But it still would be fun to try to write one all the way through to the end, and I’m thinking could be a good writing exercise if nothing else. I will go ahead and buy that Final Draft software after we get home.

We’re on our way to Cimarron, New Mexico as I write this. The SO has a customer there, and an appointment to see them at 9:30 this morning, so we had to dash out of the hotel. If I get home with all I brought it will be a miracle.

Onward ....

Resonance

Resonance: When something echoes something else and deepens it. Makes it mean something more than it meant at first.

Pondering this morning "the novel," the long-stranded stack of papers asleep somewhere in my office, or in several places in my office -- boxes, wire baskets, file cabinets, on two computers, in my mind, locked in the recesses. I've told myself that the novel was irrelevant to my life now, that I was uninterested in writing a long piece of fiction again, that I had moved on, that writing fiction seemed too mundane, too overly intense, too frivolous in light of world events. Oh, I've given myself lots and lots of excuses. Excuses have always been a forte of mine.

Here are some of the truths: It's hard. It takes more time than I've been willing to give it. More concentration, keeping all those details corraled in my head. I haven't felt I wanted to exit the world long enough to finish a novel, any novel. I'm disappointed with the business end of publishing, don't like the "appearances" a writer has to make, don't like the fact that my hard work isn't mine anymore once a publisher takes it on. It's partly fear of failure, and it's partly being a control freak and not liking when something so personal is taken out of my control. But it's also not knowing how to finish the damned thing.

I've said to myself so many times that it would only take about three months of pure concentration to get the thing done, and that's probably a pretty fair estimate. But there has also been this roadblock, this wondering just what in the hell the thing is REALLY about, feeling it needed that kernel of truth that would make it worth reading, that would make it resonate for any given reader. And not knowing how to give that, if it's even in me to give.

So here I am this morning, before daybreak, reading someone else's work and thinking about resonance, what it means, why it makes a piece of fiction work. It depends, of course, on why a person reads, and I can only speak for myself. But it's the stories that resonate, the ones that stick around, the ones that make me feel I've reached some new level of understanding, and it's this resonance that the "endless novel" doesn't have. Right now, it's pretty much of an exercise in history, of research, of character building, but it doesn't have any deeper meaning, anything that would cause it to especially stick in a reader's mind.

It opens with an unexpected death, and continues with what that death causes the primary character to do, choices he makes, the road he embarks upon, but nowhere is that death, or the propulsion it causes, echoed. Nowhere is there a deepening of meaning, a new understanding. And it has never occurred to me until this morning that it's really this thing that's lacking that has caused this novel to abort and languish.

Should it take ten years for a writer to figure such a simple thing out? No, not one who is focused and I have been completely unfocused for a long time. But just figuring out a way to express what's wrong with the thing doesn't fix it. Pondering the significance of this morning's revelation, there's still the fact that I have to devote real time to it if I ever want to see it to fruition. Think I've been too busy actually living life.

The friend I mentioned a few postings ago, who went into the hospital for knee-replacement surgery and ended up in a coma, has gone home and he is damaged. Everyone is hoping it isn't damage beyond repair, that in time his brain will finally right itself, but he's still confused, barely ambulatory, and maybe more upsetting, he's angry and depressed. My SO and I are driving over this morning later to look after him while his wife goes to the beauty shop. She needs the outing, but both of us are dreading the trip. Up until last night just the SO was going, but I could see how he was longing for me to offer my time, so I did. He jumped on it, and so I will set aside writing once again and help him with his good old friend. And I don't mind this, certainly not the way I probably should. There are times, though, when I do feel superficial, personally unproductive. And more troubling, it would be very easy for me to continue along this path. It's an easy path, it's fun, it's a lot less stressful than making myself vulnerable, which is what any writer does when they decide to open that proverbial vein and lay it all out on paper -- or more appropriately for the times -- the computer screen.

The first real norther is on its way. Windy as hell yesterday, and already gusty this morning as the sun starts to lighten the sky. For some reason we've had an outstanding crop of acorns, and they were pounding the ground yesterday as the wind threshed the limbs of all the oaks. The bed of the pickup was layered with them. They're underfoot wherever you walk. With the serious drought we've had the last two years, so many acorns are a shock, another example of nature assuring its continuance.

Onward ....