Hi to both subscribers and anyone new to this page, Liegois Media. On the first weekend of each month, I post this monthly newsletter about a teacher, ex-journalist, and part-time novelist from eastern Iowa (me, Jason Liegois) and what’s been going on with me, especially when it comes to my writing. I have three novels and a small poetry collection to my name after years of thinking about writing but not doing much of it.

I can’t wait to share what I’ve been working on, but for this edition of the newsletter, I want to focus on the personal writing goals I set for myself at the beginning of 2025, how they in some cases changed over the year, and whether or not I achieved them. Then, I’ll discuss what the goals for 2026 will be, which have certainly been shaped by the results of 2025’s goals.

Writing Goals 2025: The results

For the past several years since I have been writing this blog (and previous ones), I have made what I pointedly do not call New Year’s resolutions (too much bad juju with the term) but call yearly goals instead. At the end of the year or the start of the new one, I like to look back and see how successful I have been at reaching/achieving those goals. So, I will list them below, and review where I am at with each goal in turn.

At the time I listed these goals in January of last year, I called the first two of these “hard” goals and the second two “soft” goals. And during the course of the year, there were a couple items that popped up as well.

1. I pledged to write a minimum 200,000 words, with the intention of cracking the 225,000 mark this year if at all possible. And with my results during the past two years, I should be able to make my daily minimum writing goals at least 80 percent of the time. These daily minimum writing goals (or should I say quotas?) are: I require myself to write at least 500 words per day or spend at least 30 minutes a day revising or planning for ongoing or prospective projects.
   Over the course of the year, I decided to make this 225,000 number a hard goal. I also didn’t put as much emphasis on the daily goals as I did last year, although it didn’t make too much of a difference either way.
   RESULT: SUCCESS!
   I managed to limp over the 225,000-word mark late in the evening of 30 December 2025, even though I actually had a decent New Year’s Eve writing session. I’ll list the full totals below.
   2025:
   Words (total): 226,283
   Words (monthly average): 18,857
   Revising and planning time (total): 9,705 minutes
   Revising and planning time (monthly average): 809 minutes
   Daily writing goals met: 85%
   By any stretch of the imagination, this is a massively successful year for me, even though looking at the half-year totals I wrote 1,000 less words during the second half of the year as opposed to the first half. It is a record word count total for me ever since I started keeping track of word count back in 2018. (The 53,878 words I wrote that year seems so small now.). The yearly total is more than 1,000 words above my 2024 total, and it is the fourth consecutive year I have managed to increase my word count total over the previous year. The 9,705 minutes I spent revising and/or planning were the most I have ever dedicated to the activity, topping the 8,955 minute record I set back in 2018. Meeting my writing goals 85 percent of the time matches the all-time level I set in 2023.
2. Get the rough draft of [The Yank Striker’s Journey]done by the end of [January], with an eventual release date of late May or early June. It would be a tight turnaround, but I don’t think it would be impossible.
   RESULT: DIDN’T QUITE GET THINGS DONE ON TIME, BUT STILL A SUCCESS.
   I did manage to get the rough draft of this book done by the end of January, but I underestimated the leg work I had to undertake regarding revisions, getting my manuscript out to beta readers, working with my publisher, and getting everything ready for the cover art of my book. To make a long story short, I managed to get The Yank Striker’s Journey published during the first part of July. I was still impressed because I managed to get a book written in less than two years which is an absolute record for me. In all, it was a fantastic experience and I’m elated at how the finished edition turned out. Looking forward to getting the next book done, though which book that will be is a question for this year’s goals.
3. [As of January 2024 – not a typo], I have 24,004 words written on The Untitled Pro Wrestling Project. I would like to make similar progress on this manuscript over the course of this year. It would be fantastic if I had a full rough draft on my hands, but I’m not quite committed to the idea – yet.
   RESULT: PARTIAL SUCCESS
   I have since given this series the official title of Kayfabe Stories. This is a story about a family of pro wrestlers from Texas and a member of this family, an aspiring young writer, who is determined to understand what it all means. As I’ll mention below, I don’t talk about my book-sized projects until they are ready to be published, so what I have been working on will be titled Kayfabe Stories 1 until we are ready to go with it.
   As of now, I have written 50,440 words for Kayfabe Stories 1 at this point, which is a huge level of progress from where I was. What pace I want to get this done is an open question.
4. As far as my poetry, I would like to continue to add to my collection of original work. Whether I want to put together another chapbook this year might be an open question. I would like to get my poems published in an outside publication, whether it be a poetry periodical or something regional. I have no acquaintance with this whole process, so I am sure this will be a full learning experience.
   RESULT: MOSTLY A SUCCESS
   By my count, I wrote twenty-nine poems this calendar year. This is by far the most productive I have ever been on a poetry front.
   My poem “Peace of Mind” was published in Lyrical Iowa 2025, the annual anthology of the Iowa Poetry Association. It was a great experience for me, and I was happy to be published in an edition dedicated to Rodney Reeves, a poetry acquaintance from Burlington, Iowa, who was an officer with the IPA at the time of his passing last year.

New Year, New Goals for 2026

…a mixed bag. The first of these goals will be word count/quota oriented, while the remainder will be centered on the projects I have in development at the moment¹.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: All project titles of works currently in development are working titles unless otherwise noted. I often have solid titles in mind for these projects, but I’m a bit superstitious about revealing them until they are close to publication. The names of the series I mention in this newsletter, however, are the true names.

1. Since I made it to 225,000 words last year, I think I would like to try and make it to at least that number in 2026. If I push myself, I think I could even make it to 230,000 words. That sounds like a nice, round number, doesn’t it²?
   I’m not going to worry about reaching what I call my daily writing goal (or maybe quota would be a better term for it) more than I did last year. I keep my goal for this at 80 percent completion of those daily goals.
   Timetable: End of year.
2. The book I want to complete the soonest is a project I currently call The Land, the River, and the Waste (LRW). It is a sci-fi/horror novel set in Iowa, leaning on the environmental damage being done to my home state. Think of Night of the Living Dead, The Purge, The Crazies, Fast Food Nation, Dear Marty, We Crapped in Our Nest, and The Swine Republic poured into the creative stew of my head, along with some hometown and later memories. I’m now more than 23,000 words into the rough draft of the book.
   Timetable: Rough draft completed by the first half of 2026, publication (in one form or another) by the holiday season of 2026 (hope, hope?).
3. The Fool Series. The Fool 2 is the sequel to my debut novel, The Holy Fool,whichwas a story about Iowa native Samuel “Sonny” Turner, a newspaper columnist for the Chicago Journal. Set in the fall of 2008, Sonny’s mentor and editor Gus tasks him with investigating the paper’s unscrupulous owner and his plans to sell the paper to a rival. In part, it is my own autopsy of the state of American journalism and what might take its place.
   The Fool 2 revisits Sonny in 2024. He’s left Chicago and founded his own news site, The Fool. In addition to the US’s chaotic political situation, he’s dealing with life as an emigrant in Switzerland and raising his family and children there.
   I’m past 11,000 words on this rough draft. Of the sequels to my works, this is the one I want to get wrapped up first because I want to turn it into a small series, at least. I want to see how the events of 2026 shake out in this country and around the world before I decide on how to wrap it up. The fact that much of the action has occurred in Chicago will be useful for my purposes. However, I want to finish LRW first.
   Timetable: Rough draft by the end of 2026, publication ASAP afterwards.
4. The Yank Striker 3 (YS3). The Yank Striker series follows the exploits of DJ Ryan, a fledgling American soccer player who leaves his family behind to try his fortune with an English Premier League team in the East End of London. This has more information about the first book in the series, and this link will brief you in about Book 2, The Yank Striker’s Journey. YS3 continues DJ’s growth as a footballer as he faces both setbacks and opportunities.
   Despite the fact I’m over 20,000 words of a rough draft into this project, I think I might keep this on a back burner for a while. While I love the story and its continuation from The Yank Striker’s Journey, I don’t think I can justify going three books into a series when I want to diversify the things I’m writing about (see LRW).
   Timetable: As of right now, I do not have a timetable for when I want to have a rough draft or publication, but it will be after LRW and The Fool 2.
5. Kayfabe Stories:
   The first book (Kayfabe Stories 1) will not be a priority until I at least get a rough draft done for LRW.
   Timetable: ??? for a rough draft and publication, but I’m too far ahead to stop now.

For now, this will be the extent of my writing goals for the year. Hopefully, I’ll be as successful with my goals for 2026 as I was for 2025.

Personal News

It’s been a bit of strangeness as 2025 has ticked over into 2026, but there have been far better journalists who have commented on these issues, so I will leave it to them to do so.

The biggest situation was the death of my mother in law.

Marlene passed away on the last weekend of December. She was in her late 80’s and frankly had been in poor health ever since she’d broken her leg on Christmas Day two years previously. However, that doesn’t make it any easier for either my wife, her three sisters, and my kids and nieces and nephews.

She ran a tavern in Muscatine for more than 30 years and did much to look after her family, customers, and community, and she’s the main reason my wife was the amazing person she became. She’ll be missed by all of us.

Writing Quote(s) of the Month:

This is a good idea to keep in mind especially when you start revising your own work.

When all the details fit in perfectly, something is probably wrong with the story.

― Charles Baxter, Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction

It’s fascinating when you think of an issue (in this case, how writers portray characters of different genders) as being contemporary, only to find out people were talking about this issue centuries previously.

I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are or should be written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.

― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

When I Post

Check out this post for when and what I post on a regular basis.

How to support me😊.

As always, go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile on mobile. If you follow the links, you will be able to buy both the paperback and ebook versions of my books on Amazon. If you just put “Jason Liegois” in Google. you’ll find them on the first page of search results.

I have quite a few places that now carry at least some of my books, some of the many great and fantastic independent bookstores in Iowa and the Midwest.
These are the bookstores you’ll find at least some of my work³:

• Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St. Fort Madison.
• Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
• The Corner and More, 703 Main St., Mediapolis.
• Green Point Mercantile, 217 E. 2nd St., Muscatine.
• The Brewed Book, 1524 Harrison St., Davenport.
• The Black Rose, 116 W. Main St., West Branch
• Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines.
• Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
• The Atlas Collective, 1801 5th Ave, Moline, Illinois – my first out of Iowa bookstore, very proud of this.

I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.

For those who are budget conscious among all of you, my books are part of the collections of the Fort Madison, Burlington, and Musser (Muscatine) public libraries.

My poetry book The Flow and the Journey is available at Bent Oak, Green Point, Burlington By the Book, and The Corner and More, but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook on my WordPress site, Liegois Media. If you want to get a physical copy, go ahead and click on the button below.

The Flow and the Journey

The first collection of poetry from author Jason Liegois.

$6.00

Shop now

If you don’t have the budget for a paid subscription, feel free to just send me a one-time payment of whatever you have the budget for.

Final Thoughts

2025 is in the books, and I’m hoping 2026 is as eventful or successful, or more eventful and successful, than the last year. Best wishes to everyone.

All you writers keep writing and everyone take care of themselves.

-30-

While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

1. In yet another attempt to try and keep this modest little newsletter from seeming repetitive, I might attempt to write some pocket summaries of the projects I am working on and just hyperlink them to the newsletters. I’ll likely try this next month. ↩︎
2. I usually make it to 200,000 words by around Thanksgiving of each year for the past couple of years. ↩︎
3. All Iowa locations unless otherwise noted. ↩︎

Hi to both subscribers and anyone new to this page, The Writing Life with Jason Liegois. My official Writing Life blog, which I post on the first weekend of each month, is my monthly newsletter discussing my upcoming writing projects, things having to do with writing, and what’s been going on with me in my corner of southeastern Iowa along the Mississippi River. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with the rest of the world¹.

Let’s talk about writing and life, then.

Personal Items…

After a too-short fall (as it often tends to be in Iowa) some heavy snows this past week have heralded the arrival of winter. Again, I’m not sure whether my parents coming from Wisconsin or the mix of Norwegian and German heritage in my background, but I usually don’t get phased by the onset of winter. It’s time for herbal teas at night, huddling beneath fleece blankets to keep the chill away, and moonlit snow and ice.

Of course, there’s the inconvenience of icy sidewalks and roads, but I can manage it (and the decline of sunlight) easier than I can deal with the near tropical heat you can find in Iowa between June and August. I mean, I can always go outside in December as long as I have a sensible parka, gloves and hat, and footwear with sturdy treading. In late June I only head outside if I want to lose a pound or two to the sauna outside, and there’s not too many types of clothing which will help with that type of heat.

I’ve often wondered what would happen if I did get a chance to live in colder climates where winter is a serious thing. I was scrolling around on YouTube the other day and I saw some videos produced by a couple who live in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Svalbard is a group of Norwegian islands north of their mainland and well above the Arctic Circle, and right about now they are seeing sunset at 2 p.m. in the afternoon. Part of me fears if I was dropped into that environment, I’d want to run back to Iowa in a fortnight. Or maybe it would be the opposite and I’d get interested in narwhal hunting out on the open sea. It’s a fun “what if?” scenario, at least. For now, Iowa’s cold enough.

Writing Projects

I’ve decided to change things up a little in how I present these projects, so you’ll see that here. Hopefully, it will be easier for anyone to follow along.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: All project titles of works currently in development are working titles unless otherwise noted. I often have solid titles in mind for these projects, but I’m a bit superstitious about revealing them until they are close to publication². The names of the series I mention in this newsletter, however, are the true names.

The Land, The River, and the Waste

LRW, for short, is a sci-fi/horror novel set in Iowa, leaning on the environmental damage being done to my home state. I decided, “What would it take to really get people’s attention to this issue, enough to do something about it?” In speculating on this question, my mind took some wild twists and turns. I started writing this on Halloween Night of this year, and I do believe I might as well set the climax on a Halloween night. Think of Night of the Living Dead, The Purge, The Crazies, Fast Food Nation, Dear Marty, We Crapped in Our Nest, and The Swine Republic poured into the creative stew of my head, along with some hometown and later memories.

I’m now more than 17,000 words into the book and probably around the end of the first act already. Part of me feels like I could use more research into this world, but I have the feeling at least with the rough draft, I need to just to let things rip and get it down on the page.

This is the story that seems to be calling to me now. Every time I return to this setting along the river, to these people, it feels like I’m home. I have no idea how it’s getting published, but it will even if I have to do it myself, I want to get it done.

Timetable: Rough draft completed by the first half of 2026, publication (in one form or another) by the holiday season of 2026 (hope, hope?).

My Ongoing Series (The Yank Striker and The Fool Series)

• The Fool 2: This is the sequel to my debut novel, The Holy Fool, which I’ve decided after the fact will be the first book in my The Fool Series.Briefly, The Holy Fool was a story about Iowa native Samuel “Sonny” Turner, a newspaper columnist for the Chicago Journal, a longtime journalistic institution in the city. In the fall of 2008, in the shadows of the 2008 presidential election and the oncoming Great Recession, he’s tasked by his editor and mentor with protecting his newspaper from sale by its unscrupulous owner. In part, it is my own autopsy of the state of American journalism and what might take its place.
  The Fool 2 revisits Sonny in 2024, sixteen years after he’s left Chicago and founded his own news site, The Fool, with a combination of old Chicago comrades and new recruits. In addition to the US’ chaotic political situation and Sonny’s plan to cover it from a distance with the help of his American colleagues, he’s dealing with life as an emigrant to the unfamiliar land of Switzerland, and raising his family and children there.
  I’m past 10,000 words on this rough draft. Of the sequels to my works, this is the one I want to get wrapped up first. Partly, this is a mathematical equation, since a series, by definition, needs to have more than one book in it. It’s probably going to take me longer to write this since under the circumstances, I want to see how the events of 2026 shake out in this country and around the world before I decide on how to wrap it up. The fact that much of the action of this year has occurred in Chicago will be useful for my purposes³.
  Timetable: Rough draft by the end of 2026, publication ASAP afterwards.

Kayfabe Stories

• Kayfabe Stories: This is a story about a family of pro wrestlers from Texas and a member of this family, an aspiring young writer, who is determined to understand what it all means.
  Not much on this project (Kayfabe Stories 1) this month, although I have been reviewing outlines for this project, which I’ve already written more than 50,000 words. Although it will not be a priority until I at least get a rough draft done for LRW, I do want to write a scene where the patriarch of the family steps into the squared circle for the first time. That will be a good one.
• Timetable: ??? for a rough draft and publication, but I’m too far ahead to stop now.

Some Acknowledgements

I want to thank the Burlington Public Library for inviting me to be part of their Sterling Lord Author’s Showcase earlier last month. It was a fantastic experience and I definitely would like to return next year. The keynote presentation by Iowa journalist Robert Leonard was an excellent event, as well.

I don’t have any new events scheduled in the near future, but I’ll be back in contact with some of the locations I’ve been at during this year and see what the plans are for next year. I also plan on contacting some of the local independent book stores which are carrying my books and see if I can make some arrangements with them. I’d love to do some holiday-related events if possible.

This is my obligatory announcement that if any podcasters or bloggers are interested in new fiction, if you are interested in stories based in the worlds of journalism and soccer, or if you are interested in featuring writers from Iowa or the Midwest, I would absolutely be open for a feature or interview. Get in touch here or at jasonliegois@liegois.media.

Writing Quote(s) Of the Month (Special Stephen King edition):

Decided to go with two inspirational quotes by one of my literary heroes, Stephen King. The first one touches on why I think writing is special to me, and the other one is about how he sees storytelling.

Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.

― Stephen King

Let’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up

― Stephen King, On Writing

When I Post

Check out this post for when and what I post on a regular basis.

How to support me😊.

As always, go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile on mobile. If you follow the links, you will be able to buy both the paperback and ebook versions of my books on Amazon. If you just put “Jason Liegois” in Google. you’ll find them on the first page of search results.

I have quite a few places that now carry at least some of my books, some of the many great and fantastic independent bookstores in Iowa and the Midwest.
These are the bookstores you’ll find at least some of my work⁴:

• Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St. Fort Madison.
• Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
• The Corner and More, 703 Main St., Mediapolis.
• Green Point Mercantile, 217 E. 2nd St., Muscatine.
• The Brewed Book, 1524 Harrison St., Davenport.
• The Black Rose, 116 W. Main St., West Branch
• Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines.
• Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
• The Atlas Collective, 1801 5th Ave, Moline, Illinois – my first out of Iowa bookstore, very proud of this.

I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.

For those who are budget conscious among all of you, my books are part of the collections of the Fort Madison, Burlington, and Musser (Muscatine) public libraries.

My poetry book The Flow and the Journey is available at Bent Oak, Green Point, Burlington By the Book, and The Corner and More, but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook on my WordPress site, Liegois Media. If you want to get a physical copy, go ahead and click on the button below.

The Flow and the Journey

The first collection of poetry from author Jason Liegois.

$6.00

Shop now

If you don’t have the budget for a paid subscription, feel free to just send me a one-time payment of whatever you have the budget for.

Final Thoughts

As usual, all you writers keep writing, and all of you keep safe. See you down the road.

Also, happy holidays.

-30-

While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

1. Apologies to regular readers if some of this is repetitive. With these newsletters, I have to balance giving you all good original content and getting all the new viewers of this blog up to speed. There’s a reason I cut down writing the regular newsletter to a monthly post rather than a weekly post. 😄 ↩︎
2. Feel free to tell me if I’m just being wussy about this. I don’t think I need to truly name a thing in public unless it is closer to becoming a reality. It seems to be bad karma in my mind. ↩︎
3. And some of the action will take place in Iowa, trust me. ↩︎
4. All Iowa locations unless otherwise noted. ↩︎

It’s already November? Last month just flew by, but thank goodness we finally have fall weather in Iowa. I remember a year ago still waking up to 80 degree afternoons and wondering if I’d ever feel cool again. However, it feels lovely outside now.

This month, I’m going to discuss a big change with my writing focus that happened this past weekend, some thank yous go out to some great hosts of author events over the past month or so, as well as all the normal odds and ends.

Personal Items…

Thank goodness it turned into fall in Iowa during the last couple of weeks. Somewhere in October we went from 80 degree highs one day to twenty degrees cooler the next. I’m sorry, but if I wanted to live in Texas or Florida I’d be there. Proper fall weather is the best.

I’m already a fourth of the way through the school year. I like teaching, and I like special education, but I’ve previously made the analogy that teaching is like running a marathon with your brain even in the best years. It is an intense experience, but I’m glad I have a good group of co-workers and administrators.

That’s enough real life; let’s get to the writing.

Writing Projects

As it turns out, I’ve decided to change the focus of my writing priorities a bit.

I’ve mentioned something I’ve referred to as The Untitled Iowa Series. For at least a few years, I’ve had the idea of setting some fiction in a small Iowa town on the Mississippi River not much different from the ones I’ve lived in for the past few decades. It seemed to call to me, become a setting to explore the current social and political environment from a small community standpoint. And frankly, I want to reach more Iowa and Midwest readers by putting out something they might get into.

The first one I will refer to for now as The Land, The River, and The Waste (LRW)¹. It will be a sci-fi/horror novel set in Iowa, leaning on the environmental damage being done to my home state. I decided, “What would it take to really get people’s attention to this issue, enough to do something about it?” In speculating on this question, my mind took some wild twists and turns, and all of them started to head toward the horror/sci-fi route.
I went from the beginning of this month mildly considering what this town and some of its residents might be like, to coming up with main characters, to outlining the main story of LRW, to openly asking fellow authors and visitors to the book fairs I attended last month whether they’d be interested in the type of story I was thinking of. (The reactions I got were overwhelmingly positive.)
After doing quite a bit of soul-searching, consideration, and this informal market research, I started writing the rough draft beginning Halloween night. If you’re curious, I put out a video commemorating the start of this process. Or just watch it below.

The other book I’ve got an idea for in this series I’m calling The Heart Project. This is a speculative/fantasy/soft sci-fi story I have in mind involving four one-time friends, a high school reunion, and a microcosm of a larger sense of chaos. The vast majority of the story would be focused in Iowa, even though it touches on events occurring nationwide and globally. Until I’ve made further progress on LRW and other projects, I’m going to keep this quiet for a while.

Other projects in various stages of completion are:

• The Yank Striker 3 (YS3). The Yank Striker series follows the exploits of DJ Ryan, a fledgling American soccer player who leaves his family behind to try his fortune with an English Premier League team in the East End of London. This has more information about the first book in the series, and this link will brief you in about Book 2, The Yank Striker’s Journey. YS3 continues DJ’s growth as a footballer as he faces both setbacks and opportunities.
  I’ve actually reached the 20,000-work mark with this rough draft, and it’s been taking up a good portion of my creative bandwidth. I had had a soft deadline of having this book ready to go by 2026 sometime, but I’ve had something of a change of heart on this.
  I do believe in this story, but it somehow feels unbalanced to have three out of four published novels be about a single series when I have other stories to tell. And they’ve been calling to me. So, I will finish this story, but it will be a slightly lower priority than some others.
• The Fool 2: This is the sequel to my debut novel, The Holy Fool. It was a thriller featuring Samuel “Sonny” Turner, a newspaper columnist for the Chicago Journal, tasked by his editor and mentor with protecting his newspaper from sale by its unscrupulous owner during the 2008 presidential election and Great Recession.
  The sequel revisits Sonny in 2024, sixteen years after he’s left Chicago and founded his news site, The Fool. In addition to the chaotic political situation the US is now in and how he plans to cover it from a distance with the help of his American colleagues, he’s also dealing with life as an emigrant to the unfamiliar land of Switzerland, and raising his family and children there.
  It’s a timely story worth telling, but something about the story makes me want to wait and see how events play out in real time. I see this story being book-ended by the 2024 and 2026 elections, so I’m thinking perhaps a 2027 release at this point. I’m too much of a believer in journalism to be a force of good in communities not to have a love for the craft, and there are plenty of independent journalists who are trying to do the work properly such as the writers of the Iowa Writers Collaborative Roundup.
  So, we’ll see how this progresses. I’m now past the 10,000-word mark on this project, and it looks like I’m going to put more work into it, even though I think the feeling of writing historical fiction as the history occurs will me much like building the railroad as the train creeps forward behind me.

• Kayfabe Stories: This is a story about a family of pro wrestlers from Texas and a member of this family, an aspiring young writer, who is determined to understand what it all means.
  All quiet on the Western Front when it comes to this project.

Thank Yous and Another Appearance

I want to thank Tyler Granger, the lead organizer of the Windsor Heights Book Fair, and the Iowa City Book Festival for hosting me at their book fairs earlier last month. I had a great time at both places, and I’m looking forward to returning to both places next year.

I also want to thank the Urbandale Public Library’s for allowing me to participate in their book fair last weekend on short notice. I truly appreciated the opportunity and look forward to being back there soon.

This coming Saturday, 8 November, I’ll be at the Burlington Public Library as part of their Sterling Lord Author’s Showcase. I’ll be at the library beginning at 9 a.m and there through at least noon and perhaps into the afternoon, as well. The library has been a big supporter of both me and area authors, and I’m excited to take part in this annual event for the first time.

This is my obligatory announcement that if any podcasters or bloggers are interested in new fiction, if you are interested in stories based in the worlds of journalism and soccer, or if you are interested in featuring writers from Iowa or the Midwest, I would absolutely be open for a feature or interview. Get in touch here or at jasonliegois@liegois.media.

Writing Quote(s) of the Month:

This pretty much says it about why I decided to move forward with LRW.

My bursting heart must find vent at my pen.
― Abigail Adams

This is always a good reminder.

The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

When I Post

Check out this post for when and what I post on a regular basis.

How to support me😊.

As always, go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile on mobile. If you follow the links, you will be able to buy both the paperback and ebook versions of my books on Amazon. If you just put “Jason Liegois” in Google. you’ll find them on the first page of search results.

I have quite a few places that now carry at least some of my books, some of the many great and fantastic independent bookstores in Iowa and the Midwest.
These are the bookstores you’ll find at least some of my work²:

• Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St. Fort Madison.
• Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
• The Corner and More, 703 Main St., Mediapolis.
• Green Point Mercantile, 217 E. 2nd St., Muscatine.
• The Brewed Book, 1524 Harrison St., Davenport.
• The Black Rose, 116 W. Main St., West Branch
• Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines.
• Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
• The Atlas Collective, 1801 5th Ave, Moline, Illinois – my first out of Iowa bookstore, very proud of this.

I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.

For those who are budget conscious among all of you, my books are part of the collections of the Fort Madison, Burlington, and Musser (Muscatine) public libraries.

My poetry book The Flow and the Journey is available at Bent Oak, Green Point, Burlington By the Book, and The Corner and More, but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook on my WordPress site, Liegois Media. If you want to get a physical copy, go ahead and click on the button below.

The Flow and the Journey

The first collection of poetry from author Jason Liegois.

$6.00

Shop now

If you don’t have the budget for a paid subscription, feel free to just send me a one-time payment of whatever you have the budget for.

Final Thoughts

All you writers keep writing, and all of you keep safe. See you down the road.

-30-

While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

1. I’m too superstitious to release the actual title of my books until they are closer to publication. ↩︎
2. All Iowa locations unless otherwise noted. ↩︎

Hi, and welcome to the October edition of my official newsletter. I’ll talk about what is going on with me having to do with my writing projects, my personal appearances if I’m making them, and some other personal items and other odds and ends with some tenuous connection to writing. I try not to take it way too seriously, although writing is life to me, absolutely.

So, let’s talk writing and a couple other things.

Those Personal Items…

You can’t tell from the photo immediately above this text, but it is entirely too hot for the end of September/early October around the state of Iowa. On the day of my school’s homecoming last Friday, we hit a high of 90 degrees Fahrenheit. For those who were reading this newsletter around the same time last year, you must have read of how I nearly had a panic attack wondering if I’d ever feel cool again in this state.

Well, based on the most recent weather reports, I’m hopeful we will stay under 80 degrees after this weekend. It would be nice to have an October that feels like actual fall weather I remember experiencing in past falls. Both my daughter and younger niece, in particular, are great fans of fall and the Halloween season, and would appreciate some more appropriate weather.

Otherwise, I don’t have much to say about my my personal circumstances. The school year keeps rolling as always, and I am always trying to learn something new about how to teach. I’m not sure I’ll ever stop learning about teaching for as long as I do it. Then again, the fact people have been paying me in one way or another to write for the past thirty years or so and I have not learned everything there is to learn about it might have been a good hint at the answer.

Writing Projects

Time to take a look at my ongoing projects, in varying steps of production.

• ¹The top of my priorities at the moment is The Yank Striker 3 (AKA YS3, AKA Working Title): The Yank Striker series follows the exploits of Daniel John “DJ” Ryan, a fledgling American soccer player who leaves his family behind to try his fortune with an English Premier League team in the East End of London. Check this out if you want more information about the first book in the series, and this link if you want to know more about Book 2, The Yank Striker’s Journey².
• YS3 continues DJ’s story as he tries to grow as a footballer, despite new challenges and an unexpected event that could either be a setback or opportunity.
• I spent most of my time this week on this project. I’m currently over 15,000 words on the rough draft. If you’re curious about who DJ’s interacting with in this part of the manuscript, he’s facing a fellow American gridiron coach’s son who has now gone over to the true football³ and meeting someone who might be important to his personal life.
• Someone needs to guess what the title of the new book is. Seriously.

• Either number two or three priority, depending on the moment, is the sequel to my debut novel, The Holy Fool. This journalism thriller features Samuel “Sonny” Turner, a newspaper columnist tasked by his editor and mentor with protecting his newspaper, the Chicago Journal, from sale by its unscrupulous owner and breaking a major story on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars during the 2008 presidential election and Great Recession.
• The sequel revisits Sonny beginning in 2024, sixteen years after he’s left Chicago and founded his news site, The Fool. In addition to the … let’s say volatile political situation his birth country is now in and how he plans to cover it from a distance, he’s also dealing with the fact he’s a Midwestern boy from Iowa who’s been out of his own country, living in Switzerland, and raising his children in a foreign land speaking foreign languages and growing up in a way he never did in Meskwaki⁴, Iowa, or in the state capital of Des Moines. He is dealing with many of the typical issues of emigres away from America⁵.
• I haven’t done much writing on this story, but I have been pondering how to handle putting it together. As I’ve started to write this book, it has become apparent for the first time in my fiction experiences, I’ve written myself into a corner. I thought it might be useful to briefly discuss how I think I’m going to get myself out of a jam.

This is where some minor spoilers will pop up, so you may want to speed ahead to the amusing meme photo below (the one with the guy and two girls) if this is an issue for you. It never is for me, but regardless…

The Fool 2 sees Sonny spend the vast majority of his time in Switzerland as he directs the coverage of events in the United States, with one exception which I won’t reveal here. You’d expect this; Sonny is the editor in chief, he’s not the one chasing down stories anymore like he did sixteen years previously in the events of The Holy Fool. He’s the one directing the action, passing on his knowledge and insights to the reporters in the field. It’s the difference between being a lieutenant leading a rifle company into a firefight and a lieutenant colonel or higher directing his men from rear positions.
However, I recently heard of (but did not watch, thank the universe), the recent adaptation of The War of the Worlds starring Ice Cube, which was apparently an entire movie featuring characters staring at screens, typing, and doing secret tech stuff.

• Naturally, I did not in any way wish to emulate 2025’s War of the Worlds in my book. So, how was I going to avoid this trap? I realized Sonny is going to have to share the spotlight.
• All three of my published books have featured limited third-person narration, which means they concentrated on following the actions, more or less, of one character (DJ in The Yank Striker series, and Sonny (for the most part) in The Holy Fool). By contrast, what I’ll call third-person multiple point of view (POV) narration is third-person narration where more than one character serves at the main POV character.
• One of the main examples of this narration is the A Song of Ice and Fire book series written by George R.R. Martin⁶. I first had a chance to try out this technique when I started writing some fan fiction on the side, so I have some familiarity with it.
• So, I’ll use some of the existing journalist characters from The Holy Fool who still work with Sonny on his new project as well as some new young recruits⁷. It will be a good opportunity to explore some characters I didn’t have the chance to explore until now and to bring them into the story. I’m looking forward to it.

Now let’s get on with the other projects taking up my time…

• The Untitled Iowa Series: This is a series of novels I’ve started to ponder (maybe three so far) set in a small Iowa town on the Mississippi River not much different from the ones I’ve lived in for the past few decades. Part of the themes of this story fit into the current social and political environment, while showing how smaller communities process larger sociological and historical changes.
  Also, I want to attract more local readers if I start producing stories set here in local settings. Sue me for wanting to be more popular.
  These are the stories I have already started to formulate in my head.
  • The first one I am calling the working title The Land, The River, and The Waste. This was inspired indirectly by a recently completed short story (more on that whenever it gets released). It will be a sci-fi/horror novel set in Iowa, leaning on the environmental damage being done to my home state.
    After doing quite a bit of
  • The Heart Project: This is speculative/fantasy/soft sci-fi story I have in mind informed by our troubled times involving four one-time friends, a high school reunion, and a microcosm of a larger sense of chaos. The vast majority of the story would be focused in Iowa, even though it touches on events occurring nationwide and globally.
    All quiet on this project – This will be Book 2 in the series rather than Book 1.
• Kayfabe Stories: This is a story about a family of pro wrestlers from Texas and a member of this family, an aspiring young writer, who is determined to understand what it all means.
  All quiet on the Western Front when it comes to this project.

I’m On the Road This Month…

As it turns out, I have a busy October coming up before all the book festivals and events start to slow down. I hope to see you there at one of these events.

First, let me thank, one more time, the owners and staff of Bent Oak Books in Fort Madison, Burlington By the Book in Burlington, and the Atlas Collective in Moline, Ill., for being such wonderful hosts for me at my events at all three places. These are fantastic independent bookstores and the people behind them are fantastic as well. I am looking forward to returning to all three places in the future.

• I will be at the Windsor Heights Book Fair on Sunday, October 5, at the Masonic Lodge at 1141 69th St., in Windsor Heights, Iowa (outside Des Moines). This will be the third time I’ve appeared at the event and I’m very much up for the event. Tyler Granger, the organizer of the festival, is a good acquaintance of mine and a fellow Iowa author himself.
• Finally, I will be at the Iowa City Book Festival, which runs from October 5-12 in Iowa City. I will be attending the local author book fair as part of the event, which will be from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Oct. 12 at MERGE, 136 S. Dubuque St. I’ve always had a great time there, and I’ll be looking forward to it.

If any podcasters or bloggers are interested in new fiction, if you are interested in stories based in the world of soccer, or if you are interested in featuring writers from Iowa or the Midwest, I would absolutely be open for a feature or interview. Get in touch here or at jasonliegois@liegois.media.

Writing Quote(s) of the Week:

Somehow, this bit of advice from one of the top writers of the early 20th century makes sense to me.

If you are in difficulties with a book, try the element of surprise: attack it at an hour when it isn’t expecting it.
― H.G. Wells

This seems relatively obvious, but still needs to be said.

A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world.
― Susan Sontag

As much as I’m obsessed with worldbuilding in my writing, this seems especially true.

Writing has nothing to do with meaning. It has to do with land surveying and cartography, including the mapping of countries yet to come.

― Gilles Deleuze

When I Post

Check out this post for when and what I post on a regular basis.

How to support me😊.

As always, go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile on mobile. If you go follow the links above, you will be able to buy both the paperback and ebook versions of my books on Amazon. If you just put “Jason Liegois” in Google you’ll find them on the first page of search results.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have quite a few places that now carry at least some of my books. Until the Iowa Indie Bookshop Tour got started a few years back, I wasn’t aware of many of these great and fantastic independent bookstores in Iowa and the Midwest.
These are the bookstores you’ll find at least some of my books⁸:

• Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St. Fort Madison.
• Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
• The Corner and More, 703 Main St., Mediapolis.
• Green Point Mercantile, 217 E. 2nd St., Muscatine.
• The Brewed Book, 1524 Harrison St., Davenport.
• The Black Rose, 116 W. Main St., West Branch
• Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines.
• Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
• The Atlas Collective, 1801 5th Ave, Moline, Illinois – my first out of Iowa bookstore, very proud of this.

I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.

For those who are budget conscious among all of you, my books are part of the collections of the Fort Madison, Burlington, and Musser (Muscatine) public libraries.

My poetry book The Flow and the Journey is available at Bent Oak, Green Point, Burlington By the Book, and The Corner and More, but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook on my WordPress site, Liegois Media. If you want to get a physical copy, go ahead and click on the button below.

The Flow and the Journey

The first collection of poetry from author Jason Liegois.

$6.00

Shop now

If you don’t have the budget for a paid subscription, feel free to just send me a one-time payment of whatever you have the budget for.

Final Thoughts

All you writers keep writing, and all of you keep safe. See you down the road.

-30-

While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

1. There’s too many breaks in this newsletter to number them off coherently. Sorry if it makes things slightly harder to read. ↩︎
2. I don’t want to get into a massive amount of detail unless you’re interested. But it is a really cool soccer and family drama, trust me. ↩︎
3. In the series, I alternate between calling the sport football and soccer. It honestly doesn’t matter to me either way. ↩︎
4. There is no such place. It is for me what Yoknapatawpha County was for William Faulkner. There is a true Meskwaki tribe in Iowa, but no such place as Meskwaki, Iowa. I will say it is an amalgam of several eastern Iowa communities I have lived in and passed through during the past 40 years or so. I look forward to introducing it to you. It’s a pretty cool town. ↩︎
5. You are going to dig meeting these kids. They’re pretty cool. ↩︎
6. Allegedly he’s still writing it, heh heh. ↩︎
7. Slight spoiler: Sonny is now pushing 50 and the younger reporters he worked with in The Holy Fool are now near or in their forties. ↩︎
8. All Iowa locations unless otherwise noted. ↩︎

Hi, all you readers old and new. This is the official newsletter of me, Jason Liegois, as I talk about what is going on with me having to do with my writing projects, my personal appearances if I’m making them, and some personal items.

So, let’s talk writing and a couple other things.

The Home Front

Not much to discuss here. I’ve started back with my school district for the 2025-2026 school year, and I’m feeling a bit more settled in with the place. I was also lucky enough to get a bigger room than what I had last year, which was a relief for my students who were feeling a bit crammed into the old place.

It’s good to get at least one year under my belt. At least this year I don’t feel like I’m building every single little thing from the ground up and trying to build relationships with my department colleagues and other teachers, as well as associates. I don’t feel like I’m trying to catch up all the time.

I’m also glad Premier League, the NFL, and the Hawkeyes got started with their seasons, but this week we’re in one of those weird soccer international breaks so I’m watching USA vs. South Korea this afternoon while I’m finishing up the newsletter today. However, they are honoring the legendary US player Michael Bradley at halftime, which I think is overdue¹. He’s coaching New York Red Bulls II, the developmental team for the Major League Soccer team of the same name, and I think he could wind up being a great head coach one of these days.

What I’ve Been Writing

In all honesty, I’ve been disappointed with my productivity this past month, which was the least productive from a word count standpoint for this whole year. I’m desperately hoping to try and get more productive this month even though it is now the start of the new school year and restarting teaching once again. I get the feeling I need to have to be able to budget my time and not feel like I have all the time in the world. If I have a lot of time, sometimes I have a tendency to waste it. Hopefully I can turn things around in September.

So, let’s take a look at my ongoing projects, wherever they are in the process of creation.

1. The Yank Striker 3 (AKA YS3, AKA Working Title): The Yank Striker series follows the exploits of Daniel John “DJ” Ryan, a prospective American soccer player who leaves his family behind to try his fortune with an English Premier League team in the East End of London. Check this out if you want more information about the first book in the series, and thislink if you want to know more about Book 2, The Yank Striker’s Journey.
   YS3 continues DJ’s story as he attempts to progress as a footballer, despite new challenges and an unexpected event that could either be a setback or opportunity.
   When I’ve not been dawdling or trying to distract myself from anything productive, I’ve focused most of my creative energies on this project. I’m happy to note I’m now at more than 11,000 words into the into the rough draft. If I want to get this thing published next year, I truly have to push myself to have a full rough draft ready to go by at least by January. I learned from my experiences with Journey this year I need to take any estimates I have of completing a novel and double it. I’m not taking time for granted this time, especially since you never know when you have scheduling things come up that are totally out of your control. I have an ambitious goal of getting it published by next year, but I’m feel more capable of reaching this goal than I did with Journey at the beginning of this year.
2. There is also the sequel to my debut novel, The Holy Fool. This journalism thriller features Samuel “Sonny” Turner, a newspaper columnist tasked by his editor and mentor with protecting his newspaper, the Chicago Journal, from sale by its unscrupulous owner and breaking a major story on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars during the 2008 presidential election and Great Recession.
   After a considerable break from this project, I’ve gotten back on it this week. The rough draft is now at more than 11,000 words. As with YS3, I don’t want this book to be a massive one, but I am willing to adjust if the story calls to be a little more heavier on word count than I might have expected.

Other projects I haven’t done much on include:

1. Kayfabe Stories: This is a story about a family of pro wrestlers from Texas and a young man’s determination to understand what it all means; There’s not much progress on this for a couple of months, for reasons I’ll touch on below. I am poised to write the scene where the main character’s grandfather steps into a wrestling ring for the first time.
2. The Untitled Iowa Series: Over the past year, I’ve started to want to write some books set in Iowa. For one thing, I’ve started to feel a compulsion to tell some stories based here in the actual Midwest and not all over the world. Part of the themes of this story fit into the current social and political environment and have something set in a familiar territory. It’s always fascinated me to see how smaller communities process larger sociological and historical changes.
   Also, in all honesty, I get the feeling I might be able to attract more local readers if I start producing stories set here in local settings. Sue me for wanting to be more popular.
   Two stories (I’d like to try at least three in this new setting) I have already started to formulate in my head.
   1. The Heart Project: This is speculative/fantasy/soft sci-fi story I have in mind informed by our troubled times involving four one-time friends, a high school reunion, and a microcosm of a larger sense of chaos. Despite the events of the novel touching in some way on national and even world issues, the vast majority of the story would be focused in Iowa.
   2. From a recently completed short story (more on that whenever it gets released), I think I have the germ of an idea about a fantasy/horror novel set in Iowa, leaning on the environmental damage being done to my home state. Let’s give it the working title The Land, The River, and The Waste.
   The reasons I have not done much on these is unlike the sequels, I have not decided on how or when to release these books. I’m not sure whether I want to explore working with a smaller Midwest publisher or if I want to go the self-publishing route. I want to see what sort of options I might have available for me if I want to try and change my approach to producing my books.In the meantime, I’ve put together both a biographical and physical sketch of the community which will be my main setting. I’m very excited about putting it together, and I can’t wait to share some of this work with you soon.

What I’m Doing Having to do With Writing (Which in This Case Means Where I’m Making Appearances)

As it turns out, I have a pretty busy September and October coming up before all the book festivals and events start to slow down. I’ll list them below, and I hope to see you there at one of these events.

• At 1 p.m. on Saturday, September 20, I will be back at one of my favorite book stores, Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St., in my new hometown of Fort Madison. I’ll have copies of my book The Yank Striker’s Journey and my other offerings there for sale. It’s a fantastic store and Danette, the owner, has been a fantastic supporter of mine.
• At 4 p.m. (thereabouts) Thursday, September 25, I am going to be back at Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St., Burlington, for a Farmer’s Market appearance. Chris (the store’s owner) has been a massive support for me, so when he calls, I answer. It’s as simple as that.
• I am going to be making an appearance at the Atlas Collective, 1801 5th Ave, Moline, Illinois, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, 27 August. This is this first book store event I’ve participated in outside Iowa, and I am hyped for it. Atlas is a fantastic bookstore, one I would recommend to anyone.
• I will be at the Windsor Heights Book Fair on Sunday, October 5, at the Masonic Lodge at 1141 69th St., in Windsor Heights, Iowa (outside Des Moines). This will be the third time I’ve appeared at the event and I’m very much up for the event. Tyler Granger, the organizer of the festival, is a good acquaintance of mine and a fellow Iowa author himself.
• Finally, I will be at the Iowa City Book Festival, which runs from October 5-12 in Iowa City. I will be attending the local author book fair as part of the event, which will be on Oct. 12 at MERGE, 136 S. Dubuque St. I’ve always had a great time there, and I’ll be looking forward to it.

If any podcasters or bloggers are interested in new fiction, if you are interested in stories based in the world of soccer, or if you are interested in featuring writers from Iowa or the Midwest, I would absolutely be open for a feature or interview. Get in touch here or at jasonliegois@liegois.media.gois@liegois.media.

Writing Quote(s) of the Week:

An intriguing quote about how some authors want to give their readers more than just a good story. Which is a perfectly valid thing to do.

“You guys know about vampires? … You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all. I was like, “Yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don’t exist?” And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it.”
― Junot Díaz

Considering how much I jump genres, I’m in total agreement with this quote, too.

“Don’t classify me, read me. I’m a writer, not a genre.”
― Carlos Fuentes

When I Post

Check out this post for when and what I post on a regular basis.

How to support me😊.

As always, go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile on mobile. If you go follow the links above, you will be able to buy both the paperback and ebook versions of my books on Amazon. If you just put “Jason Liegois” in Google you’ll find them on the first page of search results.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have quite a few places that now carry at least some of my books. Until the Iowa Indie Bookshop Tour got started a few years back, I wasn’t aware of many of these great and fantastic independent bookstores in Iowa and the Midwest. They’re still doing the tour through the end of September.
These are the bookstores you’ll find at least some of my books²:

• Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St. Fort Madison.
• Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
• [NEW] The Corner and More, 703 Main St., Mediapolis.
• Green Point Mercantile, 217 E. 2nd St., Muscatine.
• [NEW] The Brewed Book, 1524 Harrison St., Davenport.
• [NEW] The Black Rose, 116 W. Main St., West Branch
• Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines.
• Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
• [NEW] The Atlas Collective, 1801 5th Ave, Moline, Illinois – my first out of Iowa bookstore, very proud of this.

I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.

For those who are budget conscious among all of you, my books are part of the collections of the Fort Madison, Burlington, and Musser (Muscatine) public libraries.

My poetry book The Flow and the Journey is available at Bent Oak, Green Point, Burlington By the Book, and The Corner and More, but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook on my WordPress site, Liegois Media. If you want to get a physical copy, go ahead and click on the button below.

The Flow and the Journey

The first collection of poetry from author Jason Liegois.

$6.00

Shop now

If you don’t have the budget for a paid subscription, feel free to just send me a one-time payment of whatever you have the budget for.

Final Thoughts

All you writers keep writing, and all of you keep safe. See you down the road.

-30-

While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

1. Completely unrelated sports commentary incoming. ↩︎
2. ↩︎

FEATURED PHOTO NOTE: My hometown of Muscatine, Iowa is known for its melons. The city leaders are leaning into this history it appears. 🙂

Hi, everyone. It is officially the start of August, which means people who have summer vacation are now thinking about returning to work in the next few weeks, myself included. However, I’ve gotten quite a bit of activity done in the time I’ve had off. I’ve gotten a new book published, gotten started on more than a few other projects, and met a lot of other people as well.

So, let’s talk writing and a couple other things.

What I’ve Been Writing

It’s nice getting some books written at a faster pace than I ever had to date. So, the fact The Yank Striker’s Journey is now officially released is no excuse for me not to get going on other projects. Such has been the case for me, thankfully, this past month.

1. The Yank Striker 3 (AKA YS3, AKA Working Title)¹: For those just joining us here, The Yank Striker series follows the exploits of Daniel John “DJ” Ryan, a prospective American soccer player who leaves his family behind to try his fortune with an English Premier League team in the East End of London. I decided to ask myself years back, “What would the first American soccer superstar look like?” and it snowballed from there. Check this out if you want more information about the first book in the series, and the Journey link above if you want to know more about Book 2.
   YS3 continues DJ’s story as he attempts to progress as a footballer, despite new challenges and an unexpected event that could either be a setback or opportunity, depending on how he faces it.
   I’ve finished preliminary notes on the project and have already gotten more than 3,000 words into the rough draft. I have an ambitious goal of getting it published by next year, but I’m feeling good about trying to reach for it.
2. Also on my list is the sequel to my debut novel, The Holy Fool. That was my journalism novel featuring Samuel “Sonny” Turner, a Chicago-based newspaper columnist who was tasked with helping his newspaper, the Chicago Journal from sale by its unscrupulous owner and breaking a major story on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars during the 2008 presidential election and the beginning of the Great Recession.
   The sequel, which will be set in around 2024-2026, is now over 7,000 words for the first draft. At most, I only want the story to be 70,000 words2 – a quick, lean bit of storytelling. I will get most of the writing done this year (I hope I hope I hope) but I want to see how a certain event next year plays out before I finalize the last scene.

Also, no progress on:

• Kayfabe Stories (Previously The Untitled Pro Wrestling Fiction Project): This is a story about a family of pro wrestlers from Texas and a young man’s determination to understand what it all means;
• The Heart Project: The speculative/fantasy/soft sci-fi story I have in mind informed by our troubled times involving four one-time friends, a high school reunion, and a microcosm of a larger sense of chaos.
• From a recently completed short story, I think I have the germ of an idea about a fantasy/horror novel set in Iowa, leaning on the environmental damage being done to my home state. Let’s give it the working title The Land, The River, and The Waste.

What I’m Doing Having to do With Writing (Which in This Case Means Where I’m Making Appearances)

I’ve got several events coming up, some that I have confirmed, some I have mostly confirmed, and others I’m hoping will happen. I’ll list them here however I have them.

• At 6:30 p.m. 14 August (a Thursday), I’ll be over at the Fort Madison Public Library. I’ll be talking about the writing process, creating fiction, and my books, in particular The Yank Striker’s Journey. Any friends of mine in the eastern Iowa area, I would love to have you out here to celebrate the evening.\
• At 4 p.m. (thereabouts) Thursday, Aug. 25, I am going to be back at Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St., Burlington, for a Farmer’s Market appearance. Chris (the store’s owner) has been a massive support for me, so when he calls, I answer. It’s as simple as that.
• I am going to be making an appearance at the Atlas Collective, 1801 5th Ave, Moline, Illinois, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, 27 August. This is this first book store event I’ve participated in outside Iowa, and I am hyped for it. Atlas is a fantastic bookstore, one I would recommend to anyone.

Also hopefully on the schedule will be the Windsor Heights Book Fair on SUnday, October 5, in Windsor Heights, Iowa (outside Des Moines), and an appearance at the Iowa City Book Festival, from October 5-12.

With The Yank Striker’s Journey having officially dropped, I am hoping for quite a few more appearances this year. Watch this space for new events. 🙂

If any podcasters or bloggers are interested in new fiction, if you are interested in stories based in the world of soccer, or if you are interested in featuring writers from Iowa or the Midwest, I would absolutely be open for a feature or interview. Get in touch here or at jasonliegois@liegois.media.

Writing Quote(s) of the Week:

A lot of stuff I’m seeing on the interwebs seems to relate to me this month.

With this first quote, replace “diary” with “manuscripts and notes” and it absolutely fits me.

“This diary is my kief, hashish and opium pipe. This is my drug and my vice.”
― Anais Nin

One from The King.

Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.

― Stephen King

On the good days it absolutely feels like this.

Every few weeks she would shut herself up in her room, put on her scribbling suit, and fall into a vortex, as she expressed it, writing away at her novel with all her heart and soul, for till that was finished she could find no peace.

― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

When I Post

Check out this post for when and what I post on a regular basis.

How to support me😊.

As always, go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile on mobile. If you go follow the links above, you will be able to buy both the paperback and ebook versions of my books on Amazon. If you just put “Jason Liegois” in Google you’ll find them on the first page of search results.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have quite a few places that now carry at least some of my books. Until the Iowa Indie Bookshop Tour got started a few years back, I wasn’t aware of many of these great and fantastic independent bookstores in Iowa and the Midwest. They’re still doing the tour through the end of September.
These are the bookstores you’ll find at least some of my books²:

• Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St. Fort Madison.
• Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
• [NEW] The Corner and More, 703 Main St., Mediapolis.
• Green Point Mercantile, 217 E. 2nd St., Muscatine.
• [NEW] The Brewed Book, 1524 Harrison St., Davenport.
• [NEW] The Black Rose, 116 W. Main St., West Branch
• Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines.
• Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
• [NEW] The Atlas Collective, 1801 5th Ave, Moline, Illinois – my first out of Iowa bookstore, very proud of this.

I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.

For those who are budget conscious among all of you, my books are part of the collections of the Fort Madison, Burlington, and Musser (Muscatine) public libraries.

My poetry book The Flow and the Journey is available at Bent Oak, Green Point, Burlington By the Book, and The Corner and More, but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook on my WordPress site, Liegois Media. If you want to get a physical copy, go ahead and click on the button below.

The Flow and the Journey

The first collection of poetry from author Jason Liegois.

$6.00

Shop now

If you don’t have the budget for a paid subscription, feel free to just send me a one-time payment of whatever you have the budget for.

Final Thoughts

Again, sorry this is slightly late, but better late than never and it’s still on the weekend. Take care, everyone.

-30-

While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

1. Anyone want to guess the actual working title? I’m liking the one I came up with. ↩︎
2. All Iowa locations unless otherwise noted. ↩︎

Hey, everyone out there in the online and offline worlds, it’s good to talk again. I’ve got more updates on my upcoming book, The Yank Striker’s Journey, my other writing projects, what I’ve been up to, and more.

Let’s talk about writing.

What I’ve Been Writing

1. The Yank Striker’s Journey (Previously referred to as The Yank Striker 2): the sequel to my book The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning. The Yank Striker series follows the exploits of Daniel John “DJ” Ryan, a prospective American soccer player who leaves his family behind to try his fortune with an English Premier League team in the East End of London. The Yank Striker’s Journey focuses on what DJ has to face now he is trying to establish himself as a footballer in England, both as an American in a strange land and someone whose sexual orientation brings extra scrutiny.
   Sadly, I was not able to meet my ambitious schedule of having Journey ready to go for June. I am now hoping it becomes available now sometime this month.
   The minute this is ready for release, I will make an announcement post here as well as a separate post introducing you, the readers, to the story, such as I have done for my other novels and collections.
2. The next book in The Yank Striker Series (to be referred to for now as The Yank Striker 3). It will cover another season in the life of DJ Ryan as his football journey continues. I plan to begin writing this book the minute Journey is available for sale. It would be crazy if I had this ready by next year, but I want to be ambitious.
3. Last month, I talked about wondering what the protagonist of my first novel, Samuel “Sonny” Turner, the old Chicago-based newspaper columnist turned new era blogger, might think of the current news scene. In my first novel, the journalistic thriller The Holy Fool, we saw Sonny saving the fictional Chicago Journal from sale by its unscrupulous owner and breaking a major story on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars during the 2008 presidential election and the beginning of the Great Recession.
   I have now written over 7,000 words on a first draft for the project, which was a bit of a surprise it came that fast. At most, I only want the story to be 70,000 words – a quick, lean bit of storytelling. I was thinking it would be finished by the end of this year, but with everything going on and the ghost of an ending scene already in my head, I’m thinking it will be more second half of next year. Anything else regarding the scene would be a bit of a spoiler, so I’ll keep it to myself for now.
4. Also, no progress on¹:
   • Kayfabe Stories (Previously The Untitled Pro Wrestling Fiction Project): This is a story about a family of pro wrestlers from Texas and a young man’s determination to understand what it all means;
   • The Heart Project: The speculative/fantasy/soft sci-fi story I have in mind informed by our troubled times involving four one-time friends, a high school reunion, and a microcosm of a larger sense of chaos.
   • Poetry work (except for the pieces I post here on Substack and the odd unpublished poem or two.

How Much I’ve Been Writing: Mid-year check

I don’t usually get into writing productivity and my ongoing word count, but now that I’m in the middle of the year, I thought it might be cool to take a quick look at what I’ve done over the course of the first part of the year.

At the beginning of the year, I’d laid out a few writing goals for 2025. Essentially, these were:

• Match a goal of 225,000 words this calendar year. I was less than a thousand or so words away from this last year, and I thought it was doable.
• Make my daily writing goal or quota (DWGM) at least 80 percent of the time.
• Complete The Yank Striker’s Journey by this June.
• Make more progress on the Kayfabe Stories project.

So, where am I at with all of these? First, here’s my numbers for the first part of the year.

Writing statistics for the first half of 2025:

Words (total): 113,755.
Words (monthly avg.): 18,959.
Revise/Plan (Total): 6,825 minutes.
Revise/Plan (monthly avg.): 1,365 minutes.
DWGM: 89%

Half of 225,000 is 112,500, so I am more than 1,000 words ahead of pace – not a massive amount, but I’m glad I’m at least a little ahead of the game. Also, I’m doing quite well on my daily quotas, so I feel good about that.

As I mentioned above, I didn’t get Journey finished in June, but that is forthcoming, so I don’t feel like a massive failure there. And I’ve doubled the amount of material I’ve written for the Kafabe Stories and have done some considerable planning, so I’m ahead there.

In short, so far so good. But I’m not taking a rest anytime soon.

What I’m Doing Having to do With Writing

It was a fantastic afternoon this past Saturday (5 July) when I attended the grand opening of Page, Print, & Pint, located in the heart of downtown Keokuk at 401 Main Street, Suite 1. Co-owners Willow Carrington and Katarina Page were fantastic hosts to me and seven other regional authors there for the event. They are just getting their business set up at the moment, but I’m hoping they’ll be carrying some of my books in the near future.

• From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, July 12, I’ll be returning to Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St., Suite 3, Burlington, IA, for an appearance and book signing. Owner Christopher Murphy has been a great supporter in recent years, and I am excited to be returning to one of the best and longest running indie bookstores in southeastern Iowa. This will be going on at the same time as the city’s well-known Snake Ally Film Festival, so maybe I’ll be seeing some film enthusiasts that day.

It’s been tough to get some new events set up, since I am still waiting on the The Yank Striker’s Journey to officially drop so I have some new stuff to offer at these events. I am hoping for quite a few more appearances this year, including the Windsor Heights Book Fair this October 5 and hopefully the Iowa City Book Festival in October of this year. Watch this space for new events. 🙂

If any podcasters or bloggers are interested in new fiction, if you are interested in stories based in the world of soccer, or if you are interested in featuring writers from Iowa or the Midwest, I would absolutely be open for a feature or interview. Get in touch here or at jasonliegois@liegois.media.

Writing Quote(s) of the Week:

It’s funny that I can relate equally to two different quotes with such separate points of view and think they are equally valid.

Writing is something that you don’t know how to do. You sit down and it’s something that happens, or it may not happen. So, how can you teach anybody how to write? It’s beyond me, because you yourself don’t even know if you’re going to be able to. I’m always worried, well, you know, every time I go upstairs with my wine bottle. Sometimes I’ll sit at that typewriter for fifteen minutes, you know. I don’t go up there to write. The typewriter’s up there. If it doesn’t start moving, I say, well this could be the night that I hit the dust.
― Charles Bukowski

Don’t get it right – get it WRITTEN!
― Lee Child

When I Post

Check out this post for when and what I post on a regular basis.

How to support me😊.

As always, go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile. There’s where you can find out about my first book, the journalism thriller The Holy Fool: A Journalist’s Revolt, as well as the first book in my The Yank Striker series, The Yank Striker: a Footballer’s Beginning.

If you go follow the links above, you will be able to buy both the paperback and ebook versions of my books on Amazon. If you just put “Jason Liegois” in Google you’ll probably find them on the first page of search results.

If you happen to visit these fine independent book stores in Iowa, you can find my books there:

• Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St. Fort Madison.
• Green Point Mercantile, 214 Chestnut St., Muscatine.
• Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
• Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines.
• Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.

I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.

My poetry book The Flow and the Journey is available at Bent Oak, Green Point and Burlington By the Book, but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook on my WordPress site, Liegois Media. If you want to get a physical copy, go ahead and click on the link below.

The Flow and the Journey

The first collection of poetry from author Jason Liegois.

$6.00

Shop now

If you don’t have the budget for a paid subscription, feel free to just send me a one-time payment of whatever you have the budget for.

Final Thoughts

Again, sorry this is slightly late, but better late than never and it’s still on the weekend. Take care, everyone.

-30-

While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

1. I likely won’t repost these next month unless I see significant progress here. ↩︎