I think I might have some idea how to write, having practiced the art seriously, as a hobby or professionally, for the past 30 years or so. As far as marketing myself or my work, however, I am still green by any standards.
People like me often look for techniques or advice for how to do so, especially methods priced well for authors who have to write and publish on a tight budget. We’re also looking for simple, straightforward advice it won’t take a long time to digest. After giving it a read, I have to say The Book Marketing Handbook: How to sell more books in the Digital Age by Robert Sims would be a good place to start for authors beginning their journey into the marketing world.
This is where I need to give full disclosure that Sims and his company, Biblio Publishing, have been the publisher of my books The Holy Fooland The Yank Striker. With this in mind, we’ll move on.
Originally released in 2014, Biblio has recently released a revised version of the book this year. Edited by Connor Mayhorn, it is a brisk 34-page read covering all aspects of online and in-person marketing.
The straightforward text is organized into “Online Marketing” and “Offline Marketing,” even though some tips (such as book cover advice) could fit into either category. It might have been helpful to further organize the smaller sections in the online and offline marketing sections, perhaps in alphabetical order, but the length of the book means you are almost sure to find whatever section you are looking for.
Some of the advice Sims gives seems almost obvious. For example, building your web site or having a presence on Facebook are things almost any author might try even on their own. However, not every author is technically savvy, so I think it is appropriate to go into this advice. Also, as a teacher, I’ve learned not to assume everyone has the same knowledge as everyone else. For example, being able to have a strong description of your book for online sites is something fundamental to that marketing, so it’s important for you to do it right and make your book compelling to read.
There were quite a few items in The Book Marketing Handbook, however, that I was entirely unfamiliar with. For instance, it covers several tips aimed at those who decide to self-publish, such as promotional tools available through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) program, where to find advice on Amazon search engine optimization, and advice on online advertising. I wasn’t too aware of how TikTok was becoming a hub for those interested in reading and talking about books, but The Book Marketing Handbook has made me rethink perhaps having a presence on there.
It also gives some good tips I was little aware of in the area of offline marketing, such as how to approach both Barnes & Noble and independent booksellers to carry your book. Other tips include programs like Lightning Source, a way to make your book available for distributors. I think these are important, especially for younger authors who may be too focused on online marketing and promotions.
I’m not a fan of every piece of advice in The Book Marketing Handbook. For example, I’m not much of a fan of Twitter at the moment, but some of the Twitter tips there could prove useful on BlueSky, especially the advice to make no more than 20 percent of your content be promotional and at least 80 percent toward giving something of value to your audience. Also, I can’t approve of its advice for lower budget authors to use AI programs to design book covers, although I do think the non-AI features of programs like Canva can give authors a more ethical design option.
However, taken in total, The Book Marketing Handbook is a great starter tool for how to reach out and promote your writing to others. I would definitely recommend it for budget-conscious writers to pick up on Amazon if they have the chance.
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.
The poetry has been coming fast and loose for me. There’s times where I have no idea what I’m going to write about, and other times when the words flow for me.
You might know I am a teacher, but did you know there is no requirement in the state curriculum of Iowa (where I live and teach) for us to teach about poetry? It’s a fact. But maybe it’s for the best. Poetry is one of those things you can’t force down someone’s throat. They have to be drawn to it, like I was later in life.
I never want to say I’ve got a handle on it, but during the past several months it feels to me I have a better handle on how to be creative in the poetry genre. But I’ve been writing either pro or semi-pro for nearly 30 years now, and there’s no way I will ever say I know everything there is to know about writing. To paraphrase the Russian chess champion Alexander Alekhine, an entire lifetime is not long enough to learn everything there is to know about writing. And I definitely don’t have enough time to learn everything there is to learn about poetry. So, I always have to keep in mind I’m always learning no matter what.
Hi, everyone, welcome to Poetry Night. I’ve got an interesting couple of poems to share with you, about both the digital world and the analog world. Hope you enjoy them.
I’ve been writing poetry with more regularity in recent months. For the year 2025 I have written six of them. At least two of them were not for publication in the short term or maybe even in the long term. It’s been therapeutic to express myself like that and not worry about other people’s opinions.
Since Substack doesn’t quite have the setup for this, I’ve set up something here at Liegois Media. I set up my own Internet storefront page where you can order my chapbook for $6 per copy. This is the link, as is the one below.
This weekend I found myself again (slightly to my surprise) on the road and away from my expected places. I spent a lot of time in between places to stay due to circumstances beyond my control last year around this time, and it ended up inspiring quite a bit of poetry. To me, it’s not a surprise tonight inspired at least one more poem, as well. This was influenced not just by my own situation, but the circumstances of a group of people I have been looking into for research regarding another fiction project I have going on.
About not knowing the rules of where I’ve traveled
Or the procedures
Or the routines
Or how to pack up and pack out
When I get on the road.
But as I try to accentuate the positive
And eliminate the negative in my life
I learn about how pro wrestlers
Who are people I admire in my life
Had to spend 350 days out of 365
On the road
At their craft
Making money to support themselves and others
On at least two different continents.
I wonder
I speculate
How much change and discombobulation
They had to go through
While getting their bodies and brains beaten in.
I submitted an earlier version of this poem to the Midwest Writing Center’s Iron Pen contest for the poetry category, I thought I did well, but the Society of Great River poets from Burlington, Iowa, had a few good suggestions for me. Those results and my own combine to the poem you will see below.
This is what I got when I searched for “Our Tribe.” Photo by Gabriela Custódio da Silva on Pexels.com
Our People, Our Tribe
28 February 2025, Fort Madison, Iowa
I spent years gathering electronic friends through screens large and small
Only to find them as elusive as electrons
And just as invisible.
People who purported to be what they showed me in pictures and videos
But whose existences were no more permanent
Than flashes of static.
Once I traveled the electronic highways and byways to find my own people,
But the bots and electronic beings clogged the wires and waves
With no places for humans.
So I left those places.
I traveled longer in the analog world, epic treks compared to electronic laps
True humans and potential friends were sparse in the expanse
I found them.
People with whom I shared their homes, cooked their meals,
Whom I lived with, not observed and judged
And came to grok.
In the end, I found my modest tribe, insignificant to the electronic hordes,
We built our own world, we few and true
With love for each other.
That’s it for tonight. We’ll see what April brings.
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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.
I’ve used this space before (Prose Night) to preview some writing projects I’ve been working on. It’s been a hot minute or two since I posted a sneak preview, so I decided you, the readers, were due for one.
You might recall I let you know I was working on a project, an Untitled Wrestling Project, as it is1. I have had a lifelong obsession with pro wrestling since I was a kid, despite my parents’ despair. At a book fair back in 2023, as I sat around a quiet crowd, the idea of a young writer exploring the world of his wrestling family and becoming drawn into such a world leaped into my consciousness.
I went ahead and wrote a short story to try out the concept, and I found I was inspired by the epic ideas raised by a storyteller raised in a family of professional wrestlers who told stories through their matches.
When it gets to the point where I’m starting to build complete family trees for my characters and begin to have conversations with characters, I need to start building a story. Like, a story already 32,500-plus words and a ways to go before the end of this book, one of a projected trilogy. And this is no different.
Let me introduce you (or reintroduce you, if you’ve read my past posts) to Robbie Traynor, a Minnesota native and brand new member of the prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop. He’s made an impression on his fellow students and workshop instructor Peter Lowry, with his story about a young man trying to reconnect with his professional wrestler father. However, a chance incident at a party for workshop students and faculty, hosted at the home of Robbie’s fellow student Artie, reveals the depth of Robbie’s entanglement in the wrestling world.
In among the cross-talk and the regular gossip, there was a bit of writing discussion amongst the partygoers. They’d talk about what they were working on, how it was going, and what particular problems they had to overcome to keep the stories moving. Since he had been the first one to put his work forward that week, Robbie assumed he was going to get a question he wasn’t sure he wanted to answer, and he didn’t know exactly how he was going to handle it. But finally…
“So, what prompted you to use pro wrestling in your story?” Lowry said as he took a pull off one of the Corona beers he’d brought with him to the party. “Are you a fan? I’m not one, but I follow Iowa wrestling. I even visit the wrestling program here and have a chance to train with the kids.”
“You wrestled?”
“Back in college, University of Minnesota,” Lowry said. “Anyway, what connection do you have with pro wrestling?”
Robbie mind was blank as he tried to think of what to say and took a first sip from the second IPA he’d brought to the party. “Not exactly sure I’d call myself a fan, although I watched a bit of it,” he finally said. “I’m not exactly sure why I added it into the story. Shoot, when I was in high school starting out writing, I usually liked to write fantasy stuff, usually soft magic systems. I always loved laying out the worlds they took place in too.”
“It was just a lark or something?” Ike asked.
There was a long pause as Robbie tried to formulate an answer. “Maybe… it’s been something bubbling up for a while. Something I was experimenting with.”
Tono started fiddling with the remote. “You know, I think I’ve got a channel or playlist here on YouTube all on pro wrestling. Anyone want to watch?”
“Ah, you don’t have to on my account…” Robbie mumbled.
“Shoot, why not? Hey, food’s on, everyone,” Artie said. “Not like there’s anything else on, right? Go ahead Tono, find something.”
“You know, when I was a kid, we’d watch all the videos for movies about El Santo, the Man in the Silver Mask,” he responded. “Used to get a kick out of them. Should be something here… oh, hell, yeah, we got some classic wrasslin’ on. Check it.” He pushed a button.
The scene was an old arena, smoky and dingy – even the ring ropes and mat were smudged with dirt. From the pastel colors of the clothes of some of the fans and the high teased hairstyles of the female fans, the time was the 1980’s.
There was a huge, muscle-bound bald wrestler with a full black beard in the middle of the ring. He was wearing a bright red freestyle wrestling singlet with the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle insignia on his chest, paired with black boots. He had a length of heavy chain wrapped around his right fist. He was accompanied by another large man with a darker complexion and a full black mustache, He work a full-length white thwab robe, traditional among people especially in the Arabic Peninsula, and a red and white keffiyah covered his head.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the following contest is a non-title singles match,” the arena announcer proclaimed. “Accompanied by his manager, Sheik Abdul Al Shabazz, and weighing in at 285 pounds, from Moscow, the Red Nightmare, Sasha Zhukov!”
With a roar, Zhukov raised his chain-carrying fist to a rain of boos from the crowd.
Suddenly, a manic classic rock anthem rang out over the public address speakers, all crunching guitars and Southern strut, and the crowd screamed in recognition. Robbie looked at the side of the ring which had the letters GFW stenciled in neon green and gold lettering, and he knew immediately what the announcer was going to say next.
“His opponent is the reigning GFW world heavyweight champion, and one-third of the GFW world six-man tag-team champions! From Houston, Texas, weighing in at 245 pounds… he is The Boss himself, Jack Ryder!”
Down one of the aisles came a tall wrestler with a full shoulder-length mane of suicide blond hair. He wore a gold satin jacket with THE BOSS across the back, royal purple tights, and black boots with BOSS on the side. The men were jumping up and down in their seats while the women were reaching out into the aisle, screaming as they tried to grab Ryder and pull him into their embrace as he attempted to make his way to the ring. He kissed at least a half dozen of the more attractive female fans before he got to his destination.
Of course it would be him was the only thing Robbie could think of as he stared at the screen.
Ryder jumped over the top rope but got pummeled by Zhukov’s chain-wrapped fist before he even had the chance to take his jacket off. Within seconds, he was crumpled and sagging on the ring mat as Zhukov continued to pound him on his back and his head.
“There was a better way for him to handle that,” he thought he heard Ike say.
They saw the referee finally try to step in and Zhukov turned to argue with him. With the referee distracted, Abdul grabbed his head and struck him at least three or four times with what appeared to be brass knuckles to the screams of frustration from the crowd.
“Always wondered how blind pro wrestling referees were. Honestly, though, they couldn’t be more blind than major league refs,” Tono said.
Robbie wasn’t paying too much attention to the play-by-play either from the screen or his new companions. He knew exactly what was going to happen next.
After running against the ropes, Zhukov took a two-footed slide and knocked Ryder off the ring floor and down sprawling onto the concrete outside. Then he slid down off the apron and continued the attack. The referee began counting as Zhukov first pounded Ryder’s back for a few more heavy blows. Then, the Russian grabbed Ryder by the back waist of his tights and with a big heave hurled Ryder almost face first into one of the corner ring poles.
With a roar, Ryder collapsed on the floor, rolling back and forth while grasping his left arm. Zhukov rolled up onto the apron and then back standing into the ring. A clearly annoyed referee took the opportunity and grabbed the chain from the Russian, who was distracted from taunting the shrieking fans ringside. After tossing the chain out of the ring, where it landed next to the announcer’s table, he gave a stern lecture to Zhukov. As that happened, Abdul once again ran over and pounded Ryder in the back with his brass knuckles, and then scooted away before the referee returned his attention to the down wrestler and restarted his count.
Artie glanced at his guests in the living room. Most of them were watching the match with either casual indifference or mild derision. Robbie, on the other hand, was staring directly at the screen, one hand covering his mouth, not blinking.
“Motherfucker’s intending on getting an Oscar or some shit,” Tono cackled.
“I’ll be honest, the acting’s not that good,” Harmony said. “I mean, no offense to these guys, but it’s all an act.”
“I’m sure it’s a bit more complicated than that…” Lowry started to comment.
“He’s actually not work… not acting here,” Robbie blurted out, pointing the struggling Ryder. “He really got his shoulder separated. Just give it a second and he’s going to knock it back in. Watch.”
Everyone including Artie gaped at Robbie and then turned back to the screen to see Ryder totter to his feet. With a lunge, he rammed his left shoulder into the steel of the ring post, and his yelp echoed around the arena and even over the shrieks of the female fans. Taking three deep breaths, he pulled himself onto the ring apron with his good arm and flopped in between the ropes.
“Of course, he wasn’t supposed to get hurt, but ol’ Sasha went a bit overboard with the move,” Robbie mentioned in a matter-of-fact tone, more talking to himself. “Now he’s got a receipt he’s about to collect on.”
“What do you mean…?” began Tono.
“Hold up,” Artie said.
Zhukov approached Ryder, winding up for a massive left hook, but the other man lashed out with a lightning-quick right cross catching the Russian squarely in the throat. The blow collapsed the man to his knees, heaving and choking and grabbing at his throat, while Ryder repeatedly slapped him across the back and sides of his head until he rolled onto his side, arms wrapped around his head in pure defense.
“This is him reminding Sasha to behave. Right, he’s about to wrap this up,” Robbie said as Ryder dragged the still coughing Zhukov to his feet. Using his good arm, he flung him into the nearest corner, the Russian using the top ring rope to keep himself upright. With a wince, Ryder reached with his left hand for the elbow pad on his right arm. “Here it comes.”
Ryder slid the elbow pad off his arm and flung it with disdain onto the ground near his feet. He raised his right fist into the air and pumped it down next to his body like a trucker honking his rig’s horn. Finally, with a running start, he hurled toward Zhukov, right arm cocked and smashed his elbow full force into the side of his opponent’s head.
The man was on the ground in seconds. Ryder rolled over and covered him long enough for the referee to count one, two, three, and give the match to him. He glared at Zhukov on the floor as the referee raised his arm and his win was proclaimed. Cradling his left arm, Ryder rolled out of the ring, spitting on the floor outside the ring, and took the most direct route to the backstage area, still cradling his left arm.
“So , how did you know all that?” Artie asked.
Time to unmask, I guess. Robbie took a deep breath. “Jack Ryder’s my father.”
“That wrestler, Jack Ryder, is your father?” Lowry said.
“One and the same.”
“The Boss, holy hell,” Benjiro said. “Can’t believe it.”
“You know about him?” Tono said.
“Ryder was big in puroresu out in Japan, one of the top Westernersthere when he wasn’t in the US. My dad even saw him back in ’93 wrestling in the Tokyo Dome for All-World Japanese Wrestling.”
Robbie took a deep breath as he felt eyes on him from all around. “Food smells amazing,” he said. “How about everyone get a plate and I’ll go ahead and continue the Q&A if anyone cares.”
#
As it turned out, Ike, Mary, and Alya had no such interest in the conversation and got involved with some more hands of Milles Borne and UNO, as well as some writing chatter. Everyone else including Lowry and Tono filled their paper plates and found some seats on the couch or folding chairs in the living room as people started playing 20 questions with Robbie.
“So, wait, is Traynor your real name or some pen name, then?” Tanisha asked.
“My real name’s Robert John Traynor, same as my birth certificate,” Robbie said. “Ryder is… the family stage name, so to speak, like Sheen was for Martin and Charlie Sheen or Douglas for Kirk and Michael Douglas. If you look up Jack Ryder in Wikipedia, he’s listed as…”
“…John William Traynor Jr.,” Harmony joined in, raising her cellphone.
“That’s the one.”
“Your father come up with the name?” Lowry asked in a casual tone.
Robbie shook his head. “My grandfather, John Traynor Sr. He heard Ryder was an English word meaning mounted warrior. Guess he thought it made sense for a pro wrestler from Houston.”
“He was the one you said served in Korea?” Tono asked.
“Yeah, he started wrestling after he got back. He was Johnny Ryder.”
“Wait, my old man talked about him once. Wasn’t he some sort of wrestling promoter too, used to do shows out in Los Angeles?” Tono said.
“He owned Global Force Wrestling years back, when it was Gulf Coast Continental Wrestling. I know they eventually started doing shows out in Los Angeles, but I don’t know when that started. My grandfather… I never grew up around him.”
“So, your dad and grandfather were from Texas, but you’re from Minnesota?” Harmony said, disbelief in her voice.
They’re wondering if I’m working them, Robbie thought. Shit. “My mom was from Minnesota; she convinced him to move up there with her. It worked for a while at least.”
“A while?” Harmony said.
“He never liked hanging around home much. They divorced when I was in elementary school.”
He saw her relax as she absorbed the news. “Sounds like a creep. Sorry for you, though.” Harmony sighed.
“Appreciate it. Nothing Mom didn’t say, although she got over it.”
“Hey, another question,” Benjiro said. “Back in class you said your uncle grew up by the Salton Sea, but I thought most of your family was from Texas?”
“I was talking about my uncle Cody. He grew up out there, but he married into the family, my aunt Maggie.”
“What was his last name?”
“Ritter, Cody Ritter.”
“The Monster was your fucking uncle? The Codymonster?”
“Who the hell’s Cody Ritter?” Lowry asked in irritation, eyes narrowed at Robbie.
“The Monster, Cody Ritter. I mean, Jack was big in Japan, but Cody was a fucking legend. Over two meters and a hundred-forty kilos, big bastard. Craziest gaijin I ever saw in the ring. He won world championships in three different Japanese wrestling companies. So, that would make the Ritter Brothers…”
“My cousins, yeah,” Robbie nodded.
“Sounds like pro wrestling was a big part of your life then, unlike what you said in the workshop,” Lowry said, his words hard.
Robbie shrugged. “Maybe it’s a part of my family’s life, but it’s not really mine. My dad was gone more than he was with us, and I grew up way away from his world. I was never part of it.”
“Your dad never showed you anything, never trained you?” Artie asked in disbelief.
“Nothing much at all, especially after he split from Mom. Look… I’ll be honest, pro wrestling was something my family did, and they made a lot of money off it. There’s a reason I don’t have to worry about money coming to school here, and I know I got breaks a lot of kids didn’t because of the money. But I. Never. Was part of it. So that’s the reason I don’t hardly know why I even added that scene. I usually write fantasy stuff.”
“And you just train MMA for the hell of it?” Faith scoffed.
“Yeah, I appreciate being able to take care of myself and keep in shape, not to compete or for something else,” Robbie replied. “I never was into playing team sports.”
“You say so,” Faith replied. “Wait, I’ve got a question. There’s a Jordan Ryder who wrestles for WWW. She any relation to you?”
Robbie snorted at the question. “Ah, yeah, she’s my older sister.” He could see Lowry scratch his head trying to sort it all out while he heard Artie mutter “unbelievable.”
“Well, sort of…” She faced Robbie again. “I don’t make a big deal about people’s looks, but your sister is about the most perfect female I’ve ever seen.”
“Oh, here we go,” Harmony cackled.
“Have you ever seen her? She’s got the face of Wonder Woman and the body of She-Hulk. I saw her in The Body Issue of ESPN Magazine and she blew me away. You two close?”
“We grew up together in Minnesota and still keep in touch all the time,” Robbie chuckled. “She’ll appreciate the well-wishes.”
“Robbie, I need to ask you a writing question, and I need you to be straight with me,” Lowry said.
“I will, Peter,” he said, remembering Lowry’s request to use his first name.
“You said in class you didn’t know specifics about how wrestling matches were… staged, arranged, whatever. That was the truth?”
Robbie nodded. “I don’t know all the details of how things went, even though I grew up around it. Sometimes what my dad used to talk about, I don’t know how much of it was the truth and how much was kayfabe.”
“Kayfabe?”
“Basically, it’s everyone pretending all this going on in and around the ring was real, not planned out in advance,” Robbie said. “It’s maintaining the illusion, sort of like when magicians act like what they’re doing is real. When you lie for a living, the lies mix in with the truth enough it’s hard to tell which is which.”
“So, assuming you’re not dealing in… kayfabe, you think you might be able to find out the information? Or maybe you should drop the whole thing.” Peter retorted.
Robbie was silent for a while, leaning over and gazing at his feet before responding. “I might lean toward doing the latter. A lot of that shit… it’s tough to even think about.” He got up from his chair. “I need some air for a moment.”
Peter looked around the room after Robbie walked out. “What was that about…?”
“It isn’t your fault, Peter,” Artie said. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what, Artie?”
Artie shook his head. “All those guys we were talking about? They’re all gone.”
“Wh… what do you mean, gone?”
“All dead,” Benjiro said. “His dad, his three uncles, his grandfather, they’re all dead. Everyone except his sister and those two cousins.”
“All of them?”
Artie nodded. “I’d seen some stuff on YouTube and I think maybe Word Television’s series on wrestling. Almost all of them died one way or another… even his brother.”
“His brother died?” Harmony said.
“Look up John William Traynor III,” Artie said.
Harmony glanced down at her phone and tapped at it for a minute. “John William Traynor III, better known as ‘The Lion’ Jackie Ryder… oldest son of professional wrestler Jack Ryder. God, that’s depressing.”
“Okay,” Peter said, getting up from his chair. “Right. I’ll talk with him.”
#
One More Thing…
Just remember, next weekend will be the debut of The Writing Lab! On the third weekend (almost always Saturday) of the month, I will be posting a short essay focused on writing advice or something about a writing difficulty I’ve overcome (or perhaps haven’t overcome 😅). I think I’ll start off with a short series on something I’m wrestling with at the present: the revision process.
In addition, tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m. Central Time for that Saturday, I will be hosting a live AMAAW (Ask Me Anything About Writing) on Substack Chat. You can find me on Substack at @jasonliegoisauthor to join in. If you’re looking for some writing advice or just want to bounce some ideas off me, I’m open to it. Hey, try and stop by so I’m not talking to myself, will you? I think it might be fun.
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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.
I get very superstitious about putting out the actual titles of my projects until they are ready to be released and ready to go. So, you get these weird titles. ↩︎
As always with these works in progress, I warn the following excerpt can and will contain spoilers for the plot of this project, so take a break from the blog this week if that’s really important to you. ↩︎
Hi, everyone, welcome to Poetry Night. I’ve got an interesting couple of poems to share with you, about both the digital world and the analog world. Hope you enjoy them.
I’ve been writing poetry with more regularity in recent months. For the year 2025 I have written six of them. At least two of them were not for publication in the short term or maybe even in the long term. It’s been therapeutic to express myself like that and not worry about other people’s opinions.
Since Substack doesn’t quite have the setup for this, I’ve set up something here at Liegois Media. I set up my own Internet storefront page where you can order my chapbook for $6 per copy. This is the link, as is the one below.
As I might have mentioned, I’ve become a bit wary of people acting like friends online but eventually seeing me as an opportunity to make some money. That likely prompted the following poem.
To hear a trusted voice say, “I’d like you to meet…”
And words dance through the air
As you find out more about them
Their lives
Their hobbies and interests
How you watched the same movies
Knew about the same types of sports
And you remember how you used to meet and greet
In the days before The Screen and The WiFi.
You take in the panorama of your scene
As the food and drink and laughs flow
And what strikes you is how biological the meeting is
Rather than digital.
That’s it for tonight. I thought I was running out of topics for poetry, but new themes keep popping up in my work. We’ll see what March brings.
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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.
For those not familiar with the lay of the land here at The Writing Life, I set aside my posts on the second weekend of the month for prose projects. By this, I mean the post could be just about any kind of writing (except poetry; you’ll see it here every fourth weekend of the month). It could be excerpts from some of my fiction works in progress, it could be original self-contained short stories or stories connected to my longer fiction. Often, they might be original essays having something connected (however tenuously) with writing.
It is the latter category that today’s piece falls under. I decided to write about the online world, the social media world, I appear to be tied to and yet wish to be separate from. I’ll try to make sense of everything in the end, trust me.
A caricature of myself I did with a photo and one of those art apps. Because why not?
On the Issue of Social Media and Life and Writing
By Jason Liegois
The idea of me contemplating whether I need to spend so much time online is amusing to no end, ladies and gentlemen. At the start of this essay, I believe I need to state my circumstances and biases right from the beginning, because my experiences are much different from the millennials and those later generations who know nothing of life offline.
I am very much Generation X. I was born 30 March 1973, eight years before Ronald Reagan nearly lost his life to an assassin’s bullet. From what I observed, I was the last college student who received email and unlimited long distance phone minutes. I did not live with computers; computers were a thing that were trucked into our classroom on media carts and we had 10 minutes to mess around with them. We had no cell phones, no video links, to connect to people. We did it in the analog world, like in the series Stranger Things, or not at all. I occasionally feel like a relic in this era, and thus in my opinion, I think it could be useful for those who grew up staring at screens which told them what to think to hear from a point of view which did not have this experience.
People like us, people older than us, we need to write down how things were like for us, so people of future generations know there was a different way than the way they lived. There was a way beyond screens and apps and digitization and artificial intelligence of various levels doing the thinking for us. There was a way and there can be a different way than what there was1, but I’m not going to assume the way I think is the only way to think.
Got it straight? All right, we can continue.
What is Social Media Good For?
I’ve been on social media for a while, beginning on Facebook and wandering around on a few different sites since then. WordPress (where I’ve been blogging for several years) is more of a blogging site, where Substack is now a hybrid of a blogging platform and a social media platform.
I have to say if I was not a writer at this point, I might not even be on social media, or at least my presence on social media would be dramatically restricted. This fact is directly tied to my youth and the opportunities afforded to people at that time (late 20th century).
When you wanted to write an essay or an opinion piece, you had to convince a newspaper or magazine publisher to run it. Perhaps you were a staff member or a guest writer, but you had to convince them to publish it. Then, you’d hope some people pick it up off the newsstand. Now all you do is type a few things, punch a few buttons, and your words are on the World Wide Web for everyone to see. Or not.
You had to convince publishers in New York to publish your book and give you cash for it and they would take care of all the publicity and advertising and everything. But that was only if they thought you were a good writer. Now everyone has the chance to publish their own books, even though they have to do all the marketing and advertising and not all of those books are good or even written by humans. And the long and the short of it is, social media is one of the most inexpensive ways of getting the word out about what you are writing and what you are about.
I mean, social media is good for some other things. If you want to keep in touch with your family, old friends, or school classmates, it’s a good way to do that. You can do it automatically online and not have to muck around with old traditions like class reunions and the like2. You can find people who have similar interests in entertainment or hobbies. It’s good for finding those funny pictures with kooky sayings (Memes, I remember them being called) and saving them or sharing them online.
I’ve come to the conclusion it’s pretty much useless for anything else.
Again, not to get into politics, but there are at least a few different reasons for this as I rely on the analysis of others.
It turns out business truly do not like to be regulated in any meaningful way. This has always been true of businesses, but as tech companies were relatively young among the world’s industries, there might have been a thought they were different. They are now being supportive of leaders who promise not to regulate them, and their actions reflect this.
There appears to be a general decline in the quality of user experiences, especially regarding older platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. When viewers log on, they seem to see advertisements and posts from others rather than the people they follow.
There’s a larger amount of AI-generated material and bots online. At a certain point, I wonder when the bots are going to outnumber the actual people online, and I wonder if it is already happening.
Why is all of this happening? To quote the great Italian philosopher and footballer Giorgio Chinaglia, who used this phrase to explain why anything happened in the world of football:
It’s the money, you morons.
From what I understand, the companies in charge of these social media sites are doing everything they can to make money from their operations no matter what the cost. It’s their companies, they have the right to run things the way they want. But that doesn’t mean we agree with it.
For me, it means I don’t trust everything I see on social media. I go to actual news sites and actual journalists for my news, and not random Facebook places. I only engage with social media for given purposes, not for self-gratification or a dopamine boost. I also
It also means I try to connect to real people in person rather than people I only meet across a laptop or a phone screen.
Attention to all scammers, marketers, and assorted individuals online: I am not interested in your services unless I have met you IRL and/or I have investigated you enough to feel halfway confident in your services to solicit you myself. I will not accept solicitations or you reaching out to me. You will either be made fun of or told to buy my books instead. Then I’ll probably block you.
I am finding I feel much personal satisfaction with interacting with real people in the real world than many of my online interactions. Today I went down to my local bookstore, Bent Oak Books, whose owner Danette I’ve gotten to know well over the past few months. I met with Keokuk author Bree Moore, who was having an author signing down there. We met and realized we must have run into each other at a previous author’s event somewhere here in Iowa. I got on her email list and we promised to keep in touch.
If you’re into fantasy writing, you might want to check her web site too. Now that I met her, I’m looking forward to doing it myself.
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Since Substack doesn’t quite have the setup for this, I’ve set up something here at Liegois Media. I set up my own Internet storefront page where you can order my chapbook for $6 per copy. This is the link, as is the one below.
So, the first poem for today is another winter-themed one. This one’s about a river and what it’s like this time of the year.
Burlington, Iowa, 18 January 2025.
First Freeze
Fort Madison, Iowa, 25 January 2025
Breathing in frost
Air constricting your nostrils
Swaddling in parkas is the only option
To avoid freezing in place
And the last sign the true cold is here
Is when you look across The River
And see its sparkling surface
Due to the sun on the horizon
Has turned dull white and its flow continues
Hidden by the snow-capped ice.
This week I wrote a poem I’m not sure I will share on this page, likely not even later. But I’m beginning to realize poetry is becoming more of an emotional outlet and a way to work out things in my head. So this poem’s about all that.
20 January 2025, Fort Madison, Iowa.
Emergence
25 January 2025, Fort Madison, Iowa
I started playing with words and verse
Just because my fellow writers did
And I wanted a new experience.
But then I discovered
As I faced big events and hard times
I could manage them when I
Entrapped them in words and verse.
Now I’m compelled
To let the words and verses loose
And scatter them on the page
Even if I’m the only one who sees it.
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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.
Well, I hope everyone is getting off on the right foot for the upcoming year 2025. As for me, I decided to use the first newsletter of the year to look back on my old goals for the year just passed.
I had considered maybe doing a separate post about all those goals and the numbers I did (or didn’t reach) this year. However, the whole point – or, at least, one of the main points of this newsletter – is to discuss my writing experiences, projects, and related work. It wouldn’t make sense not to talk about goals here, even though I’ll try not to get to numbers-heavy here.
So, let’s talk writing goals past and present. I’m not a fan of the word “resolutions” when it comes to setting goals for the year, are you?
The Home Front
Not too much to discuss here. I got to see my family over the holidays, in some cases more than once. I think I did have time to relax, even though I’m going to be jumping into the teaching mess once again starting next week. However, depending on the drop in temperatures and the increase in precipitation, exactly when we get back off break might vary.
Writing Goals 2024
During the past few years, I’ve had a good handle on my writing goals for the upcoming year right from the beginning. This year was no different.
For those who didn’t want to bother clicking on the link, here were some of those goals.
I wanted to write a minimum of 200,000 words for 2024. Since I’ve gotten at least that much written three out of the previous four years, I figured that was a good minimum quota, similar to how I want to write either at least 500 words per day or spend at least 30 minutes revising or planning my work. In addition, I wanted to meet my daily minimum writing goals at least 75 percent of the time. Later in the year, I also decided later I wanted to at least try to exceed my personal best yearly total, which was 215,152.
I wanted to finish the rough draft of The Yank Striker 2 (working title of my second book in The Yank Striker series) this year. I had optimistically thought I might have it done by the summer of 2024, but I more realistically figured it might be more like the end of the year before it was completed. Later in the year, I decided to try and keep it somewhere around 75,000 words in its rough draft form.
Finally, I thought it might be cool to not only write some more poetry, but eventually maybe collect it into a chapbook format or get it published somewhere.
So…, how did I do on them?
Better than I expected, actually.
I reached 200,000 words by Black Friday of November. Shortly before I headed off to holiday break, I got past last year’s total. And by the end of 2024, I had written 224,606 words. It was 9,454 words above last year’s total and less than 400 words short of 225,000. I also ended up meeting my daily writing quotas 84 percent of the time, only one percent less than last year. Although I ended up spending several hundred minutes less revising and planning than I did before, I still think this was still overall the most productive writing year I ever had.
I was so close to getting the rough draft of The Yank Striker 2, everyone. As of the end of 2024, I have a rough draft of 74,059 words. As far as word count goes, I fell just short. In my heart, I think I have maybe four or so scenes I’ve got to finish up before I feel secure in calling it a complete rough draft. Considering my first two books took (depending on how I look at the process), 4-5 years to complete, the fact I started last year with a manuscript of about 25,000 words and I’m nearly finished with the rough draft is at least a partial victory – a result, as the announcers call a draw in the English Premier League.
Well, right at the end of 2024, I produced my first ever collection of poetry, The Flow and the Journey, a collection of 19 poems with river and travel themes. Check out my recent post on it for more information (and where you can find it).
Writing Goals 2025
With what has happened in 2024, I have decided to set out my goals for the upcoming year in this space. I recognize I might modify or add to these goals as I did last year, but such is life, so they say.
Write a minimum 200,000 words, but I would love to crack 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. Whether I will manage to do this or not is an interesting question. I imagine I will be spending much more time with revisions this year than the previous year due to finishing revisions for The Yank Striker 2.
I should be able to get the rough draft of The Yank Striker 2 done by the end of the month. However, this means a big turnaround of having a final draft ready for publication. If I was going to have my preference, I would want to have it ready for release either late May or early June, which means I should try and get a rough draft stitched together by mid-January. I’d like to let it sit for about four weeks, and then it would give me a solid three months to finish revisions. It would be a tight turnaround, but I don’t think it would be impossible.
Currently, I have 24,004 words written on The Untitled Pro Wrestling Project, which I’ve mentioned her previously. 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.
As far as my poetry goes, 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.
So for right now, I have two hard goals and two soft goals. I’m hoping I make progress on them throughout the year.
Writing Quote(s) of the Week:
I’ll start off with Toni Morrison explaining something important about writing and identity.
I never asked Tolstoy to write for me, a little colored girl in Lorain, Ohio. I never asked [James] Joyce not to mention Catholicism or the world of Dublin. Never. And I don’t know why I should be asked to explain your life to you. We have splendid writers to do that, but I am not one of them. It is that business of being universal, a word hopelessly stripped of meaning for me. Faulkner wrote what I suppose could be called regional literature and had it published all over the world. That’s what I wish to do. If I tried to write a universal novel, it would be water. Behind this question is the suggestion that to write for black people is somehow to diminish the writing. From my perspective there are only black people. When I say ‘people,’ that’s what I mean.
Toni Morrison
And for the first time ever, I am including a quote about writing suggested by one of my subscribers, Gesene Oaks, which I was happy to see.
Deadliest words to writers of poetry and short fiction: I don’t get it.
Gesene Oaks
What I’m Doing Having to Do With Writing
This week, I stopped by Green Point Mercantile, my old hometown of Muscatine’s newest independent bookstore. It’s located at 214 Chestnut St., right in the old downtown district.
I had the chance to meet with the owner, Candy Fuegen, an old classmate of mine, and we talked books and the new location. She now has copies of my books, including The Holy Fool, The Yank Striker, and my chapbook The Flow and the Journey.
It’s been way too long since Muscatine had an independent bookstore, so I was delighted to hear of Green Point’s opening just this fall. I would highly recommend checking them out if you are ever in Muscatine. Click on the button below to check them out on Instagram.
Go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile to check out some of my other links. For example, in those places, 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. Again, 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:
[NEWEST LOCATION] Green Point Mercantile, 214 Chestnut St., Muscatine.
Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St., in my new hometown of Fort Madison.
Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines
Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
The Book Vault, 105 S Market St, Oskaloosa.
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 going to be available at the first two bookstores above (and hopefully more down the road), but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook here on, 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.
On the subject of Substack, I’m grateful if you are signed up for my free subscription, but I would love it if you signed up for a paid one. The monthly rate is the lowest I can put it ($5 per month) but my yearly rate of $35 is a steal at less than three/fifths the monthly rate.
Now, if you are interested in supporting me but can’t quite afford a full subscription, I am now on Venmo. If you are interested in a donation of whatever you can provide, you can just send whatever you can afford. Just click the button below; anything you can provide helps me keep things going.
Not much more for this week. Hope the snow doesn’t muck things up for us too much in Iowa. Best wishes to everyone.
-30-
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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.
As I’ve mentioned previously in this space, I came into writing poetry more or less under protest.
My mother reminded me recently that she had encouraged me to try and write poetry as a young kid, but I had never taken to it. I always pictured myself as a fiction writer rather than a poet. My evolution into considering myself a poet took place over an extended a period of time and I was well into adulthood when it started in earnest.
At the risk of repeating previous stories, the process towards writing poetry began during the late aughts. It was then I moved back to my hometown of Muscatine, Iowa, and rejoined a local group of writers calling themselves Writers on the Avenue (WOTA). It was a solid group of writers who were like me – writers who wanted to improve themselves and to grow in their craft. Everyone needs a similar group or two or three or more if they want to see growth.
I did get this from WOTA. Without them, I’m not sure I would have moved forward on the projects which became my first two books, The Holy Fool and The Yank Striker.
However, there was a lot of reading and a lot of critiques between people interested in my work. In all honesty, a good portion of my contributions to our group was listening to and critiquing poetry.
Many of the WOTA members wrote tons of poetry – poetry about the natural world, their feelings, their history, their faith – things attracting strong emotions and imagery, which are natural fodder for poems. I would sit in these workshopping/critique sessions, attempting to provide feedback, while not having something for them to read. What parental pressure failed to accomplish, adult peer pressure did.
I started off slower than a soccer-playing turtle goalkeeper trying to waste time at the end of a match. Fiction was (and is) my priority, so it was something I just played around with.
I kept finding myself return to the theme of the Mississippi River, the body of water I’d lived next to for about 40 years of my life. The imagry of living next to this watery highway, the source of life for everyone around it, attracted me like nearly nothing else.
This theme continued to attract me as I spent four years away from the Mississippi while living in Chariton, Iowa, in the middle of south central Iowa and well far away from any significant nearby body of water. It was a nice little town, but mentally and emotionally I was missing something.
I was further inspired by living on an actual highway (Iowa 14) for the first time in my life and only a block and a half away from railroad tracks. The theme of travel, the road and rails, also started to creep in to my verse.
Eventually, I decided if I wanted to call myself a poet, I needed to start publishing those poems, even if it was only on my own platform. That’s when Poetry Night was born.
Forcing myself to publish my poetry every month ended up being a good thing for me. Eventually, I started to run out of my old work, so it forced me to start creating new poems and new verse. I started to get out of the old prose writer habits of adding in more words when fewer, more descriptive words would do.
Early in 2024, I ended up spending a lot of time driving, traveling, and staying in unfamiliar places due to personal circumstances. I spent more than a bit of time in unfamiliar hotels and apartments due to this, and poems about being on the road started to spring from my laptop.
It was around this time I wanted to try and put together a physical collection of my work. I didn’t want it to be something just half-hearted and scattered. The poets I knew in real life (including those from the now-disbanded Iowa Writers’ Corner, of Des Moines, Iowa, and the Society of Great River Poets of Burlington, Iowa) said it made sense to base the collection around a particular theme.
It was then I took a look at the topics which had been dominating my verse for at least the past couple years and perhaps longer: River life and traveling life. Rivers and traveling became The Flow and the Journey.
This is a chapbook I put together with the assistance of Dodd Printing in my current home of Fort Madison, Iowa. It contains 19 poems touching on the Mississippi River and river life in general, as well as what you experience and encounter in life on the road. They run the gamut of the first poem I like to say I wrote with intent all the way back in 2010 to poems from 2024. All of them speak of either what river life has meant to me or what a traveling life is like.
If You’re Interested…
…in poetry, especially river and travel poetry, this might be the book for you.
Other than running into me at book fairs and events around Iowa, I’m trying to put together ways for you to purchase my first self-published work out to people. I’m hoping to make them available at independent bookstores here in Iowa, depending on their interest.
Until then, I’ve set up a new online bookstore for The Flow and the Journey here at Liegois Media. Currently, it’s just $6 for a copy, and I’m limiting it to one purchase at a time due to limited supplies. But go ahead and click on the button below. I’d love you to take a chance on my poetry.
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.
We’ll get to the actual poetry in a little bit. Before then… I typically don’t do much “business” or “promotion” when it comes to to these Poetry Nights (or Prose Nights, either), but I’m going to make a quick exception to this rule because it is attached to my interest in poetry. I’ll keep it short, however.
I announced in my last newsletter I had finally put together my first chapbook, The Flow and the Journey, a collection of 19 of my poems. One of them dates all the way back from 2010, five of them from 2019, and the remainder from 2023-2024, when I finally decided to take my poetry seriously by writing these Poetry Night entries1.
Since this was all a self-published thing2 (where I decided to just put it together and do it because there wasn’t a massive push for someone to publish my poetry just yet), I had to start thinking of a way for people to buy this chapbook other than trying to hunt me down either in my hometown or at my personal appearances. So, I decided to get something set up.
Since Substack doesn’t quite have the setup for this, I decided to put something together at my WordPress sister site, Liegois Media. I set up my own Internet storefront page where you can order my chapbook for $6 per copy. This is the link, as is the one below.
In all seriousness, I have to admit this is a beta rollout of this service. Pay the amount and make sure to include your address in the purchase, and I will do my darnedest to get the product to you. If for some reason, you haven’t gotten a delivery to me, email me at jasonliegois@liegois.media. Make sure to put in the subject line “You got my chapbook, boy?” I’m more likely to see it3.
All right, blatant capitalistic pitch over. Let’s talk new poetry.
I think I’m built a bit different from many of my fellow humans, especially my fellow Iowans. Most Iowans I run into can’t wait to get outdoors into the summer heat. The Iowa State Fair is our secular pilgrimage, even though I’ve lived here for longer than 40 years and never attended myself. Most of my fellow friends, neighbors, and co-workers love the sun and warmth of spring and summer.
When it gets around this time of the year, however… many of them get down. They wonder where the sun had gone, hidden behind the clouds bringing along rain, snow, a mix of the two, or maybe an ice storm. They wonder why everything is so gray, why it’s so cold, even though it’s nothing compared to those living at 45° North (say, Ottowa, Canada, or Maine) or even 50° North (The Maritimes in Canada)4. It seems to bring them down emotionally, drain them of their physical and mental energy. “I haven’t seen the sun in so long,” I hear sometimes.
I believe I am of different stock.
Both of my parents grew up in Wisconsin. I have German and Norwegian heritage from them, and neither of those countries are known to be tropical paradises. The last time I went to Florida was somewhere around a decade ago. It was at the invitation of my parents and it was a chance for my kids to experience Disney World, the Atlantic Ocean, and for me to to reunite with my aunt I hadn’t seen in maybe 20 years. And it was in December. Without this confluence of coincidences, I’m not sure I’m visiting Florida ever again.
Maybe you couldn’t tell from all those posts in October and November whining about how I was tired of seeing summer weather in Iowa around then, but I’m not a fan of tropical or desert climates. I don’t like to have to dodge the sun and humidity when it gets to be 100℉. Those places like Florida, Texas, and Arizona aren’t my idea of vacation getaways or retirement forever homes. When I think of places that feel like a relaxing place to be, my dream places, they look more like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Upper Michigan, Norway, the Scottish Highlands, the Faeroe and Shetland Islands, and Iceland. Like these places:
Well, those might be adventures for another day. For now, the next two poems are the result of some seasonal inspiration. Hope you enjoy them.
Fort Madison, Iowa, December 2023
Misty Stroll
28 December 2024, Fort Madison, Iowa
The wet weight draping all over me and here
Would be a draining burden in Iowa July
With sweating corn, sweating animals, and
Sweating people wading through the wet air.
But now in the chill of December
Shielded from the sun by the mist and the low veils above
I can let it surround me, I can absorb it, let it refresh me
And my home is more like home.
Fort Madison, Iowa, 27 December 2024
Cozy Winter’s Eve Nook
Fort Madison, Iowa, 28 December 2024
Winter eve charcoal, parchment, gray, midnight,
Medium cool atmosphere, comfortable enough to lounge in without a coat
Until you lounge for more than a few minutes.
The winds persistent on level plains with not enough wood sentinels
Fortune for mariners but disaster for the unsheltered.
My nook is sealed from the worst of The Hibernal
Good wood, stone, metal, concrete, and sealant
The hearth providing the extra needed few calories of warmth
A crow’s nest view of my lovely winter abode
But as a submariner among the fathom-length depths
So am I among The Hibernal.
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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.
As I write all of this, I realize I need to make a post discussing this project specifically like I made specific posts about both of my books, The Holy Fooland The Yank Striker. Watch this space for the post coming soon. ↩︎
Shoutout to my hometown biz Dodd Printing for their help in putting this together, by the way. ↩︎
I get a lot of emails from the blogs I subscribe to. ↩︎
I currently live just above 40°30’ North. For me, I have sworn to my wife Laura that 40° North is the farthest South I will ever live in my life. Anywhere between 45° or 60° degrees North would suit me just fine – in fact, I’d be good with 45° or 60° degrees South, as well. I’ve heard decent things about southern Argentina and New Zealand. ↩︎
Well, this will be my last official newsletter of 2024. It’s been an intriguing year, and a year of some progress, but there’s no way I’d begin to say I’ve become a massive commercial success. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve come farther than I expected even five or ten years previously, but as much success I’ve had with this year’s goals, there’s always new targets and goals to aim for.
So, sit down on the couch for a while. We’ll talk about writing and a small taste of the nonsense which goes along with it if you want people to read your work.
The Home Front
I am finally on winter break for the remainder of 2024 and a bit into 2025 as well. We had one last celebration day on Friday and I can tell you both students and teachers were ready to scatter to the four winds once that day was done. But, it was a fun last day.
I have to say I have enjoyed the first semester spent at the sixth school district I have worked at. My previous districts have all seen me spent short stints there due to a variety of reasons (budget cuts, professional moves due to spouse’s advancement, etc.), but I have enjoyed my new professional home. As it stands right now, if this was the last professional home I had before my retirement from full-time work, I would be perfectly happy with this.
What I’m Writing
Current progress on my ongoing projects:
The Yank Striker 2, the sequel for The Yank Striker: More than 71,000 words into the rough draft. There’s maybe 10 days to write a great American novel of at least 75,000 words. It is possible, absolutely possible. The key, I need to keep reminding myself about rough drafts, as Uncle Ernest told us so many decades ago, is that all rough drafts are garbage.
The Untitled Pro Wrestling Family Drama project: All quiet on the Western Front. Enough said.
The Flow and Journey Chapbook: Look below.
I’ve hammered on about trying to reach my yearly goals for 2024, but I think I’ll save more discussion on that for an end of year retrospective once we pass New Year’s Eve.
Setting up Shop
I have decided I needed to put together an online shop to do some self-selling: specifically, my current poetry chapbook.
I plan to use this blog as the center of this activity. As much as I enjoy my platform on Substack, I have found WordPress to be more flexible in setting up a commercial enterprise. So, I have decided to set up a store for those interested in directly purchasing my inaugural chapbook, The Flow and the Journey.
It would be great to have the shop up and running this weekend just in case anyone is looking for last-minute Christmas gifts, although there probably isn’t a big group of people desperate for poetry books as gifts. But, you never know. If I do get it up this weekend, I will make a special post announcing it.
Writing Quote(s) of the Week:
I get this feeling whenever I show someone special to me one of my works.
If you show someone something you’ve written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, “When you’re ready.”
David Mitchell, Black Swan Green
And Uncle George with what I consider to be an absolute truth.
If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.
George Orwell
Podcasting!
Over the Thanksgiving break, I had a great conversation with a fellow writer in Iowa and friend Amber Rodgers as part of the Saga Studio Podcast. We talked about The Yank Striker quite a bit, as well as The Holy Fool and some of my upcoming projects. Check it out here if you want to give it a watch.
What I’m Doing Having to Do With Writing: Personal appearances
I first want to thank my hometown independent bookstore Bent Oak Books in Fort Madison, Iowa, for offering me a space in their store not only to sell my books, but for my first in-person appearance there. They gave me three days notice and I was overjoyed I had an empty spot in my calendar for the day. As I told Danette Baier, the wonderful owner of Bent Oaks, “I’ll be there whenever you need me.” Support your local indie bookstores, kids – you’ll never know what you are missing until they are gone.
I’m still hoping to be part of the DSM Book Festival at the at Franklin Junior High Event Center, 4801 Franklin Ave., Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday, 22 March 2025. This is being sponsored by one of my favorite independent book stores in Des Moines, Beaverdale Books.
How to support me😊.
Go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile to check out some of my other links. For example, in those places, 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. Again, 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, you can find my books there:
Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St., in my new hometown of Fort Madison, Iowa. They’ve been open for just about a year and just recently opened up a new used book section at their store.
Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines
Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
The Book Vault, 105 S Market St, Oskaloosa.
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.
I love it if you are signed up for my free subscription, but I would love it if you signed up for a paid one. The monthly rate is the lowest I can put it ($5 per month) but my yearly rate of $35 is a steal at less than three/fifths the monthly rate.
Now, if you are interested in supporting me but can’t quite afford a full subscription, I am now on Venmo. If you are interested in a donation of whatever you can provide, you can just send whatever you can afford. Just click the button below; anything you can provide helps me keep things going.
I think that’s about it for now. For all of you out there during this holiday season, I hope you can find plenty out there to be grateful for and to celebrate. As Rick Springfield once sang, we all need the human touch1.
All you writers keep writing and everyone keep safe.
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