Tag: Iowa Indie Bookshop Tour

The Writing Life, 3 August 2024: Quiet week

The Home Front

Like I mentioned last time, I’m now entering the last phase of my summer vacation, where the break time can be measured in weeks rather than months. I won’t regurgitate the phases here, but you can go back and see them if you’re really curious.

I’ve had my first outing with some of my new work colleagues during a recent workshop, and it was great experience. Of course, I would not say I am totally prepared for the school year to come and how to organize for it, but I have faith it will go forward just fine in the end. It always does one way or the other.

Also, it looks like we’ll be finding a new permanent residence here in Fort Madison. Apartment life has been interesting, but my wife Laura has missed having a back yard and back patio, and we are in the process of securing a new house. It will be a couple of months before we close on the place and a bit longer before we fully move in, but it has begun.

What I’m Writing

Progress report time!

  • The Yank Striker 2, the sequel for The Yank Striker. Progress on this is still slow. I’m hoping actually to get some more work done on a new scene coming up.
    Since I’ve had a chance to sketch out a revised outline for the book, I’m thinking if I am not at the halfway point of the book, I’m getting close to it. I’m still hoping to wrap up a first draft of the book by the end of the year, but it’s a tough slog. I think I’ll use something I saw today as my writing quote for the week which might fit this well (see below).
  • The Untitled Pro Wrestling Family Drama project I first got the idea for more than a year ago. I’ve finished a scene where I’m portraying a writer’s workshop and I’m hoping to present it to my writer’s group to see if it make sense. It’s a very meta situation. At least some of them have gone through MFA programs so I might have some expert advice on hand.
  • I’m planning this month to put together my first book of poems, even if it’s a tiny chapbook and I do the whole thing myself. If I want to claim to be a poet, I think I have to have a physical copy of my work on hand, even if it is a chapbook. I’ll let you know how that goes, heh-heh.

Of course, with school coming around, there will be less time for me to waste time and just write. Then again, maybe I do better with a deadline. It’s an old journalism thing.

Writing Quote for the Week

One of my more recent favorite authors is a pioneer of what might be classified as urban fantasy, Laurell K. Hamilton. Her recent description of one of her works in progress hit close to home for me. (Hint: it’s the bit about trench warfare.)

Some books flow like the muses are showering you with rose petals. Other books seem to fight you every step of the way like trench warfare. This book is unfortunately the latter, not the former. I am thinking longingly of when I can be back to a sane world & type, The End.

  • Laurell K. Hamilton

Author’s Note: The following material is some basic information about my sites and my books.

If you’re a returning reader and have already read about them, clicked on the links, or even subscribed to the site and maybe bought a book or two, feel free to skip until the end.

For those of you coming here for the first time, you might find what’s below useful.

By the way, I will only be posting the following information from here on out on my first newsletter of the month, and not both of them. I want to make sure I’m not being too repetitive with these posts.

A Few Links About My Books and Where to Find Them

My first book is a journalism thriller set in Chicago during the turbulent days of the 2008 election and the start of the Great Recession. Check out more about it here.

You can get the paperback version of this book on Amazon here and the ebook version of it here.

A fellow Iowa writer and organizer of the Windsor Heights Book Fair, Tyler Granger, recently did a review of my book: you can find it here.

My second book, the first in the The Yank Striker series, is a soccer drama telling the story of the beginning of a young American’s career as a player. There’s more about it here.

The paperback version of this book can be found on Amazon and the site of my publisher, Biblio Publishing. It is also available in ebook format on Amazon here.

For full links to these and other helpful places having to do with me and my writing, you can go to this page on my WordPress site, Liegois Media.

You can also get my books in person at these fine Iowa bookstores:

  • 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 anyone has a suggestion.

Final Thoughts

Like I said, short and sweet. Either I’ll try and come up with some new stuff in a fortnight or the newsletter then will be really short, lol.

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.

Subscribe to my Substack here.

The Writing Life, 20 July 2024: July keeps rolling along

There’s a lot of great independent Iowa bookstores out there, and they’re sponsoring a big Iowa Indie Bookshop Tour from this month through September. Check out the link in the pic for more information.

Oh, hey, everyone, it’s just me trying to give the rub to some great independent book stores in Iowa1. I’ll talk about what’s been going on with me, but frankly it’s been a slow couple weeks.

The Home Front

There are approximately three stages to a summer vacation to a teacher. These can vary, of course, depending on the different calendars some might have for individual school districts. Generally, however, I’ve noticed such vacations proceed like so:

  1. Phase One, Late May-Early July: Basically bugging out time, taking a massive breather from the mental marathon of the school year and doing whatever fits your interests, even if it means zoning out to watch Copa America and the European soccer championships like I did.
  2. Phase Two, Early July-Late July: Still in vacation mode, but there is at least a small sense it will end at some point.
  3. Phase Three, Late July-Mid August: Actively preparing for the school year to come while “technically” on vacation.

If you are paying attention to the calendar and to what I just wrote, I’m now nearing the end of Phase Two. There’s still some vacation to go.

For those who remember my US Men’s National Team (USMNT) rant of two weeks ago, it turned out the US Soccer Federation did fire Gregg Berhalter2 from his position, but we are now waiting for them to hire a proper coach for the World Cup in two years3. Hoping for the best.

The Olympics will be on for the next couple weeks, so some more soccer and basketball along with the gymnastics and swimming.

If you want to hear about other current events like the political stuff, this isn’t the place for it, my friend. But I wouldn’t bother with most of it because most political reporting nowadays, sad to say, is just brain-rotting nonsense.

What I’m Writing

One thing connected to that last bit, however; I have never understood writers who have claimed to be in an optimal writing mood when they are in a depressed or negative state. For example, some believe a good break-up might help to spark some creativity. I am of a completely different mindset, myself, so I’ve had to shield myself a bit to get any writing done, and I’ve not done as good of a job as I wanted.

However, there has some work done on the following projects:

  • The Yank Striker 2 (totally unoriginal working title), the sequel for The Yank Striker (look below for more information on the first book in the series). I started a new scene on this a few days ago. Hopefully I get back at it in a day or two.
    One of these writing advice columnists I’ve subscribed to over the years mentioned something about if you write something life 200-210 words per day for one particular project, you will wind up with a full manuscript bu the end of the year. (200 words times 365 days equals 73,000 words, which is a pretty good sized manuscript.) Maybe I need to apply this standard to whatever project I’m working to complete a project? Seems sensible.
  • The Untitled Pro Wrestling Family Drama project I first got the idea for more than a year ago. I’m working on a scene where I’m portraying a writer’s workshop and I’m about to present it to my writer’s group to see if it make sense. It’s a very meta situation.

Writing Quote for the Week

“Fiction is the lie that helps us understand the truth,” once said by the author Tim O’Brian, might be my all-time favorite quote about fiction I’ve ever heard. It also gets into the difference between factual truth and deeper Truth, something that became a major theme of his fiction throughout his career4. Here’s another quote from him along those same lines.

The goal, I suppose, any fiction writer has, no matter what your subject, is to hit the human heart and the tear ducts and the nape of the neck and to make a person feel something about what the characters are going through and to experience the moral paradoxes and struggles of being human.

  • Tim O’Brian

Author’s Note: The following material is some basic information about my sites and my books.

If you’re a returning reader and have already read about them, clicked on the links, or even subscribed to the site and maybe bought a book or two, feel free to skip until the end.

For those of you coming here for the first time, you might find what’s below useful.

A Few Links About My Books and Where to Find Them

My first book is a journalism thriller set in Chicago during the turbulent days of the 2008 election and the start of the Great Recession. Check out more about it here.

You can get the paperback version of this book on Amazon here and the ebook version of it here.

A fellow Iowa writer and organizer of the Windsor Heights Book Fair, Tyler Granger, recently did a review of my book: you can find it here.

My second book, the first in the The Yank Striker series, is a soccer drama telling the story of the beginning of a young American’s career as a player. There’s more about it here.

The paperback version of this book can be found on Amazon and the site of my publisher, Biblio Publishing. It is also available in ebook format on Amazon here.

For full links to these and other helpful places having to do with me and my writing, you can go to this page on my WordPress site, Liegois Media.

You can also get my books in person at these fine Iowa bookstores:

  • 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 anyone has a suggestion.

Final Thoughts

It was a quick newsletter this week. Hopefully I might have more to discuss in a couple of weeks.

Writers keep writing and everyone keep safe.

-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.

Subscribe to my Substack here.
  1. Look, the longer you’re here, the more professional wrestling terminology you’re going to have to deal with. I like stealing cool phrases, and wrestling terminology is chock full of them. ↩︎
  2. The USMNT head coach, in his second stint in the role. ↩︎
  3. We don’t have to qualify for the tourney since we are hosting, but we don’t want to be an embarrassment, either. ↩︎
  4. It also happens to be a key aspect of the concept of kayfabe, as well. ↩︎