Hey, everyone on the interwebs, good to be back. Summer is approaching and there’s a lot of cool things coming up, even though some of the deadlines and due dates are not set it stone.

Let’s talk writing¹.

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 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 my main character, Daniel John “DJ” Ryan 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.Much has happened since list time. My third revision of the book is wrapped up and I’ve now sent it off to my good friend and fellow writer (and eastern Iowa resident) Misty Urban for a revising/proofreading session. I’m looking forward to working with her on the project. (Also, if you are interested in historical romances (or romances in general), I think Misty can hook you up with some good stories. And if someone’s looking for some writing services, she’ll have you covered, too.
   I’m also working with an outside artist on the cover art, and I’m hoping we can have a cover reveal sometime this month. (This will likely be a special post beyond my normal weekend posts – I’ll let everyone know in Substack Notes when it comes.)
   We’re hoping to get this work wrapped up by the end of May. If all goes well, I am hoping for a June release, although I do not have an exact date yet. I’m going to start trying to put some appearances together for this as well, hopefully at some upcoming book fairs, indie book stores, and libraries.
2. 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. has been at the head of my creative interests for a while, with the exception of The Yank Striker’s Journey. Currently, I’m at more than 47,000 words on the project, which is more than 10,000 words than I was at last month.I put together what will either be a prologue or a new Chapter 1 after I got feedback from two of my writer’s groups the beginning of the story seemed to be dragging and difficult to figure out where the plot was headed. After some brand new feedback on this section today, I’ve been reassured I’m on the right path.
3. The Heart Project: This is the name of the… let’s call it speculative/fantasy/soft sci-fi story I have in mind informed by our troubled time involving four one-time friends, a high school reunion, and a microcosm of a larger sense of chaos.
   With The Yank Striker’s Journey on my radar, this has been put on the back burner, in all honesty. But I haven’t forgotten about it. I might have to start seriously getting some planning and notes on it this summer.
4. In recent weeks, I’ve begun to wonder what Samuel “Sonny” Turner, the old Chicago-based newspaper columnist turned new era blogger who was the protagonist of my first novel, The Holy Fool, would be saying or doing if he was present during the current circumstances. When we last left him in this book, it was 2009 and Turner was celebrating the beginning of his new news site, The Fool, in Geneva, Switzerland. I’d like to think he was still at work, and he might have a more proactive journalistic mindset than his corporate media counterparts.
   I’m not necessarily thinking there might be a sequel to The Holy Fool. But I’m thinking it might be a possibility.
5. My pure new writing output tanked this month while I was busy with revisions on The Yank Striker’s Journey. I was hoping to write at least 225,000 words for 2025, which would be a new yearly record. This month and this summer will be a great opportunity to pick up the pace.

What I’m Doing Having to do With Writing

There’s only a couple of events coming up for me this next few months, so I am planning on adding to this. But for now:

• I will be at the the Badger Public Library book fair between around 8 a.m. until noon on Saturday, 17 May, at the Badger Public Library, 211 1st Ave SE, Badger, Iowa. They were one of the first places ever to participate in a book fair and I absolutely enjoyed the experience.

• I will be at the 10th anniversary celebration of the Indie Author Book Expo from 12 to 5 p.m. Saturday, June 21, at the Valley Junction Activity Center, 217 Fifth St., West Des Moines. I did this show a couple of times these past few years and it didn’t run last year, but I’ll be back at it in June.

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 of the Week:

The King, once again saying it the best:

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

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 want to support me but can’t quite afford a full subscription, I am now on Venmo. You can just send whatever you can afford. Just click the button below; anything you can provide helps me keep things going.

Final Thoughts

I’m looking forward to a busy summer, and I hope to see some of you readers during my time out and about.

All you writers keep writing and everyone keep safe.

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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.

1. By the way, I would love to hear about what you, the readers, are writing yourselves. Please feel free to share what you are working on either in the comments or by direct message. ↩︎

Hello and Some Quick Housekeeping Items

Hello and welcome back to my modest little Substack here on the interwebs but produced in southeast Iowa.

For those just joining me here or those who have been away for a while, my publishing schedule has slightly changed.

1. What you are reading now, The Writing Life, is my official newsletter, where I talk about my upcoming writing projects, promotional events, some personal news, and some odds and ends. It runs on the first weekend of the month, usually (not always) Saturday.
2. Second weekend of the month is Prose Night. This is where I post an original piece of prose writing. It could be an excerpt of a larger work in progress, an original essay, such as my A Writer’s Biography posts looking back at my life and path as a writer, or the occasional short story.
3. Third weekend of the month will be The Writing Lab. This will cover advice about writing to readers, as well as glances at issues I’ve faced myself as a writer. Hopefully, it can be useful to those who want to improve their own work. For the first of those last month, I ran a live Substack Chat for anyone wanting to get advice or feedback on writing. That didn’t get much response, so I might try a Substack Note instead. I’ll let you know what I decide.
4. Fourth weekend of the month is Poetry Night. You get a couple of fresh new poems from me, and likely some random exposition as to why I might have written them. It’s been a good challenge for me to be more productive with my poems, and I’m surprised at how much I’ve grown as a poetry writer in the process.
5. If there is a fifth weekend in the month, I either take the weekend off or we do a Hodgepodge Night. It could be anything – fiction, non-fiction, poetry, advice – shoot, maybe even a video or podcast if I get crazy.

Anyway, I’ll try not to repeat this list in my later Writing Life newsletters, or I’ll figure out another way to get the schedule out there without clogging up the newsletter.

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 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 my main character, Daniel John “DJ” Ryan 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.

I’ve now finished the second draft and have gotten feedback from the majority of my beta readers. I’ve now begun the second of three planned revisions after a first one in February. My plan is to finish this and the third revision by the end of April. In May, I am planning to have a final editing and proofreading session, and this needs to get wrapped up by around Memorial Day. If all goes well, I am hoping for a June release, although I do not have an exact date yet.

2. The Untitled Pro Wrestling Fiction Project: I’ve been making more progress on this. Over the past year and a half, this story about a family of pro wrestlers from Texas and a young man’s determination to understand what it all means has been at the head of my creative interests for a while, with the exception of The Yank Striker’s Journey. Currently, I’m at more than 36,000 words on the project.
   However, over the past few months, I’ve had the great opportunity to share the rough draft with two different writing groups. In getting feedback from members of those groups, I’ve come to the conclusion my rough draft starts off at a leisurely pace and it’s not clear enough what the main conflict of the main character is. In 21st century fiction, you just can’t spend the first several pages of a book wandering around the story rather than getting to it.
   I’m going to continue to make progress on the rough draft, even though every instinct in my head is telling me to go back and rewrite the beginning of the book. It will be an experience, I am sure.
3. The Heart Project: This is the name of the… let’s call it speculative/fantasy/soft sci-fi story I have in mind informed by our troubled times.
   This involves four one-time friends, a high school reunion, and a microcosm of a larger sense of chaos.
   With The Yank Striker’s Journey on my radar, this has been put on the back burner, in all honesty. But I haven’t forgotten about it.
4. Poetry: No word on whether I swept the Lyrical Iowa 2025 Contest awards, but I’m glad I entered it. Otherwise, I keep trying to produce some more works.
5. I didn’t win or place in this year’s Iron Pen Contest sponsored by the Midwest Writing Center, but it was a heck of a ride as always. Looking forward to next year’s contest.

In total, however, my writing output over the past two weeks especially has gone down the toilet as I have been spending much time on reviewing revisions for The Yank Striker’s Journey. I want to pick up the pace, especially if I am hoping to write at least 225,000 words written for 2025, which would be a new yearly record for me if I make it. I just need to refocus myself and realize I have to keep producing stuff. I need to realize the rough draft stuff doesn’t have to be perfect.

What I’m Doing Having to do With Writing

I’ve continued to participate in different writer’s groups in the area. I attend one sponsored by the Fort Madison Area Art Association two Tuesdays a week, and I do a virtual meeting with the Midwest Writing Center’s group usually every first and third Saturday, and a live meeting with the Society of Great River Poets in Burlington the same days. Those days get pretty hectic when I make it to both meetings, but I truly get some great feedback and advice from them. I credit the writing groups I previously belonged to, the active Writers on the Avenue in Muscatine and the defunct Iowa Writers’ Corner in Des Moines, with helping me on the path to publishing my past two books.

I absolutely enjoyed my time at the DSM Book Festival last month in Des Moines, hosted by Beaverdale Books in town. I let them know I would absolutely be interested in making a return trip there next year.

Here’s a couple others:

• I will be at the the Badger Public Library book fair between around 8 a.m. until noon on Saturday, 17 May, at the Badger Public Library, 211 1st Ave SE, Badger, Iowa. They were one of the first places ever to participate in a book fair and I absolutely enjoyed the experience.

• I will be at the 10th anniversary celebration of the Indie Author Book Expo from 12 to 5 p.m. Saturday, June 21, at the Valley Junction Activity Center, 217 Fifth St., West Des Moines. I did this show a couple of times these past few years and it didn’t run last year, but I’ll be back at it in June.

I know I need to get some appearances and other things going to promote the book, and get in contact with some media as well. I think this is the appropriate time to say 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:

This in particular seems to be good advice for many writers, including my own students.

Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

This next quote reminds me I want to put out as much writing and creativity as I can in the time I have left because I spent a lot of time not doing it. I’m trying to make up for lost time, but then again that’s something everyone does when you get down to it.

The second thing you have to do to be a writer is to keep on writing. Don’t listen to people who tell you that very few people get published and you won’t be one of them. Don’t listen to your friend who says you are better that Tolkien and don’t have to try any more. Keep writing, keep faith in the idea that you have unique stories to tell, and tell them. I meet far too many people who are going to be writers ‘someday.’ When they are out of high school, when they’ve finished college, after the wedding, when the kids are older, after I retire . . . That is such a trap You will never have any more free time than you do right now. So, whether you are 12 or 70, you should sit down today and start being a writer if that is what you want to do. You might have to write on a notebook while your kids are playing on the swings or write in your car on your coffee break. That’s okay. I think we’ve all ‘been there, done that.’ It all starts with the writing. ”
― Robin Hobb

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 want to support me but can’t quite afford a full subscription, I am now on Venmo. You can just send whatever you can afford. Just click the button below; anything you can provide helps me keep things going.

Final Thoughts

It’s going to be a hectic few months for me coming up. All you 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.