Tag: The Writing Life

The Writing Life, 4 May 2024

The Des Moines River by downtown Des Moines, right next to the Interstate 235 bridge. This blog has given me the opportunity to do some great photography of my home state and the rivers that inspire me personally and artistically.

I am on the road in Pella, Iowa, this week for professional and personal reasons as I continue to wrap up my teaching contract in Central Iowa. However, the writing and writing activities still continue, in quality if not quantity. We’ll talk about all of it here.

The Home Front

A view of the Mississippi River and the Fort Madison Tool Bridge from the newly opened Turnwater Bar and Grill at the Fort Madison Marina.

As of the publication of this newsletter, I’ll have less than three weeks left at my current teaching job at Twin Cedars Community School District (CSD). As much as I’ve enjoyed my work there, I’m starting to feel antsy about moving on, as I spelled out a couple of weeks ago.

Pella seems a bit crowded this week as the city celebrates its well-known tulip festival, so there’s more than a bit of activity around. I have to say Pella has been an acceptable base camp for my on the road activities. And I even made a few appearances at Pella Books, one of the nicer independent bookstores in Iowa, as part of the festival. I’d highly recommend my readers stop there if they’re ever in Pella, or check them out online.

What I’m Writing

I had thought the previous week I would be writing an epic poem about the differences between the Mississippi River I grew up next to and the Des Moines River which I keep running across in my recent travels.

However, I ended up writing four shorter poems I was proud I managed to whip up in a week’s time. If you want to read them (for free for a little while before they go into the paid archives), you can check them out here.

I do plan to put out that epic poem during May’s Poetry Night. Stay tuned.

Regardless, I also feel quite successful this week because… I finally got more progress done regarding The Yank Striker 2. After weeks and weeks of no progress on the book, all of a sudden I manage to put together more than a thousand new words for the story. I spent so much time mucking around and making excuses for getting on with things, it’s so much of a relief to making progress.

As far as the timetable for when The Yank Striker 2 gets completed, I don’t have a solid date. I do believe I want to get the rough draft done this year and the final draft ready for publication during the first half of next year.

If I stick to this (I hope), it would still be the fastest turnaround for a project I’ve had yet, about two years. I want to try and speed things up to where I’m producing a novel-length project every year. What I will need to line up are some people I need to have in place to make sure I have a solid project. This includes beta readers, a proofreader at the end, and I need to have a cover artist. While I appreciate the work my publishers did on my first two books, I want to see what might happen if I go out on the open market and ask if anyone might be interested in working with me1.

What I’m Doing Having to do With Writing

I’ve had the opportunity to do some site maintenance both on Substack and WordPress. I believe everything is caught up regarding the access to the site, so that’s great news.

At some point, I need to take a closer look at my recommendation list. There are so many great writers on Substack and different places, I need to do a better job of letting people know who’s doing some great writing I’ve come across. It’s not like I have a lot of money around to give people, surely2.

So what I can do is let people know about all the writers here who have something good to say. In fact, I’ll mention a few of those writers below after a long absence of recommendations here in the newsletter.

Also, I am researching how to put together chapbooks for my poems. I have the feeling before the year is out, I will likely be hawking my first chapbook at some of my appearances, making me a dual literary threat, lol.

Writing Quote(s) for the Week

This is absolutely true. You can take advice from critics, but in the end, these are stories and you can like or dislike whatever you prefer.

As for literary criticism in general: I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split.

  • Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage

Also, I am including likely the most well-known quote of Bill Wundram, the longtime reporter and columnist for what became the Quad City Times beginning in 1944 and only wrapping up in 2022, passing away the next year at 98 years old. I had the honor of meeting Wundram a few times during my career as a journalist, but I mostly observed him on the written page. It would be a saying he would repeat in his columns, usually in response to some long-neglected issue or problem in the Quad Cities.

Is anybody there? Does anybody care?

  • Bill Wundram

Reading Recommendations

It’s been way too long since I’ve recommended a few writers and articles to everyone, so I decided to include a few here. Some I’ve recommended before, while others I’m mentioning here for the first time.

Ed Tibbetts has been writing a lot about the Quad Cities of eastern Iowa and western Illinois just as much as he did when he was a top political reporter for the Quad City Times. While a lot of his coverage has centered on the trials and tribulations of the Davenport City Council and what they don’t want to share with the public, I was interested in this article about what the majority party in Iowa (the Republican Party)’s vision for the teaching of history in the state was.

Kyle Munson, like Ed a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative, put out this article about the new book, What Works in Community News. The new book by Ellen Clegg and Dan Kennedy is a more complex and nuanced examination of the successes of local news and how there’s no one solution to a problem many good journalists are trying to solve.

Another former Quad City Times writer, Tory Brecht, looks into a long-neglected property in Davenport, Iowa with this article. In the process, he in a sense has a seance to resurrect the spirit of Bill Wundram, a Times reporter and columnist who had an absurdly long 70-year-plus career there and became legend throughout the Midwest, never mind just the Quad Cities.

And for something completely different, I recently ran across OK Doomer, written by Jessica Wildfire, in my Substack recommendations. She does some great articles about public health and climate change, but what first caught my eye was this piece where she described why she’s walking away from her academic career and the reasons behind it. I was impressed by the breadth of her knowledge about what higher education is truly right and the direct efficiency of her language.

It’s collapsing because nobody really cares about it. As a tenured professor, I’m not supposed to say that.

It’s true.

Nobody really wants to admit they don’t care about education. Some people get angry when you point out this simple fact. Everyone wants to talk about how much they care about education. They want to watch movies about great teachers. They want to complain about the bad ones.

  • Jessica Wildfire

There’s actually quite a few more articles I’ve enjoyed over the past month, but some of those might get a Substack Notes mention.

A Few Links About My Books and Appearances

This is a link to my upcoming appearances, which just got updated.

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.

My second book, the first in the projected 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.

Shameless Self-Plugs and Notices

For direct links to purchase my books in paperback and ebook form, including The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning and The Holy Fool, click on the links in the Substack sidebar or the links on my Substack author page. Or, you can go to this page on my WordPress site, Liegois Media.

You can also get them 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.

All these are great independent bookstores, but I’m always looking for some new places to place my books (especially now in eastern Iowa), so feel free to hit me up in the comments if anyone has a suggestion.

While you’re here, I wanted to add just a quick description of how The Writing Life works. With a free subscription, you always will have access to my newsletters on the first and third weekends of the month, as well as selected articles up to a month after they’ve been published. However, If you have a paid subscription with me (which is pretty inexpensive), you will have access to all of my articles here, all of my archives, and my eternal gratitude. Plus, probably some first-dibs on possible future offers.

Final Thoughts

I’m almost done with the road, Hon3.

Looking forward to hanging out in Fort Madison full time and making it my true home. But wherever you are, that’s home to me.

See all of you later. Writers keep writing and all of you 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. This is the part of the newsletter where if you happen to be an artist and would love to illustrate the covers of a soccer drama series for some cash, feel free to email me at jasonliegois@liegois.media. ↩︎
  2. That’s why I don’t stress out because I don’t have a massive amount of paid subscribers. ↩︎
  3. My wife if you couldn’t guess. ↩︎

The Writing Life, 20 April 2024:

Winston “Winnie” Liegois, 2008-2024.

Well, there’s a passing in my life this week as I return to the Pella area temporarily as the end of my time in south central Iowa comes closer to an end. Let’s talk a little about the writing I’m doing (or not doing) right now, as well as a few other things.

The Home Front

Winnie at home in Fort Madison, April 2024, courtesy of my wife Laura.

I never grew up with pets, but my wife Laura did. By the time our kids were in elementary school, we had Samantha, a calico kitty and former resident of the Clinton County landfill; Snickers, a white Shih Tzu pup rescued from the Muscatine Humane Society; and Winston, an adoption from one of our friends in Muscatine. For a short while, we had a nice little menagerie at our home.

I enjoyed all of them, but Winnie was the one I had the longest relationship with. In his younger days, he’d clamber up on my chair and we’d catch the soccer games on the weekends. He was more of a chilling dog rather than an excitable, toy-playing dog, but that was all right with me. Of course, he worshiped his mom who would always hook him up with his special dog food.

Time passes and pets cross the rainbow bridge, of course. Samantha joined us in Clinton and left us in Muscatine. Snickers joined us in Muscatine, followed us to Chariton, and there was where he left us. Winnie was the hardiest of them, joining us in Muscatine, then in Chariton, and then finally leaving us in Fort Madison.

I’m down, but Laura’s gutted. She lost many pets as a kid, but she wasn’t there when they had to pass over. Seeing it happen with Snickers was shattering for both of us, and I’ll always be sorry I wasn’t there when Winnie left. Then again, what happened was because of Winnie’s schedule, which in the end is for the best.

This might be it for us and pets, sadly. It is a considerable time commitment for a pet, and you just can’t leave a dog for days on end while trying to travel somewhere. I’m also not sure we’re up for adopting another pet only to go through this process one more time at the end.

He’ll always be part of us, though. This I know. As Sir Terry Pratchett might have written, GNU for him1.

When not missing my dog, I am living the hotel life somewhere in Marion County, Iowa, after a week spent as my son’s roommate in downtown Des Moines. The price was right and living in the biggest city in Iowa was exciting, but it is nice to have a 55-minute round trip commute rather than a two-hour round trip commute every day. And I actually enjoyed having my son as a roommate and hanging out with him on a regular basis, even though it meant sharing a one-bedroom apartment and tucking into a couch every night. You tend to treasure spending time with your kids after they turn 18 and you don’t see them around every day.

Jake trying to look serious after a workout, April 2024.
A more relaxed Jake visiting us in Fort Madison, April 2024.

The kid is doing much better and is able to get along and take care of himself, even though I can be over there if he needs something. He is eager to get back to work as a heating and air conditioning (HVAC) tech and continue to work toward his journeyman license. I’m glad his accident in the end has only delayed this process slightly and not altered it.

My daughter. 💛

Speaking of kids, my daughter Madeline is approaching her final weeks of study at the University of Iowa. She is looking forward to beginning her career as a chemical engineer at the hometown firm my father worked at for so many years. I’m super excited as she prepares to begin her professional career and all of the adventures ahead for her.

One of the things I am very happy with is I never attempted to try and persuade them to go toward a particular career or path. I never expected them to do anything like what I have done as a career or passion or like their mother. I was just happy both of them found their passions and have pursued them. I’m absolutely proud of both my kids and looking forward to their future adventures.

As I mentioned before, I am back to hotel living for about another month’s time. It’s been difficult, as it was five years ago, when I went into a school year knowing I would leave for someplace new a year later. I haven’t had to go through an entire year as a lame duck teacher, although I certainly was one for at least half the amount of time and perhaps slightly longer in practical terms. Financially, I’m glad I made the decision I did to stay, but in all honesty I’m not sure I will wish to repeat the process again. After a while, the knowledge you are leaving and it’s only a matter of time before you go begins to wear on you. I have truly enjoyed my time at Twin Cedars, but I can sense my time and purpose there is almost done. A poem I wrote around five years ago, when I was last a lame duck teacher, “Rest Holds,” seems just as pertinent now as it did then.

What I’m Writing

I just finished up a story that will be part of a dark romance short story collection, I think. As soon as it gets published, I’ll get people a link.

Inspired by my recent connection with the Society of Great River Poets out in Burlington, I’m going to uncork a brand new poem for Poetry Night at the Writing Life next week. The subject is going to be a body of water I’ve been running across repeatedly in recent weeks and months, the Des Moines River. It certainly is a different creature than the Mississippi River I used to live next to (I still do, but I used to, as well2).

I feel bad I’m going to miss their next couple of meetings due to book fair commitments, but I definitely want to go back there the next chance I get.

As for my other projects, both announced and unannounced (not counting what I post on this blog), I think it would be best to talk about them whenever I actually get some work done on them. As I have sometimes said around here, you’ll see it when you see it.

What I’m Doing Having to do With Writing

There’s actually a lot going on along these lines. Some of those things are a bit more of a promotional nature, so I’ll hold off on talking about those until a little later below.

I have been updating the site, setting some posts for all subscribers and others for paid subscribers. In short, you get some of my pieces (the regular newsletter, as well as some other random pieces and promotional pieces) for free, while some of the other exclusive items are available only to paid subscribers. As you might see once you check out my site, my paid subscription plan is pretty cheap compared to others, especially if you pay on a yearly basis. I say check it out if you want.

What I also need to do is to go through my list of subscribers and those I subscribe to and do more to recommend them. As with moderating and administrating my site, its something which will take some time, time away from time writing. But it is something necessary. If I want people to take a glance at my own work, I need to do what I can to look at their work and promote their work. There are so many great writers on this platform and I want more people to know about them.

Writing Quote for the Week

A good quote this week about doing your own thing as a writer.

Concentrate on what you want to say to yourself and your friends. Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness. You say what you want to say when you don’t care who’s listening.

  • Allen Ginsberg

A Few Links About My Books and Appearances

This is a link to my upcoming appearances, which just got updated. The most recent one will be TODAY beginning at 1 p.m. at the Ankeny public library.

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.

My second book, the first in the projected 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.

Shameless Plugs and Notices (please forgive)

For direct links to purchase my books in paperback and ebook form, including The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning and The Holy Fool, click on the links in the Substack sidebar or the links on my Substack author page. Or, you can go to this page on my WordPress site, Liegois Media.

You can also get them 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.

All these are great independent bookstores, but I’m always looking for some new places to place my books (especially now in eastern Iowa), so feel free to hit me up in the comments if anyone has a suggestion.

While you’re here, I wanted to add just a quick description of how The Writing Life works. With a free subscription, you always will have access to my newsletters on the first and third weekends of the month, as well as selected articles up to a month after they’ve been published. However, If you have a paid subscription with me (which is pretty inexpensive), you will have access to all of my articles here, all of my archives, and my eternal gratitude. Plus, probably some first-dibs on possible future offers.

Final Thoughts

It’s been a roller-coaster week. I’m looking forward to later today when I get back home to my wife.. Many times, life is about the things you lose over time than what you accumulate over a lifetime. But, you also value what you have when you have it.

Love to everyone. 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. You can head here for an explanation of the acronym GNU. ↩︎
  2. I’m sorry, but that’s a great joke from Mitch Hedberg, so I’m going to keep using it. So there. ↩︎

The Writing Life, 6 April 2024: Hanging out in Des Moines

801 Grand Building, Des Moines, Iowa, 27 March 2024. It happens to be the tallest building in Iowa, and I can just walk to it on the Skywalk from my kid’s place. Like the design? It apparently allows the building to have a lot more corner offices than a typical skyscraper design.

Things have been hopping for a bit as I now sit in “voluntary exile” in Des Moines, apartment-sitting for my son as he continues with his recovery. It is a strange situation when I don’t know necessarily where I might be laying my head come next weekend, much less next month. Yet, life and writing goes on. Let’s talk about it.

The Home Front

I’ve gone from being alone in a house in imminent anticipation of being sold, to having that home sold, living in a hotel by myself, and visiting my new home in Fort Madison on the weekends, to living in my kid’s apartment in Des Moines, commuting to south central Iowa for work, and making it back to Fort Madison on the weekends. All of these arrangements, for various reasons, lasted only two to three weeks at most. And now, it appears I’ll be roommates with my son in Des Moines now that he’s back from his rehabilitation facility where he was getting therapy after his fall and concussion on the job way back at the end of February. And I’m only starting my third month of this stuff. To be honest, I’m barely getting my head around everything.

But I am glad about this new development. It means Jake (my son) has made a lot of progress toward getting back on his feet and reaching his goals of getting his heating and air conditioning journeyman’s certification, and I’m delighted at the idea.

What I’ve Been Writing

Short answer, lots of odds and ends, but not a massive amount of progress toward completing something. I don’t want to get into details here, but my word count for last month was lower than the last one, but not as terrible as January.

I got some random fan fiction completed over the course of the past several days, but I am getting way behind on some of my other projects. I could say part of the reason is I’m not sure where I’ll be sleeping on a consistent basis four days or so out, but that would be a cop-out. I just need to stop procrastinating and get done what is overdue to be done, including this newsletter lol.

One idea for a poem I’ve gotten recently is about a river I seem to be encountering a lot in my frequent travels across the state – the Des Moines river. It seems like I cross the thing at least two, three times every time I commute between Polk and Marion counties and even more traveling between Marion and Lee counties. From a distance on a basic Iowa map, it looks like it runs straight southeast from north of Des Moines to the combined Iowa/Missouri/Illinois border straight into the thick Mississippi channel. But if you take a closer look at its path on Google Earth, for example, it’s a skinny sidewinder all throughout Iowa. I’m looking forward to the challenge.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing

I’ve been busy with “side activities” quite a bit over this past week. I have been busy with getting some appearances in the area set up (check out the links further down in this post for details.

I’ve made plans to become a member of some writing groups I’m familiar with. First, I’m planning on rejoining the Midwest Writing Center from the Quad Cities, which was a good organization that I needed to make more use of. Now that I live closer to the area, now’s as good a time as any.

For the first time, I’m planning to join the Iowa Poetry Association. I’ve been increasingly trying to develop my poetry and poetry production in recent years, and I want to hear from more experienced hands what I need to do to develop both my poetry skills and how I should present it to the reading public.

Some Writing Advice

For this week, as I typically do, I review some well-known writing advice and analyze whether it appears valid or not. Behold:

Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.

– Isabel Allende

Allende is a famed Chilean-American writer, known for House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts1.

Scale of 1-10 as far as the relevance/usefulness of this advice: 7.

At a certain point, you can’t just call yourself a writer and not put in the work. You have to be consistent with attempting to write and produce something, and if you make a conscientious effort to be productive, the product will come. Now, I think what is left unsaid it you really need to be compelled to tell stories in the first place, and the statement seems to imply you’ll figure out how to write later. However, I think what she means (it’s the implication I get) is that you can have an idea for a story, but not realize exactly how to tell it at first. That’s where brainstorming, and then revising after writing, comes in.

Writing Quote of the Week:

This week’s quote comes from one of the few writers I’m willing to read who were dodgy people in person, from one of his most dodgy novels 😅.

A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.

  • Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

Here’s What to Expect on This Page

My current plans for what I write here are the following:

  1. I produce my newsletter (The Writing Life) every first and third weekend of the month, in a similar format to what you are reading here. It’s basically an update on me and my writing experiences. I will always leave these posts free.
  2. Every second weekend, I put out Prose Night. This will be original writing, whether fiction, which can be self-contained stories, excerpts from works in progress, essays, or other types of nonfiction. I’ll keep these free for about a couple weeks or so, and then they go behind the paywall.
  3. Every fourth weekend, I put out Poetry Night, where I post original poetry. Again, I’ll keep those free for about a couple of weeks before putting them in the archives, so to speak.
  4. Certain other pieces, especially promotional stuff or info about my writing, will also be free for all.

if you have a paid subscription with me (which is pretty inexpensive), you will have access to all of my articles here, all of my archives, and my eternal gratitude. Plus, probably some first-dibs on possible future offers.

A Few Articles About What I’ve Written and Where I’ll Be

So far, I’ve put out two novels over the past couple of years, The Holy Fool and The Yank Striker. Here and here are some recent articles I’ve written about them. If you’re interested in thrillers and/or sports drama, they might be for you.

Here’s where you can run into me during the next several months.

Where You Can Find My Books

For direct links to purchase my books in paperback and ebook form, including The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning and The Holy Fool, click on the links in the Substack sidebar or the links on my Substack author page. Or, you can go to this page on my WordPress site, Liegois Media.

You can also get them 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.

All these are great independent bookstores, but I’m always looking for some new places to place my books (especially now in eastern Iowa), so feel free to hit me up in the comments if anyone has a suggestion.

Final Thoughts

That’s caught you up on everything so far. I appreciate more people signing on to read what I have to say, and reaching out to me online. I appreciate all of you.

-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. No, I haven’t read them. ↩︎

The Writing Life, 16 March 2024: More life on the road and feeling stretched out

Hello, humanoids, as the great American philosopher and professional manager/announcer/wrestler Bobby “The Brain” Heenan once might have said1. It’s all in the game, yo2.

Today I talked to one of my work colleagues and said something to the effect of “if I knew what the game plan for me was on a day to day basis, much less a week to week one, I’d be less out of sorts.”

It’s been one of those weeks (or couple of weeks), but things are perhaps going better than I had hoped for, both on the personal and writing fronts. Anyway, let’s talk about the writing life and the other chaos happening around me at the moment.

The Home Front

My kid is now out of the ICU and in a regular hospital bed, but not for long, it appears.

Jacob (23), who had a fall at work two weeks previously, has been slowly making the road back to recovery. Right now, we are awaiting word on him getting into a rehab facility near his place in Des Moines. While he’s there, I might save some cash by spending some time at his apartment during the week.

I always thought it would be fun to live in the center of a city like Des Moines as my son has been doing for the past few years, but this was not the way I wanted it to happen. It will require me to have a two-hour round trip to work, which is not ideal, but it’s going to be for a couple months at the absolute most, I’ll save on hotels, and be closer to Jake while he continues to recover. I am thankful, however, we are facing this situation rather than something even more dire affecting his health or even life. We still have our kid.

Speaking of kids, I’m so excited for my daughter Maddie’s (22 this month) situation. She is two months away from graduating from the University of Iowa with her chemical engineering degree. She has a job waiting for her in our hometown of Muscatine this June with the same engineering firm her grandfather worked at for 40 or so years. She’s going to have plenty of professional adventures coming up, and I’ll be happy to hear all about them.

What I’ve Been Writing

It seems like I’ve been writing a lot of short odds and ends, short pieces, poetry, etc. I’m trying to finish a short story I’m contributing to a collection of dark fantasy romance (fantasy I’ve long been interested in, dark romance is new territory for me). Once this project is a bit further along, I’ll post the links for it.

I found out I didn’t get any honors at this year’s Iron Pen competition sponsored by the Midwest Writing Center. The concept of the short story I submitted for the competition was sound – essentially a fresh excerpt from the pro wrestling project I’ve discussed here previously.

However, the more I’ve read through it, the more I’m feeling a little uneasy with it. I struggled with the 2,000-word limitation on the short story, because (holding back spoilers), the scene I featured was a major part of the growth of my main character and his journey to understanding both his family and himself. My instinct right now is to let it sit for about a couple weeks and then make a brand new attempt at the scene. I think I can make it happen better the second time around. If I make it work, I’ll post the results here.

Still struggling to get more progress done on The Yank Striker 2 with all the bopping around the state I’ve been doing. My concern is I’ve started to think of the project as “Work” writing rather than “Fun” writing, and I’ve just got to force myself out of this mindset. This world I’ve built, around one of the most fascinating main characters I’ve yet created – an aspiring American soccer superstar – is just too intriguing to just drop after one book. I’ve got to at least get this most recent scene in the book done this month, at least.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing

I’ve been scouring some different locations to try and find opportunities to meet with writers and workshop some of my stuff ever since my last writing group ceased operations and I moved away from the area. I might try to sit in with the Midwest Writing Center, a group of poets up in Burlington, or maybe I could even consider getting back in touch with my old compatriots with Writers on the Avenue, in my hometown of Muscatine. Some of these I can start right away, while some others may have to wait until things with Jake and Maddie sort themselves out and I’m finished up with my contract at my current school district in South Central Iowa. I’ll have to see, and I’ll at least start putting in their regular meetings into my Google Calendar.

I’m also trying to update things on this page. I’ve been putting some of the articles I’ve written in years past behind a paywall, for only paid subscribers. Not all of them will be – I’ll make sure to keep my newsletters, writing journals, and some promotional posts open for everyone, always. During the next few months (lies, I got this done tonight), I’ll be updating and revising the status of some of those articles to reflect this. Just remember, if you have a paid subscription to my site, you have access to all of my writings, archived or otherwise.

Writing Advice

Again, I decided to take a look at someone else’s writing advice rather than try to come up with a piece of writing advice on my own3. As it turns out, I found something from John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath, etc.) which caught my eye:

If you’re using dialogue, say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

To me, this is one of the few bits of writing advice I would unreservedly endorse in nearly any writing situation. You process information differently by reading words than you do by hearing them. If you are writing dialogue, you want it to be as realistic as possible, which means it needs to sound like naturally flowing conversations actual human beings would use.

My supplemental piece of writing advice related to this is, read everything written by Elmore Leonard you can get your hands on. He was an author who knew how dialogue truly worked and its storytelling potential.

Writing Quote(s) of the Week:

Two quotes on writing this week, one from ancient Greece, and another from 20th century America. Both of them are good advice for, respectively, reaching your audience as a writer and developing your voice.

To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.

  • Aristotle

Concentrate on what you want to say to yourself and your friends. Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness. You say what you want to say when you don’t care who’s listening.

  • Allen Ginsberg

Where I’ll Be Appearing

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been checking in with different events and book fairs to see where I might be making some personal appearances and sell some books. So far, some of the dates, times, and locations are tentative, but I want to let you know about them as soon as possible if you want to meet me out there in person. Google Calendar has been my friend in this regard.

  • I possibly might be at the Ankeny Book Fair at the Ankeny public library from 1-4 p.m. April 20. I have applied to be at the event, but the organizers of the event should let us know by March 20 if we’ve made the cut. As soon as I know, you’ll know.
  • I am confirmed to be at the Authors on the Riverwalk event from 12-4 p.m. May 25 at the Des Moines Marriot Downtown, 700 Grand Ave., Des Moines. It was a fantastic event last year, and I’m hoping for an even better experience this year.
  • Things start picking up in June. I’ll be at the Valley West Mall, 1551 Valley West Drive, West Des Moines, for the 9th Annual Indie Author Book Expo. I’ll be there with many other area and regional authors from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, June 7, and at the same time Saturday, June 8.
  • Two weeks later, I’ll be at another IABE event from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 22 at the Peoria Civic Center, 201 SW Jefferson Ave, Peoria. This might be the first year for this event, but I do know it will be the first time I’ll be doing an event in Peoria. Sadly, this event has been cancelled due to the venue cancelling on the event organizers (IABE). However, they are hoping to do the event next year, at least.
  • I’m not sure I will be there both days, but I believe I am on the guest list for the Badger Book Fair at the public library in Badger, Iowa, running Saturday and Sunday, 14-15 September. I’ll add more details when I get them.
  • I’ll be there for the Windsor Heights Book Fair in Windsor Heights, Iowa, from 12-6 p.m. Sunday, 6 October. More information when I get it.
  • Finally, I’ll be part of the local author book fair sponsored by the Iowa City Book Festival. Not sure about the exact day or time, but it should occur sometime during this year’s festival, which will be 14-20 October in Iowa City.

I am actively looking for other events and venues to appear between now and Fall 2024. If you’d like to invite me to a book event, just hit me up in the comments, by direct message (you can find that in Substack Chat or at the button below). You can also email me at jasonliegois@liegois.media, but with the influx of emails I’m getting from my subscriptions to Substack sites, it will be more likely I see the DM’s or comments.

Where You Can Find my Books

For direct links to purchase my books in paperback and ebook form, including The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning and The Holy Fool, click on the links in the Substack sidebar or the links on my Substack author page. Or, you can go to this page on my WordPress site, Liegois Media.

You can also get them 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.

All these are great independent bookstores, but I’m always looking for some new places to place my books (especially now in eastern Iowa), so feel free to hit me up in the comments if anyone has a suggestion.

Final Thoughts

That’ll be it for now. I’ll have Poetry Night at the Writing Life posted next weekend, and I’m planning to have some brand new material for you. However, the last weekend of March 2024 will also coincide with my birthday, so I’ll be taking it off from writing (for this site, at least). See you around the Interwebs.

-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. If you follow my page, you’re just going to have to get used to some pro wrestling terms and terminology. ↩︎
  2. All right, that was a reference from The Wire. Better get used to those references, as well. ↩︎
  3. Being creative with writing advice is hard, if you didn’t know. ↩︎

The Writing Life, 2 March 2024: Real life intruded this week

Hello everyone. Welcome to the new subscribers – it appears I have a few new ones over the past week or so. Appreciate you signing on to read my ramblings.

And Since We Have New Guests at This Party…

For the benefit of those just joining me here, you are now reading my regular newsletter, which I entitle The Writing Life. I put this out every first and third weekends of the month. The fact I’ve been writing anything regularly (much less on a weekly basis) has been a triumph over a long-standing battle against procrastination and delay.

In these newsletters, I discuss what I’ve been writing, what my progress has been regarding this writing, and any insights I might have gained from the process which might be relevant to readers interested in the craft of writing. At times, I might actually try and present this as explicit writing advice, but not always.

I’ll also talk about what I’ve been doing having to do with writing as well. What this usually involves items like meeting with writing groups, technical stuff with this and other online sites, and some related technology and sundry items.

This also can include where I might be making appearances and events I’ll be at, although I often might list those separately. Usually, a lot of those events will run from roughly spring to fall of each year, and I’ve started filling in my calendar.

Among other things in the regular newsletter, I usually throw in a writing quote of the week from one or two famous writers. I’ve sometimes posted some reading recommendations here for writers on Substack and other sites, although I find myself posting those recommendations or links on Substack Notes nowadays. (On Notes, I’ll also post links to my own Substack posts and the rare pithy comment or two.) Then there’ll be some Final Thoughts, which will always be profound, and the newsletter wraps to a close.

I write about other stuff, so let me take some time to talk about it all.

What DO I Write, Anyway?

I’ve written quite a bit of copy, both fiction and nonfiction, over the past nearly 30 years. For a dozen or so years, I worked as a reporter or correspondent for a few eastern Iowa and western Illinois, so I wrote many different articles about local government and feature stories – pretty much everything regular sports reporting. You might be able to fins some of those articles flying around the interwebs if you decide to go Google searching. While I really enjoy the journalists I find on Substack (and the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative is basically a who’s-who of the best journalists and writers in this state) I don’t think journalism is something I want to return to at the moment.

Increasingly, as I pivoted away from journalism and into teaching, writing fiction has become my focus. In 2019, after several starts and stops, I managed to write my first novel, The Holy Fool: A Journalist’s Revolt. Both a thriller and a celebration of journalism set in 2008 Chicago, at the fictional Chicago Journal, it was a fantastic experience, but a big learning one.

In 2023, I published my next fiction book, a sports drama called The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning, the first in The Yank Striker series. It was inspired by my longtime soccer fandom, and a question I asked myself: “What would an American Lionel Messi look like?” The answer led me to a kid from Texas and his story.

If you are interested in maybe purchasing books like this, you are in luck. They’re available in both paperback and e-book formats from Amazon and in paperback from my publisher for both books, Biblio Publishing. The links to those books are on the “My Works” page of this site, and you can also find them and my social media links on the “Link In Bio” page.

It’s been a long time since I wrote something about both books, and even though I try to stay away from blatant and excessive self-promotion on this page, I think they are due. I’ll likely try and post something (or two somethings, one for each book) sometime this weekend. I’ll do a quick write-up/plug for The Holy Fool this weekend and one for The Yank Striker next weekend, I think.

Poetry had been more of a focus in recent years, as well, even though I have yet to publish any collections or chapbooks of my work. I’ve also put out some short stories. Over the short time I’ve been on here, this has been the place to see some of that work.

On the second weekend of the month, I host Prose Night here at The Writing Life. This will be some fiction or nonfiction, perhaps a short story or an writing-themed (or life-themed) essay. In recent weeks, I’ve been running short excerpts of some longer fiction projects, such as the second book in my The Yank Striker series.

On the fourth weekend of every month, I celebrate Poetry Night here at The Writing Life. Those evenings, I post one or two selections of original poetry here on the site, and usually some explanation of how they came about. It’s had the side effect of adding to my small stash of original poetry, as well.

So, that’s a good summary of what the page is about currently. How about we dive into some of it?

The Home Front

I’m glad I’ve had a chance to actually think about something other than real life this week. Because real life’s been a bit of a roller coaster recently.

My kid’s in the hospital. I wrote about it yesterday. Our family’s just hoping for the best. That’s about all I can say for now.

What I’ve Been Writing

I’ve been writing a lot of odds and ends recently. Things have been quiet on The Yank Striker 2 front and my as yet untitled pro wrestling family drama. I am going to make a concerted effort to make progress

I talked last week about this short fiction collection I collaborated on. It ended up being Part 1 of a two-part story. Still waiting on some technical stuff to get worked out, but I might have some news regarding it in a bit.

Writing productivity has finally picked up, although I won’t bore you with the hard numbers here. Again, I’m a bit surprised I’ve managed to keep up a regular schedule on this site, but I want to apply this consistency to my “non-online” projects as well.

I decided to compete in the Midwest Writing Center’s Iron Pen contest for the second year running. I decided to use this year’s prompt as a springboard to a scene on a larger project I’ve been toying around with regarding a family of professional wrestlers. I was happy with the results, although I felt slightly restricted by the 2,000 word fiction limit. I’ll let everyone take a look at the story on here once I figure out if I earned any awards, or I might expand it slightly and share that with you.

What I’m Doing Having to do With Writing

Much of this has been dedicated to checking in with different events and book fairs to see where I might be making some personal appearances and sell some books. So far, some of the dates, times, and locations are tentative, but I want to let you know about them as soon as possible if you want to meet me out there in person. Google Calendar has been my friend in this regard.

  • I possibly might be at the Ankeny Book Fair at the Ankeny public library from 1-4 p.m. I have applied to be at the event, but the organizers of the event should let us know by March 20 if we’ve made the cut. As soon as I know, you’ll know.
  • I am confirmed to be at the Authors on the Riverwalk event from 12-4 p.m. at the Des Moines Marriot Downtown, 700 Grand Ave., Des Moines. It was a fantastic evenbt last year, and I’m hoping for an even better experience this year.
  • Things start picking up in June. I’ll be at the Valley West Mall, 1551 Valley West Drive, West Des Moines, for the 9th Annual Indie Author Book Expo. I’ll be there with many other area and regional authors from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, June 7, and at the same time Saturday, June 8.
  • Two weeks later, I’ll be at another IABE event from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 22 at the Peoria Civic Center, 201 SW Jefferson Ave, Peoria. This might be the first year for this event, but I do know it will be the first time I’ll be doing an event in Peoria.
  • I’m not sure I will be there both days, but I believe I am on the guest list for the Badger Book Fair at the public library in Badger, Iowa, running Saturday and Sunday, 14-15 September. I’ll add more details when I get them.
  • I’ll be there for the Windsor Heights Book Fair in Windsor Heights, Iowa, from 12-6 p.m. Sunday, 6 October. More information when I get it.
  • Finally, I’ll be part of the local author book fair sponsored by the Iowa City Book Festival. Not sure about the exact day or time, but it should occur sometime during this year’s festival, which will be 14-20 October in Iowa City.

I’ve still got a pretty open calendar. If you’d like to invite me to a book event, just hit me up in the comments, by direct message (you can find that in Substack Chat), or by emailing me at jasonliegois@liegois.media.

My newest research I’m working on is how to make a chapbook. I’m getting a bit weary of calling myself a poet and yet not having something where I can physically hand to people and say, “Oh, would you like to read some poetry?” Watch this space.

For this site, I’m going to make some of the older pieces on this page open only to paid subscribers. These will only be older pieces that I want to make part of an archive. Some other pieces I will make only visible to current subscribers. However, my writing journals and The Writing Life pieces will always be readable to everyone.

Writing Quote(s) of the Week:

Two quotes this week, both tackling the importance of writing to authors that goes beyond just trying to communicate to readers. But, it’s important, too, and both fit my own state of mind this week certainly.

If I do not write to empty my mind, I go mad.
― George Gordon Byron


nothing can save
you
except writing.
it keeps the walls
from
failing.
― Charles Bukowski

Where You Can Find My Books

For direct links to purchase my books in paperback and ebook form, including The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning and The Holy Fool, click on the links in the Substack sidebar or the links on my Substack author page. Or, you can go to this page on my WordPress site, Liegois Media.

You can also get them 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.

All these are great independent bookstores, but I’m always looking for some new places to place my books (especially now in eastern Iowa), so feel free to hit me up in the comments if anyone has a suggestion.

Final Thoughts

Well, there was a bit to write about today, so I’ll close it for now. Keep an eye on this space for the next Prose Night post next weekend, and some upcoming posts revisiting my existing books this Sunday and next Sunday.

-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, 4 February 2024

I won’t say I’m totally out of sorts, but for the past few days and maybe weeks I’ve been… sort of drifting along, Mostly it’s been due to the transition I’ve been going through personally and the uncertainty it has brought along. I know I will be leaving to make a new life somewhere soon, but exactly what the process will be like and timetables have been hazy at best. It’s only been recently some of these uncertainties have become more certain.

Of course, this has affected my equilibrium… and my writing productivity and consistency, as well. I’ll talk about it, as I write this in my “Eagle’s Nest” in Chariton for the last time.

The Home Front

I feel like I’ll be living out of a tent during the next few months.

This week, in the group text I have with my wife and our two kids, Laura (my wife) said I’ll know what it’s like to be a business traveler this next few months. My daughter, Maddie, called me the itinerant teacher. Sounds about right. 😂

So, this is the situation so far. It appears we have a buyer for the house, and we should close on the house by next Friday. We’ll need to have all of our belongings packed up from the house by then. To be fair, this is a far better situation than it to be July and we have still not sold an empty house. That would be an uncomfortable situation, surely, because we’d have no interest in being absent landlords by any means.

Afterwards, Laura and I will both be officially Fort Madison residents, although I will be hanging out in an area hotel for the middle part of the week while I continue to work for my current district, Twin Cedars of Bussey, Iowa. It may be something of a nomadic life, but it would still cost us less than if we still had the house and the apartment and were paying for than and sundry other family costs.

What I’ve Been Writing

I should have realized this move and all the activity behind it were going to take away from my writing. Not that I haven’t had time, but much of the past couple of days has involved packing away items and getting this place ready to be handed over.

Other than this newsletter and a few odds and ends of writing, I really haven’t done much writing for any of my projects. If trying to write in the middle of a school year at times feels like writing after you’ve been spun around on a merry-go-round and taken the SAT, trying to do this and move from your house at the same time is like doing everything I just mentioned while on painkillers.

Not to talk about writing statistics in great detail here, but I’m likely to be off pace from trying to reach 200,000 words by the end of this year, and feeling behind pace is not a good feeling for me. However, I’m only one month into the year, and I think I have more of an opportunity to pick up my productivity.

Once I get out of the old house and find some temporary quarters, I think things will pick up for me. I’ll only have to worry about working, getting back to where I’m sleeping, and write. We’ll have to see how the life of a nomad writer will be. Considering how often my father traveled through the United States and overseas for his career as a consulting engineer, I need to get some feedback from him about how to deal with being on the road1.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing

When I have a free moment, I will have to check my schedule and see what writing events and book fairs are coming up. The book fair “season” really hasn’t started yet, but I do want to try and make it out to some of them I got to last year. I hope I can still make it to the Des Moines area events even though I will be living for all intents and purposes in Fort Madison.

One of my writing friends from the Des Moines area, Amara Clay, gave me some good ideas and tips on public appearances and presentations I want to put into practice the next time I head out to promote my books.

Writing Quote(s) of the Week

Let’s hear it from Jorge this week.

A writer – and, I believe, generally all persons – must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.
― Jorge Luis Borges, Twenty-Four Conversations with Borges: Interviews by Roberto Alifano 1981-1983

Where You Can Find My Books

For direct links to purchase my books in paperback and ebook form, including The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning and The Holy Fool, click on the links in the Substack sidebar or the links on my Substack author page. Or, you can go to this page on my WordPress site, Liegois Media.

You can also get them 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.

All these are great independent bookstores, but I’m always looking for some new places to place my books (especially now in eastern Iowa), so feel free to hit me up in the comments if anyone has a suggestion.

Final Thoughts

That’s about all I have for this week.

This coming week is going to be a crazy sprint to get moved out, so I’m hoping I publish on time on the weekend, but there’s a chance I might not. Hopefully, normal service can be returned in a couple weeks.

-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. For those of you desperate for writing talk, there won’t be that much this week, since there hasn’t been that much writing. 🤣 ↩︎

The Writing Life, 20 January 2024

Bemoaning a cold snap in my writing productivity as a cold snap hits Iowa, and thoughts about moving

Apologies in advance if this newsletter is more about not writing than writing itself. It’s been those kind of weeks. Shall we begin?

The Home Front

I believe with all the snow days we’ve had, my own school district has only been in session for seven days this month. Hopefully we manage to wrap up our school year before Memorial Day at this rate.

In all seriousness, I’ve been feeling out of sorts in my current situation. This is the second time in my life I stayed behind to finish up the current academic year while my wife went on to a new job opportunity. The first time I did it, I was in my hometown in Muscatine. I had my daughter and dogs living with me, and I also had my parents and in-laws right nearby as well. That went on for nearly a year, and I have to say Covid bringing everything to a stop halfway through the whole process might have helped put the zap on my head as well.

This time, I’m only going to be doing it for about four months. But this time might be tougher. I’m here in our old house, alone, in the middle of south central Iowa, with not even the dog for company. My kids are off in Des Moines and Iowa City. My family is on the other side of the state. I’m starting to feel the isolation a bit more.

I used to joke about my wife being on the phone all the time with friends and family for a couple hours at a time, but I can understand why she often does it now, and I’m glad our move has gotten her closer to her family and many of our old friends. I also have a better appreciation and admiration for my son with how he has done well living on his own in Des Moines and working hard to progress in his given career (heating and air conditioning maintenance and installation). I find myself on the phone with him and a few other people close to me.

One good bit of news is there is a chance we may already have a buyer for our home in Chariton. This might require me to find some temporary lodging in the area for a couple months, but I would prefer to have that as a problem rather than it be July and we’re still trying to find a buyer for an empty home1.

What I’m Writing Now (🤣🤣🤣)

Soooo… it should not be much of a surprise all of this is fooling with my writing2. It’s not like I don’t have projects on tap other than this newsletter. There’s The Yank Striker 2, the second book in my series about a LGBTQ American college football player turned prospective English Premier League soccer player.

Then there’s the continued work I’ve been putting in on my as-yet not officially entitled pro wrestling fiction project.

But honestly, I’ve been having so many distractions it’s been throwing me off. Part of it is my wife is in another place, as well as the fact half my stuff is in a certain place and my old writing space is a bit isolated from the rest of the house, which inspired a small little post on the location of writing spaces.

Of course, I had the bright idea of putting some notes in one of my notebooks so I could refer to it while I was writing some of my recent projects. Of course, I manage to leave my notebook at my school and then we have a snow day, so I’m separated from my notes for a four-day weekend. As Arsenal FC fans tend to say, I was a bit Spursy3.

What I’m Doing Having to do With Writing

I haven’t fully set up some appearances for the spring and summer of this year. I need to do that and start setting up a schedule for appearances. I have to say I did a better job regarding this for my second book than my first book. Of course, I’m sure I have plenty to learn about the dark arts of marketing4.

By the way, if anyone has a suggestion for a genre including a soccer drama and a multi-generational professional wrestling story, I’d be open to hearing about it. Apparently Amazon doesn’t have a genre for such a thing.

Writing Quote(s) of the Week

Decided to go with two of them this week. The first one from Papa Ernest seems to fit my current mood.

The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.

Ernest Hemingway

While the second one from this man with the amusingly black gold heart gets something of the reason why I feel at home writing.

A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.

Roald Dahl

Where You Can Find My Books

For direct links to purchase my books in paperback and ebook form, including The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning and The Holy Fool, click on the links in the Substack sidebar or the links on my Substack author page. Or, you can go to this page on my WordPress site, Liegois Media.

You can also get them 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.

All these are great independent bookstores, but I’m always looking for some new places to place my books (especially now in eastern Iowa), so feel free to hit me up in the comments if anyone has a suggestion.

Final Thoughts

It’s been tough trying to write anything this week, so I’m a bit impressed and willing to give myself a single pat on the back for putting this thing together this week.

Next week will be Poetry Night, so I’ll try to put together a couple of poems, or maybe one new one and one classic one. I’ll have to see, and I’ll see you then.

-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. For a writing blog, you are getting oodles of personal info and material this week. Sorry? That’s pretty much all I had to write about this week, so sorry if it’s not your bag. ↩︎
  2. Not to mention my emotional equilibrium, but such is life in Moscow. With all the snow, it does look like Moscow, except when the weather gets ultra cold, the kids tend to stay inside and play on the Internet and with their gaming systems, and not wander outside to play hockey on homemade ice rinks like they did in Moscow during the old Soviet days. ↩︎
  3. Look up the North London derby and you might figure it out. And it’s not a reference to the San Antonio Spurs. ↩︎
  4. I would be open to some advice on this. But not the random dudes and ladies DM’ing me on Instagram. Usually, those are scams. ↩︎

The Writing Life, 6 January 2024: Looking back on (successful?) goals of 2023, and what’s on tap for the start of 2024.

[PHOTO NOTE: My wife adding her special touches to our new place in Fort Madison.]

New year, new cycle, etc. etc. Let’s talk about what’s been going on over the holidays with me and the family, what I wrote over the past year, and what I need to get going and write in the weeks and months to come1.

The Home Front

As you can see from the top shot, the transfer of my family to Fort Madison is continuing to progress. My wife and I just signed a new lease for an apartment located in a former junior high school there, which is quite the irony given my current profession/day job. It reminds me a lot of the former Central Middle School of Muscatine, which first served as Muscatine High School and then Central Middle School for most of the 20th century, but which will soon be facing the wrecking ball (except for its elegant auditorium and gym) later on this year. The Fort Madison school now serves as an apartment complex, and the local movers who expertly hustled our belongings inside reminisced about their past school days in the building.

Anyone interested in a cute house in Chariton email me at jasonliegois@liegois.media. Serious inquiries only.

I also got a new machine to work on after my old one died out one too many times. It’s an HP, it connects to the Internet, I can use Microsoft Word on it, and I got it for a good price. I’ll be fine with it. Sometimes I wonder if I’m like some of the old medieval knights who didn’t bother to name their horses because there was a good chance they’d get killed and they didn’t want to attach themselves too closely to it.

The new machine in question.

Enough about the cutesy stuff. I had some serious goals set for 2023. Did I even come close to them?

What I Wrote in 2023 (Goals)

My goals for 2023 were relatively simple and straightforward. I had wanted to write at least 200,000 words of original fiction and/or nonfiction for the year. Given my performance over the five previous years, I believed such a goal was easily reachable. I also wanted to reach my daily writing goals at least 75 percent of the time. For reference, when I talk about daily writing goals, I’m referring to the quotas I want to meet of at least 500 words written in a day or 30 minutes of revisions and/or planning.

Here was my performances through 2018-2022.

2018:

o   Words (total): 53,878

o   Words (avg.): 4,490

o   Revisions (total): 8,955 minutes

o   Revisions (avg.): 746 minutes

o   Daily Writing Goals Met (avg.): 52%

2019:

o   Words (total): 193,881

o   Words (avg.) 16,157

o   Revise/Plan (total):  8,8652 minutes

o   Revise/Plan (avg.): 739 minutes

o   Daily Writing Goals Met (avg.): 78%

2020:

o   Words (total): 208.919

o   Words (avg.): 17,410

o   Revise/Plan (total): 4,290 minutes

o   Revise/Plan (avg.): 358 minutes

o   Daily Writing Goals Met (avg.): 62%

2021:

o   Words (total): 176,146

o   Words (avg.) 14,679

o   Revise/Plan (total): 2,115 minutes

o   Revise/Plan (avg.): 176 minutes

o   Daily Writing Goals Met (avg.): 58%

2022:

o   Words (total): 214,385

o   Words (avg.): 17,865

o   Revise/Plan (total): 3,300 minutes

o   Revise/Plan (avg.): 275 minutes

o   Daily Writing Goals Met (avg.): 73%

Again, I managed to hit an all-time high last year regarding word count, and I came close to setting an all-time high when it came to meeting my daily goals. Could I manage to knock it out of the park in 2023?

Well, I have to admit I did not have as successful a second half of the year as the first3. Here they are

First half of 2023:

o   Words (total): 117,182

o   Words (avg.): 19,530

o   Revise/Plan (total): 4,645 minutes

o   Revise/Plan (avg.) 774 minutes

o   Daily Writing Goals Met (avg.): 91%

2nd half of 2023:

o   Words (total): 97,970

o   Words (avg.): 16,328

o   Revise/Plan (total): 2,550 minutes

o   Revise/Plan (avg.): 425 minutes

o   Daily Writing Goals Met (avg.): 78%

Admittedly, this was a bit of a drop-off in the second half. I’ve had a lot of things going on, including the impending move and health issues for my wife’s family. I’ve been on the road a lot during these past two months, and I’m expecting more of the same in the weeks and months to come, but that’s an entirely different story. When I put the two halves of 2023 together, the result was 😁.

2023:

o   Words (total): 215,152

o   Words (avg.): 17,929

o   Revise/Plan (total): 7,195 minutes

o   Revise/Plan (avg.): 600 minutes

o   Daily Writing Goals Met (avg.): 85%

So… I ended up with an all-time yearly word count record. I ended up shattering my previous record of meeting my daily writing quotas. Both of those goals are safely in the bag. And as a bonus, I wound up with the most amount of time spent revising and planning my writings since 2019.

Great. Fantastic. Take a lap, Liegois.

However, I don’t plan to get complacent in the slightest. 200,000 words and meeting my daily quotas 75% of the time are now my expectations, or quotas, going forward. I know I can get it done, and I plan to get it done, writing blocks or in real life (IRL) issues or no IRL issues. My intent is not to stand still, but to continue to improve with my craft. Otherwise, what’s the point? I talked about some of my tentative goals earlier, so feel free to read them here.

What I’m Writing Now (Somewhat)

Not bloody much except for this newsletter. Once I get off the road this weekend, I will need to buckle down and start continuing to work on The Yank Striker 2 and some continued efforts on my as-yet not officially entitled pro wrestling fiction project.

Hopefully, you will see the fruits of this labor next week. And as for a publishing schedule…

When (and How) I’m Writing

Unless otherwise noted, I will be publishing my regular posts at 5 p.m. Central time on Saturdays. My monthly schedule will be:

  • First Saturday of the month: The Writing Life newsletter.
  • Second Saturday of the month: Prose Night at the Writing Life. This will be original short fiction, essays, or excerpts from works in progress.
  • Third Saturday of the month: The Writing Life newsletter.
  • Fourth Saturday of the month: Poetry Night at the Writing Life. For these posts, I’ll be posting my original poetry past and present, usually one or two poems at a time.
  • In the event of a Fifth Saturday of the month: I might take the week off. Or not4.

Writing Quote of the Week

This quote is definitely true, but there’s an art in selecting where to begin and end, just as there is selecting what precise words to use or what details of description to share with an audience.

A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.

  • Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

Where You Can Find My Books

For direct links to purchase my books in paperback and ebook form, including The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning and The Holy Fool, click on the links in the Substack sidebar or the links on my Substack author page. Or, you can go to this page on my WordPress site, Liegois Media.

You can also get them 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.

All three are great independent bookstores who deserve your support. However, I’m always looking for some new places to place my books (especially in eastern Iowa), so feel free to hit me up in the comments if anyone has a suggestion.

Final Thoughts

That’s about it for this week. I’m hoping and praying I’ll have a fresh fiction excerpt or two for everyone next week 😅. See you then.

-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. Lol. ↩︎
  2. This was during the time I was starting to revise The Holy Fool: A Journalist’s Revolt. Check out the links on the sidebar to find out more about my debut book. ↩︎
  3. I’ll spare all of you the month-by-month totals. ↩︎
  4. I sure didn’t last week. 😅 ↩︎

The Writing Life, 16 December 2023: Thinking ahead

It’s that time again. Let’s talk about writing and some other stuff.

The Home Front

Well, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind week for me and my wife. If we’re counting the buildup to this decision, it’s actually been a whirlwind couple of months for us, to be honest.

Now that the big decision’s been made and the word is out, there’s plenty to get done in the months ahead. Laura’s plan is to move out to Fort Madison to begin her work. By then, we’re hoping to already have an apartment there; we’re actually apartment-hunting this weekend in Fort Madison.

We are hoping to get our Chariton house sold as soon as possible, but we might end up asking for whoever buys it to take possession of it in late May, perhaps. I am planning on finishing out the school year at my current district, so I will continue to work in the area at least until mid-May.

For now, we’ve been donating or getting rid of some items we know we’re not going to have use of anymore with considerable success. We may also include some items we’re not going to have immediate use of because we’re likely to be renting in Fort Madison for at least a year while we consider what’s out there.

Anyone interested in a cool little house in Chariton, Iowa, can email me at jasonliegois@liegois.media. Serious inquiries only, of course.

Although our son in Des Moines will be a little less than three hours away, most everyone in my immediate family will now be within about an hour drive, which will be a good thing. I’m looking forward to being part of a new community.

What I’m Writing

I’ve been writing more than I have been during the past month, but whether I have been writing things I should be writing is another issue lol.

Work on The Yank Striker 2 paused for a bit due to the general lull in my writing, but I honestly had some other things going on. I have restarted the project, but I have also been toying with an idea I’ve had since this year about a family of professional wrestlers and its history. As many writers will note, all of the shiny new ideas sometimes distract from the old ideas. George R.R. Martin is Exhibit A of this phenomenon.

I’ve started to piece together certain… scenes that could be part of a larger story, perhaps the genesis of what would be the first novel in this series I have in mind. I’ve also begun more research on the project to try and put together a story set in 20th century professional wrestling looking back at from the vantage of the 21st century.

I want to thank Deb West of the University of Iowa’s Program in Creative Writing, better known as the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. The main character in my prospective project is a member of the workshop, so I had questions about the program and how it works. I had the opportunity to speak with her for a time this week, and she was absolutely generous with her time and knowledge. I never had an opportunity to attend the program, but I am very proud the school I attended has such a fine program for developing writers.

I’ve been doing some thinking about how I’m going to be scheduling my regular posts here on Substack and WordPress, so I think I’ll talk about it below.

When I’m Writing

I think I’ve pretty much settled on the new schedule with which I’ll be publishing on Substack and my companion site on WordPress. So, I wanted to just let you know how it’s going to work.

Unless otherwise noted, I will be publishing my regular posts at 5 p.m. Central time on Saturdays. There may be some times when I have to delay or reschedule those, but I believe I can more or less stick to this schedule. It also doesn’t preclude me from making additional posts over the weekend or at other times if I get particularly productive or if I have something special to say.

The monthly schedule, thus, will look like this:

  • First Saturday of the month: The Writing Life newsletter.
  • Second Saturday of the month: Prose Night at the Writing Life. This will be original short fiction, essays, or excerpts from works in progress. I’ll try to surprise you. 🙂
  • Third Saturday of the month: The Writing Life newsletter1.
  • Fourth Saturday of the month: Poetry Night at the Writing Life. For these posts, I’ll be posting my original poetry past and present. Normally, I’ve been able to manage two poems a post, but some might be a single poem per week. I’ll try and keep toward more rather than less poems. I like a challenge.
  • In the event of a Fifth Saturday of the month: I might take the week off. Or not.

What I’m Doing Having to do With Writing

With this move, I’m likely going to have to have a change in who I hang out with writing-wise.

I will be three hours away from Des Moines, so attending some of the writing groups I have been meeting with for the past couple of years might not be as easy. At least some of them have online Zoom capabilities, so I do plan to join in that way.

Some of the other places where writers meet, like Iowa City and the Quad Cities, are “only” about two hours away. I might consider reconnecting with some of the groups I was attending when living in Muscatine, but I also know there might be some groups meeting perhaps in Burlington, as well.

The one thing I know for sure is that I don’t want to be without a writers’ group, whether I attend in person or virtually. I think I am very safe to say if I did not have the support of these groups during the past several years, I would not have published my first two books and may never have taken the step toward writing online. I think being in these groups gave me the networking and resources to hone my writing to a greater level than I have ever been in the past.

Writing Quote of the Week

My man Orwell with the basics.

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

Where You Can Find My Books

For direct links to purchase my books in paperback and ebook form, including The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning and The Holy Fool, click on the links in the Substack sidebar or the links on my Substack author page. Or, you can go to this page on my WordPress site, Liegois Media.

You can also get them 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.

All three are great independent bookstores who deserve your support. However, 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

That’s about it for now. I’m hoping I can be more productive during the next few weeks of 2023. It’ll be poetry night next weekend, and I’m planning on cooking up some original work. See you then.

-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. This might wind up being shorter than the newsletter on the first Saturday of the month since only two weeks will lapse between them rather than maybe three weeks. Or maybe not. At this point, your guess is as good as mine. ↩︎