Tag: The Yank Striker

The Writing Life, 4 January 2025: Reviewing 2024 (and 2025’s) goals

Well, I hope everyone is getting off on the right foot for the upcoming year 2025. As for me, I decided to use the first newsletter of the year to look back on my old goals for the year just passed.

I had considered maybe doing a separate post about all those goals and the numbers I did (or didn’t reach) this year. However, the whole point – or, at least, one of the main points of this newsletter – is to discuss my writing experiences, projects, and related work. It wouldn’t make sense not to talk about goals here, even though I’ll try not to get to numbers-heavy here.

So, let’s talk writing goals past and present. I’m not a fan of the word “resolutions” when it comes to setting goals for the year, are you?

The Home Front

Not too much to discuss here. I got to see my family over the holidays, in some cases more than once. I think I did have time to relax, even though I’m going to be jumping into the teaching mess once again starting next week. However, depending on the drop in temperatures and the increase in precipitation, exactly when we get back off break might vary.

Writing Goals 2024

During the past few years, I’ve had a good handle on my writing goals for the upcoming year right from the beginning. This year was no different.

For those who didn’t want to bother clicking on the link, here were some of those goals.

  1. I wanted to write a minimum of 200,000 words for 2024. Since I’ve gotten at least that much written three out of the previous four years, I figured that was a good minimum quota, similar to how I want to write either at least 500 words per day or spend at least 30 minutes revising or planning my work. In addition, I wanted to meet my daily minimum writing goals at least 75 percent of the time.
    Later in the year, I also decided later I wanted to at least try to exceed my personal best yearly total, which was 215,152.
  2. I wanted to finish the rough draft of The Yank Striker 2 (working title of my second book in The Yank Striker series) this year. I had optimistically thought I might have it done by the summer of 2024, but I more realistically figured it might be more like the end of the year before it was completed. Later in the year, I decided to try and keep it somewhere around 75,000 words in its rough draft form.
  3. Finally, I thought it might be cool to not only write some more poetry, but eventually maybe collect it into a chapbook format or get it published somewhere.

So…, how did I do on them?

Better than I expected, actually.

  1. I reached 200,000 words by Black Friday of November. Shortly before I headed off to holiday break, I got past last year’s total. And by the end of 2024, I had written 224,606 words. It was 9,454 words above last year’s total and less than 400 words short of 225,000.
    I also ended up meeting my daily writing quotas 84 percent of the time, only one percent less than last year. Although I ended up spending several hundred minutes less revising and planning than I did before, I still think this was still overall the most productive writing year I ever had.
  2. I was so close to getting the rough draft of The Yank Striker 2, everyone. As of the end of 2024, I have a rough draft of 74,059 words. As far as word count goes, I fell just short. In my heart, I think I have maybe four or so scenes I’ve got to finish up before I feel secure in calling it a complete rough draft.
    Considering my first two books took (depending on how I look at the process), 4-5 years to complete, the fact I started last year with a manuscript of about 25,000 words and I’m nearly finished with the rough draft is at least a partial victory – a result, as the announcers call a draw in the English Premier League.
  3. Well, right at the end of 2024, I produced my first ever collection of poetry, The Flow and the Journey, a collection of 19 poems with river and travel themes. Check out my recent post on it for more information (and where you can find it).

Writing Goals 2025

With what has happened in 2024, I have decided to set out my goals for the upcoming year in this space. I recognize I might modify or add to these goals as I did last year, but such is life, so they say.

  1. Write a minimum 200,000 words, but I would love to crack the 225,000 mark this year if at all possible. And with my results during the past two years, I should be able to make my daily minimum writing goals at least 80 percent of the time.
    Whether I will manage to do this or not is an interesting question. I imagine I will be spending much more time with revisions this year than the previous year due to finishing revisions for The Yank Striker 2.
  2. I should be able to get the rough draft of The Yank Striker 2 done by the end of the month. However, this means a big turnaround of having a final draft ready for publication. If I was going to have my preference, I would want to have it ready for release either late May or early June, which means I should try and get a rough draft stitched together by mid-January. I’d like to let it sit for about four weeks, and then it would give me a solid three months to finish revisions. It would be a tight turnaround, but I don’t think it would be impossible.
  3. Currently, I have 24,004 words written on The Untitled Pro Wrestling Project, which I’ve mentioned her previously. I would like to make similar progress on this manuscript over the course of this year. It would be fantastic if I had a full rough draft on my hands, but I’m not quite committed to the idea – yet.
  4. As far as my poetry goes, I would like to continue to add to my collection of original work. Whether I want to put together another chapbook this year might be an open question. I would like to get my poems published in an outside publication, whether it be a poetry periodical or something regional. I have no acquaintance with this whole process, so I am sure this will be a full learning experience.

So for right now, I have two hard goals and two soft goals. I’m hoping I make progress on them throughout the year.

Writing Quote(s) of the Week:

I’ll start off with Toni Morrison explaining something important about writing and identity.

I never asked Tolstoy to write for me, a little colored girl in Lorain, Ohio. I never asked [James] Joyce not to mention Catholicism or the world of Dublin. Never. And I don’t know why I should be asked to explain your life to you. We have splendid writers to do that, but I am not one of them. It is that business of being universal, a word hopelessly stripped of meaning for me. Faulkner wrote what I suppose could be called regional literature and had it published all over the world. That’s what I wish to do. If I tried to write a universal novel, it would be water. Behind this question is the suggestion that to write for black people is somehow to diminish the writing. From my perspective there are only black people. When I say ‘people,’ that’s what I mean.

  • Toni Morrison

And for the first time ever, I am including a quote about writing suggested by one of my subscribers, Gesene Oaks, which I was happy to see.

Deadliest words to writers of poetry and short fiction: I don’t get it.

  • Gesene Oaks

What I’m Doing Having to Do With Writing

This week, I stopped by Green Point Mercantile, my old hometown of Muscatine’s newest independent bookstore. It’s located at 214 Chestnut St., right in the old downtown district.

I had the chance to meet with the owner, Candy Fuegen, an old classmate of mine, and we talked books and the new location. She now has copies of my books, including The Holy Fool, The Yank Striker, and my chapbook The Flow and the Journey.

It’s been way too long since Muscatine had an independent bookstore, so I was delighted to hear of Green Point’s opening just this fall. I would highly recommend checking them out if you are ever in Muscatine. Click on the button below to check them out on Instagram.

Check out Green Point Mercantile, it’s a cool little bookstore.

How to support me😊.

Go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile to check out some of my other links. For example, in those places, you can find out about my first book, the journalism thriller The Holy Fool: A Journalist’s Revolt, as well as the first book in my The Yank Striker series, The Yank Striker: a Footballer’s Beginning.

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

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

  • [NEWEST LOCATION] Green Point Mercantile, 214 Chestnut St., Muscatine.
  • Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
  • Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St., in my new hometown of Fort Madison.
  • Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines
  • Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
  • The Book Vault, 105 S Market St, Oskaloosa.

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

My poetry book The Flow and the Journey is going to be available at the first two bookstores above (and hopefully more down the road), but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook here on, Liegois Media. If you want to get a physical copy, go ahead and click on the button below.

The Flow and the Journey

The Flow and the Journey

The first collection of poetry from author Jason Liegois.

$6.00
Shop now

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Now, if you are interested in supporting me but can’t quite afford a full subscription, I am now on Venmo. If you are interested in a donation of whatever you can provide, you can just send whatever you can afford. Just click the button below; anything you can provide helps me keep things going.

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Final Thoughts

Not much more for this week. Hope the snow doesn’t muck things up for us too much in Iowa. Best wishes to everyone.

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Blatant Promotional Post so Feel Free to Ignore if That’s Not Your Thing

[AUTHOR’s NOTE ON THE PHOTO: I’ll actually make it to this event by 4:30 p.m. on the fifth of September, but everything else is spot on.]

For those unfamiliar with my blog, I post my regular newsletter on the first and third Saturday of the month, a night of fiction or nonfiction writing/essays/writing advice on the second Saturday (Prose Night at the Writing Life), and original poetry on the fourth Saturday (Poetry Night at the Writing Life).

On the rare months I have a fifth Saturday in a month, I have typically posted some sort of bonus article, fiction, or other piece. However, since:

  1. It’s Labor Day weekend and I didn’t want to think too hard about a post, and
  2. I’ve got a couple things to promote,

I thus decided to make this a low key promotional post. If you have no interest in such things, feel free to take a pass this week. However, if you’re interested in attending one of the few events I have coming up this fall, you’ll find information here. And if you wanted to read a journalistic thriller championing the true free press, or a soccer drama featuring a budding American superstar (the first in a series), then I’ve got a couple books you might be interested in reading. Shall we?

Upcoming Appearances

  • From 4:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday, 5 September, I’ll be out at Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington, Iowa. I’ll have some copies of my books The Yank Striker and The Holy Fool available for purchase and/or signing as part of the farmer’s market event there. (Keep reading for more information about those books.) It’ll be my first appearance here and I’m really looking forward to it.
  • I’m headed back to the Des Moines area from 12-6 p.m. Sunday, 6 October, for the Windsor Heights Book Fair. This will take place at the Agora Events Center, 7692 Hickman Road, Des Moines. This will be the second year I’ll have participated in this event, and I’m eager to return.
  • Finally, I’ll be participating in the Local Writers’ Book Fair, which will be part of the 2024 Iowa City Book Festival. It will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20, at MERGE, 136 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City. This is again my second year of participating, and I am looking forward to being back in Iowa City.

Hope to see you around.

What Books Have I Written and What are They About?

I consider myself to be a writer of fiction about subcultures, subcultures contained around unique professions I have an interest in, such as journalism, soccer, and (recently) pro wrestling. It would be cool if I could market myself as the newest voice in dark academia fiction or Civil War era romance fiction, but alas, my interests are varied and not easily classifiable. While I might not find massive fame and fortune with my writing, I’ve determined if I’m going to spend night after night writing stories, they might as well be stories that entertain me, because what’s the point otherwise?

After years of working in print journalism and thinking about what a story about a declining big city newspaper and one journalist’s efforts to save his paper alongside his colleagues, The Holy Fool came into being. I go into great detail about its creation, what the book’s all about, and where you can buy it, here.

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

A couple years later, my decades-long obsession with the sport of soccer and its culture got me thinking what a story about an aspiring American soccer star might be like. This produced the book The Yank Striker. I go into great detail about its creation, what the book’s all about, and where you can buy it, here.

You can hear the interview John Buzbee, host of The Culture Buzz radio show in Des Moines, did with me regarding The Yank Striker here.

Also…

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

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

  • Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines
  • Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
  • The Book Vault, 105 S Market St, Oskaloosa.

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

That’s it for the promotions for now. I’ll be back with the newsletter next Saturday and I’ll lay off the promos then. 🙂

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, 17 August 2024: School year incoming

Back to work next week, and that’s just one of the transitions to look forward to as the month of August winds down. We’ll talk about that as well as what I’ve been writing.

The Home Front

This was my last week of summer break, although I did go into the new school for two days for new teacher orientation. It was great to learn more about the new place (Central Lee High School).

As before, I’m going to not get into too much detail about my teaching work, but I am looking forward to getting started. This will be the sixth school district I’ll have worked in during my career, which has mainly to do with budget cuts and moving for my wife’s work. You never know what will happen with a job, but it would be nice to settle into a district for a while.

I’m going to not get too much into all the stuff I write with my students, but it will be interesting to see if they find out about my blogging and writing all on their own. I remember hearing from some seventh-grade students at my last school district who had found my work online on their own. (My name tends to be Google-friendly as long as it’s spelled properly.)

Within the next few months, my wife and I will be working through closing on a new house and moving there. However, since the move’s only crosstown and I’ll be closer to my school district than I have with my past jobs, I’m feeling good about the time to come. (Once we get the place and I settle in to my new writing space, I’ll give you a look at the place.)

What I’m Writing

Now, onto the writing.

  • The Yank Striker 2, the sequel for The Yank Striker:
    I’m nearly finished with a scene that was giving me trouble. There have been too many times that I’m wanting to get a story done so nice and together and then I remember it’s just the first draft and I’m an idiot for even thinking it should be close to being good.
    I’d currently consider my plan to have a first draft of the book done by the end of the year are probably even odds (50 percent) at the current time. Good can’t become the enemy of completed
  • The Untitled Pro Wrestling Family Drama project:
    Previously, I’ve been writing scenes as they came up and not in a coherent order. I’ve now put together a first draft of a single document and starting to add in the pieces of the story. Not all of them are going into the first draft, especially as I refine the storyline of the book.
    My writing groups have been quite helpful to me as I continue to do the draft. Hopefully I continue to get good feedback.
  • The Untitled Liegois Poetry Chapbook:I’ve actually worked out a rough draft of this, although I’ve not totally formalized my formatting yet. The chances I get this done within the next fortnight are even at best, I think.

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

Only time will tell if my writing productivity is affected by the new job and the move. I usually find time to write quite a bit, so I’m not worried.

What I’m Doing Having to do With Writing

After a relatively quiet couple of months, I will be making some in-person appearances in September and October. I’ll go ahead and list them here.

  • From 4:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday, 5 September, I’ll be out at Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington, Iowa. I’ll have some copies of my books The Yank Striker and The Holy Fool available for purchase and/or signing as part of the farmer’s market event there. It’ll be my first appearance here and I’m really looking forward to it.
  • I’m headed back to the Des Moines area from 12-6 p.m. Sunday, 6 October, for the Windsor Heights Book Fair. This will take place at the Agora Events Center, 7692 Hickman Road, Des Moines. This will be the second year I’ll have participated in this event, and I’m eager to return.
  • Finally, I’ll be participating in the Local Writers’ Book Fair, which will be part of the 2024 Iowa City Book Festival. It will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20, at MERGE, 136 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City. This is again my second year of participating, and I am looking forward to being back in Iowa City.

Hope to see you around.

Writing Quote for the Week

Once again, the King gets to the heart of the matter.

So okay― there you are in your room with the shade down and the door shut and the plug pulled out of the base of the telephone. You’ve blown up your TV and committed yourself to a thousand words a day, come hell or high water. Now comes the big question: What are you going to write about? And the equally big answer: Anything you damn well want.

  • Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Final Thoughts

That’s it for now. Should have a new poem the next time I post here. For you poetry fans.

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.

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The Writing Life, 18 May 2024

My base of operations for the next week.

It’s nearly the beginning of summer and even though I don’t like really hot weather, at the moment it can’t come fast enough. Let’s talk about writing and life, not necessarily in that order.

The Home Front

I am still on the road in Pella, Iowa, this week for professional and personal reasons as I continue to wrap up my teaching contract in south central Iowa. It’s quite obvious to me the existence I have been living for the past three months has been affecting me mentally.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m in a lot better position from a personal, family, and professional viewpoint than I have been in a while. This place has been part of my history for the past four years. It’s where I wrapped up my second book, The Yank Striker. I saw my kids progress from just out of high school to young adulthood (even though they weren’t living with us most of the time) and my wife got her first opportunity to run a city.

And the past few months have been intriguing. I’ve had the chance to spend some time in the most Dutch city in America, I believe (Pella, Iowa). I’ve laid my head for a while in the middle of the biggest city in Iowa (Des Moines), and I honestly enjoyed the experience, walking to where I needed to go and living in the hustle and bustle of a town where I could find just about anything I needed.

However, this has been a long road, to be honest. For a while, due to personal circumstances, I wasn’t quite sure where I would be staying from week to week. All of this uncertainty, being away from my wife and others, started to wear on me. When our dog Winnie passed away last month and I wasn’t there, it pretty much symbolized everything for me. I do believe this uncertainty and the sheer amount of time driving from one place to another – especially at one point where I had a two-hour round trip commute to work – affected my motivation to, and eventually my productivity, when I wrote.

I’m now less than a week to saying good bye to south central Iowa, and I’m doubting I’ll ever return there other than to visit or to drive through. In the few number of days I’ve spent in Fort Madison since we first moved there, it’s started to feel a lot more like home. It reminds me of my hometown of Muscatine, my parents’ hometown of La Crosse, Wisconsin1,

, and Clinton, Iowa, where I spent 10 years of my life. And all of those places lay along the Mississippi River, which I no longer believe to be a coincidence.

Less than a week left. Then, it will be summer and time to rest, get caught up with writing, and getting more familiar with my new home. The crazy thing is, I won’t be quite done with traveling, yet. I’ve got book events on Memorial Day weekend and the second weekend of June (check out the link lower in the newsletter where it says “The 2024 Book Tour”), and then my wife is scheduling a visit to Chicago on the first weekend of June2. However, those trips will only involve a small amount of traveling and only a day or two of time in a hotel, so it won’t be that bad.

In the end, I have a lady to see in Fort Madison. I can’t wait.

What I’m Writing

I’ve been getting a bit of writing done regarding The Yank Striker 2 these past couple of weeks. I’m just about ready to complete this story sequence that’s been clogging up my mental capacity and… well, I wouldn’t say I was blocked, but I would say I wasn’t quite sure what order all the words should go down on the page, and what those words should even be.

However, I do think I am on the edge of getting it all down on paper, which is a good thing. Once that is done, I’m going to have to see what my notes look like and start planning for whatever scenes are remaining in the story and get those plans made. I feel like I know what I will want to, but I need to know where those notes are and what they all contain and I’ll be able to move forward.

Of course, it’s going to take a while to figure out where to start, but to make sure I keep up writing productivity, I am going to want to have some projects on tap. Luckily, I have a few I can keep busy on.

What I’m Doing Having to do With Writing

There’s more than a couple appearances I’m making in the next few weeks, but you can check out the link below (The 2024 Book Tour) to look up the details for those. First one will be a week from today in Des Moines.

With all of the road trips and etc., there’s not much to talk about regarding this subject this week. I’ll try to have something to report on for the next newsletter in two weeks.

Actually, there is one more thing. This was something I originally posted on my Instagram page.

I am one of the more useless writers when it comes to branding. People ask me what genre of writer I am, and I say, “well, with The Holy Fool, I wrote a journalism thriller, and with The Yank Striker (and The Yank Striker series) I wrote a soccer drama, and now I’m considering writing a pro wrestling family drama.” Not exactly an advertising-friendly description, is it?

However, I have had a realization about what all these books and/or ideas have have in common. I have considered writing a fantasy project, as I am a fan of the genre. I always have been fascinated with the creation of a new world, something removed from the real world and yet reflecting it. That’s what fantasy does, but isn’t that in a sense what I’ve done with my writings? In The Holy Fool I focused on the subculture of journalism, while in The Yank Striker I focused on the subculture of soccer and (to an extent) college football. Pro wrestling is so much its own subculture it has its own terminology and legends. Isn’t this the same thing in a sense as fantasy writing, minus magic, for example?

Even though my writings are set in a world that mirrors ours, the characters who inhabit them live lives much different than those of the vast majority of people. They are reflections of the real world, but in another sense it is an escape from them. If I had a catchy name to call this type of writing, I might be on to something. Feel free to pitch me some ideas in the comments.

Writing Quote for the Week

I’m glad my mother (and my father, for that matter) always taught me there was no real difference between what men are and what women are. I hope this informs my writing as well.

A man once asked me … how I managed in my books to write such natural conversation between men when they were by themselves. Was I, by any chance, a member of a large, mixed family with a lot of male friends? I replied that, on the contrary, I was an only child and had practically never seen or spoken to any men of my own age till I was about twenty-five. “Well,” said the man, “I shouldn’t have expected a woman (meaning me) to have been able to make it so convincing.” I replied that I had coped with this difficult problem by making my men talk, as far as possible, like ordinary human beings. This aspect of the matter seemed to surprise the other speaker; he said no more, but took it away to chew it over. One of these days it may quite likely occur to him that women, as well as men, when left to themselves, talk very much like human beings also.

  • Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

Writing Advice

My current philosophy regarding providing writing advice here is I’m just as interested in critiquing writing advice from others as I am providing my own writing advice. To be honest, it’s easier to do the former than the latter.

So, there was one little bit of writing advice coming from one of my favorite authors (the master of dialogue, Elmore Leonard) I found to be… somewhat vague. Let me share it here and I’ll attempt to analyze it.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

  • Elmore Leonard

For a single sentence with one verb and eight words in all, there’s a lot to unpack here.

Typically, I am a fan of rewriting and/or the revising process3.

If you take your writing seriously, you should be willing to put in through the revising and editing process at least a few times. Even Hollywood screenwriters making a dozen or more revisions to their scripts is not unheard of.

It’s the first phrase of the sentence which throws me off. What did Leonard mean by something that “sounds like writing?”

In trying to analyze this advice, I’m thinking of what he was known for as an author, what made Hollywood eager to adapt his books into films like Jackie Brown and television series like Justified. Whenever I have either a student or a member of a writing group asking me for advice regarding dialogue, I always suggest they take a look at how Leonard wrote dialogue. Not only was it often humorous and often entertaining, I am always struck by how natural his dialogue is. By this, I mean whenever I read his dialogue, I can see normal people having conversations that sound exactly like this. I can overhear such conversations in coffeehouses, taverns, sports matches, and other everyday situations.

What I can see is Leonard wanting to avoid anything artificial in his writing. He was never one for doing something unrealistically for the sake of some artistic goal. From all of his fiction I have read, he wanted to catch the interest of his readers by showing them not something that sounded like a person playing with words and the order in which they were said, but with authentic human interactions and behavior. I think this could explain why Leonard might advise prospective writers to avoid anything that “sounds like writing.”

Assessment:

Is this good advice? Yes, for the most part. However, if I was going to give guidance to beginning writers what to concentrate on and what to avoid, I would likely not mention this advice to them. If you have to spend five paragraphs or so trying to explain the context behind the advice, it might not be for those writers who are still trying to figure out how to develop and organize ideas, for instance.

TL;DR – good writing advice, but not for beginning writers.

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 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.

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.

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, some first-dibs on possible future offers.

ALSO… I’m having an event in Des Moines soon. If you sign up for my paid subscription on Substack, you have the right to come to one of my events this year and pick up a FREE autographed copy of either The Holy Fool or The Yank Striker. I look forward to seeing you there.

Final Thoughts

The road, as it is, is getting near the end for this school year and me, and I am looking forward to spending a good portion of this summer catching up on my writing and rest.

See all of you down the road. 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.

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  1. Home of the biggest six pack in the world. Look it up on Wikipedia or whatever, kids. ↩︎
  2. This will be, after more than fifty years of existence, my first substantial train voyage. I’ve long been fascinated by trains. My grandfather worked for a railroad, and my new home is the site of an Amtrak station and a very active railroad freight yard. Even traveling in the coach seats due to only being four hours away from Chicago, it’s still going to be more comfortable than squeezing myself into some coach-class airplane seats. I’m never flying commercial airliners ever again if I can help it.
    Rant and rave over. ↩︎
  3. Some (like me) call it the revising and editing process, others will call it the rewriting process, even though I consider it to be part of the overall writing process. One of the things you will notice about writing is many people will have many different words for the same thing. It’s like martial arts where everyone has different names for the same punches, strikes, and/or holds. ↩︎

Prose Night at the Writing Life, 11 May 2024: Odds and Ends

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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.

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  1. No, I haven’t read them. ↩︎

The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning: A look back at my most recent book

What would an American soccer superstar look like? Not just someone who was a good player, but an actual legendary, world-class player, someone on the level of a Lionel Messi, a Diego Maradona, a Pele? Where would he come from? What would he be like as a person? And what would his path to soccer superstardom look like?

Those were the questions I started to ask myself about a decade or so ago, as my obsession with the sport grew (which I’ve documented before on this site here and here, for example). As much as I loved the American players I’ve cheered on as they played for the US Men’s National Team, or representing there clubs here or abroad, we’ve never had a world-class player, someone who could be considered among the top 10 players in the world. The more I considered the situation, the more the storytelling possibilities of the situation intrigued me.

How the Creative Process Happened

Photo by @rrinna on Pexels.com

I might have mentioned this previously on the page, but for me, my own creative process is a perpetual stew, constantly simmering in my head. For those unaware, the stew, which is also called a hunter’s pot, hunter’s stew, or forever soup, is a concoction you constantly keep cooking in a pot. Ingredients and liquids keep going in to keep the thing going as you continue to serve people from the pot. That’s my creative process – new items keep coming in, I like a mix, and then I ladle it out to serve, so to speak.

In this manner, then, I started to cook up the idea, the concept of this main character. This process would be something entirely differnt to me in this instance. In the fiction I had written before, both published and unpublished, my main characters had shared more than a little resemblance to myself.

However, I knew this main character would be someone very different from myself. Obviously, even though I am a fan of the game, I only played it as a kid and nowhere near at the semi-professional levels, never mind pro levels. The further I went through the process, the further this character drifted away from who I was and toward something unique. And it excited me. First he became a Texas native because it seemed right for a soccer player to be from somwhere that produced so many good players like the legendary Clint Dempsey. Then it made sense for him to have a connection with the college gridiron through his father. And before I knew it, I had the first ever LGBTQ main character I’d ever written.

I stirred all this up with almost a decade’s worth of research into the world of professional soccer (and more since then), and what resulted was The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning – what will be the first in The Yank Striker book series. I feel more assured that the title of this book is a bit more straightforward than my debut novel, at least. I think it’s a great start to my first, very unique, series.

The Story

As he prepares to graduate from high school, Texas native Daniel John (DJ) Ryan thinks he has his life plans in order. A star wide receiver for the Liberty Rock Park High School football team, he won the state title with his older brother and quarterback Trey Ryan. It makes sense for him to commit to attending Hamilton State University (HSU) just outside Dallas, where he’ll join Trey and their father, championship-winning coach Junior Ryan, for college football glory and a shot at the NFL, with a pro career which could help support him as he pursues the life of an artist later.

Yet, the gridiron is not the only part of DJ’s life. He also plays the other sport known as football – soccer. A talented striker for his high school and a local semi-pro team, DJ finds an artistic creativity and freedom in the sport he doesn’t have anywhere else. And he will have to set the sport aside if he plays for his father.

There’s also the secret he is keeping from all but a few of his closest family and friends. DJ is pansexual, sexually attracted to people regardless of their genders. He also is romatically attracted to more than one person at a time, and unlike his serial philanderer of a father, he is open and honest with all involved.

As he joins the HSU Copperheads, however, two circumstances threaten these plans. First, a chance encounter at a soccer tournament with a English scout turns into an offer for a tryout with Donford FC, a mid-level Premier League club from the East End of London. And then, the possibility of DJ’s personal secrets being revealed threaten his football dreams.

Will DJ decide to stay close to home and family, as well as the familiarity of the gridiron? Or, will he attempt to follow his creative heart across the Atlantic Ocean and into the unknown world of professional soccer?

If You’re Interested…

…in the sport of soccer, family intrigue, and/or LGBTQ fiction, The Yank Striker is absolutely for you.

Essentially, you can probably find it just by Googling “Jason Liegois The Yank Striker,” but if you want faster links, you can check out either the links on the sidebar of my desktop version of this site, or go to my profile page on Substack and click on the “Links” section. If you’re interested, you can pick up the paperback version for $14.95 or the Kindle version for $4.99.

Or, if you happen to visit a book fair or author’s event in Iowa, western Illinois or maybe even Northeast Missouri, you might see me there and ask me if I’ve got a copy to sell and autograph. I’ll be the relatively big guy with a gray beard and I’ll almost certainly be wearing something in purple. You won’t miss me.

Prose Night at the Writing Life, 10 February 2024

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Prose Night at the Writing Life, 13 January 2024: A Yank Striker excerpt

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The Writing Life, 18 November 2023: A slightly retooled newsletter

[PHOTO NOTE: More shots of the Mississippi River from me because I’m in a river mood. By the way, all photo credits on these posts are from me unless I say differently.]

As I am once again on the road this weekend, this time for some family travel, I decided to put this together ahead of time. I mentioned recently I’ll be doing the official newsletters on the first and third Wednesdays of the month and have “alternative” programming on at least the second and fourth (and occasionally the fifth) weekends of the month. Here’s the full update on it if you want to see the full explanation.

Now that’s out of the way, let’s talk writing.

What I’ve Been Writing

I got back to work on The Yank Striker 2, and work is slow but steady on this. I’m getting close to finishing up a good scene in the book (one I mentioned during my last newsletter), and I’ll be scouting out my notebooks and virtual storyboards for what other scenes I absolutely need to have in the story and leave the rest out unless I’m really desperate to include them.

Right now I would be happy with just 60,000 words. Since this is going to be a series, I have the advantage of not having to worry about having to tell the entire story I want to get out in a single book1.

Also, next week I committed to doing another Poetry Night entry for the blog. I feel like I could really put together some interesting poetry, but one of my longstanding fears is I’m going to have to do a lot of thinking to produce not that many words. Well, I need to get over my prose mindset and see I can be just as productive, but in a different way2.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing

Foremost in my mind at the moment are the artwork and proofreading work for The Yank Striker 2. I have no idea at the moment how long those processes might take from first contact with a contractor, etc., to the final product3.

I do know that we are creeping up onto the holiday season starting next week.

If I know anything for sure, trying to get anything done during said season is an iffy thing. For example, if I contact someone next week, I am all but expecting there to be no serious movement on it until the beginning of the new year.

However, I get the feeling this will be something I will need to get started as early as next week, even if all it involves is doing some initial inquiries. I can’t assume anything on time tables.

Writing Advice for the Week

Again, rather than try and come up with cool pithy advice every time I do this, I’ll often comment on other writer’s advice. This week I learned of a British writer named Hilary Mantel, who won the Booker Prize twice and whom I never heard of beforehand. However, I was overjoyed to hear this bit of advice credited to her in The Guardian:

Write a book you’d like to read. If you wouldn’t read it, why would anybody else? Don’t write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book’s ready.

Hilary Mantel

My goodness, it seemed like this advice was aimed right between my eyes. I’ve gone on more than a few times about how it’s hard to classify me as an author because I haven’t gone on and made myself into a historical romance author or a dark fantasy author (and I’m interested in writing fantasy at some point. “It’s hard to define who I am as an author,” I mutter and fret.

But why waste my time over weeks and months writing something for the sake of putting out “product?” I wanted to write The Holy Fool because I wanted a story about a journalist who finally fought back for his profession, to make it better. I wanted to write The Yank Striker because I wanted a story about a great, larger than life American soccer star, and how he rose to become a star. I wanted to read those stories, so I wrote them. The more I think about it, the more I realize I want to write stories that matter to me. It’s all the motivation I need to keep going.

Writing Quote of the Week

And for this week, a quote making me hope for more words becoming visible on my pages.

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.

Vladimir Nabokov

Where You Can Find my Books

I’ve got links to my books in paperback and ebook format in the sidebar here, but you can get them in person at these fine Iowa bookstores:

  • Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave # S1, Des Moines
  • Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella. Pella Books is celebrating its 24th anniversary this month, and they’ve got more than a few events to celebrate. Go ahead and check them out.
  • The Book Vault, 105 S Market St, Oskaloosa.

All three are great independent bookstores who deserve your support.

Final Thoughts

That’s it for right now. We’ll have some poetry for sure next weekend, and maybe one or two other surprises as well, likely not in the same post. Anyway, take care, everyone.

– 30 –

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

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  1. I have the feeling this section of the newsletter will usually be bigger on the first weekend of the month rather than the third just because it will cover a longer period of time. Well, we’ll just have to see. ↩︎
  2. Man, I get the feeling this is going to be really short. Well, the next one will be longer next month, I promise. ↩︎
  3. If anyone has a good idea of those timelines, feel free to leave a comment or email me about it. And if you happen to do cover art for books or proofreading, definitely hit me up in the comments or by email. ↩︎