Tag: What I'm Reading

A Week in the Writing Life, 8 April 2023

[Photo note: Just visited Muscatine[1][2] last week. This was a mood.]

If you haven’t figured it out already, these weekly newsletters will remain free for all subscribers, regardless of whatever subscription you have from me. I need to make sure I’m providing everyone a value for their time and support, regardless of whatever level that is.

Also, if you haven’t figured it out, it takes more than a day to put all of this together. At this point, I’m starting to write this edition of the newsletter on the day after the last one came out. It’s fine, though. The less I rush this, the more likely it’s going to be a quality offering[3].

So, let’s talk about the week that was.

Home Front Stuff

I managed to get together with both my parents and my kids last weekend, albeit not at the exact same time. However, I did appreciate seeing all of them, especially my parents since I had not seen them in person since at least Christmas. I’m an only child, and the older I get, the more that I want to treasure and nurture my relationship to them since I know how much people treasure their kids now.

I lived in my hometown with my family next to my parents for about 15 years, and I don’t think that I appreciated having my parents as near to me as I did at the time. I am glad that my kids got to experience living next to their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I didn’t have the opportunity to do that myself, since we were the only members of my family living in Iowa until I got married and started having kids.

I’m also getting a bit annoyed with starting to see weather in the 70 degrees and higher numbers occasionally here in Iowa. I was promised spring for this year, you know.

What I’ve Been Writing

As of today’s post, I do believe that my second revision of The Yank Striker is now in the books[4]. I will likely have to review this briefly before handing it in to my editors, but I feel grateful that I got it done in the self-imposed time limit that I had set for myself. Goal-setting can work, kids.

My hope is that the back and forth with my editors on any changes calms down and that we can finally have a release date for The Yank Striker. I’m now hoping for a summer release for the book, as that would give me more freedom to promote the book when I am on vacation. But, it is getting increasingly close to being a reality. It even has an ISBN number and everything.

As for the rest, work on The Yank Striker 2, other fiction projects, my memoir, and other items has paused a bit. I’m hoping to restart all of them soon after some of these revisions on The Yank Striker are sorted.

As for the next subscriber-exclusive post I have plans for, I’m thinking about a follow-up to the piece I just wrote on worldbuilding. As it turns out, I have to make a presentation on revising for my writer’s group next week, so it can be difficult to have something ready to go by then. However, I am going to make a big effort to have this ready for you, readers.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing

Remember when I said that this whole subscriber exclusive thing was going to be longer than a one-day process? Turns out I was overly optimistic about how fast that process was going to take. 

If this was a large outfit or publishing concern, I’d be talking to my webmaster to step up the process and get it done as soon as possible. Of course, I can’t whip my webmaster into shape to get this done right away, because I’m the webmaster here. My WordPress and Substack sites are essentially a one-man band. Of course, all of the revisions I’ve been trying to fast-track as I mentioned above have been taking away time from this activity.

As I had suspected, since the changeover process is a bit more straightforward with Substack than it is with WordPress, I’ve decided to concentrate on getting most of the work done on the former platform first. There, it is merely a matter of switching over whole posts to subscriber-only status and deleting some blogs that I don’t want to muck around with on Substack (including my Wednesday writing journals and any posts exclusive to the WordPress page. That I might get done in the next couple of weeks.

The WordPress page is going to take a little longer. There, I will have to set up subscriber-only blocks of material that are only available for paid subscribers. So, that involves entering the edit function of a particular post, creating the subscriber block, cutting the section of text and material I want to have subscriber exclusive, paste that material in the subscriber block, and then hit the update button. This is at least a couple of steps more than I would have to do on Substack. One advantage to the work on WordPress, however, is that I won’t be planning on deleting any extra posts, so that will save me some time. However, this will not start until after I have finished my Substack work, and I do not have any estimate for how long the entire process will be. I’ll keep you updated, because I’m always looking to talk about something on these weekly newsletters[5].

What I’ve Been Reading/General Recommendations

Roger’s Bacon is a former evolutionary biologist and current high school science teacher (a latter profession where it is very hard to find good candidates, by the way). He has a Substack named Secretorm. I must say, even his links posts are an intriguing read. I’s say check it out.

Substack is rolling out a new feature called Substack Notes that is sort of a short post format similar in size to tweets, but not quite? I still appreciate how Substack is more about people finding other people because they are interested in good writing, not some algorithmic mumbo-jumbo.

Writing Quote of the Week

You know what, this explains how I felt about reading growing up, so I’ll post it.

We live and breathe words. …. It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them. Reading your words, what you wrote, how you were lonely sometimes and afraid, but always brave; the way you saw the world, its colors and textures and sounds, I felt–I felt the way you thought, hoped, felt, dreamt. I felt I was dreaming and thinking and feeling with you. I dreamed what you dreamed, wanted what you wanted–and then I realized that truly I just wanted you.

Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

Final Thoughts

The day before this newsletter got posted, I received word of the death of the German publishing heiress, music promoter, actress, and model Nora Forster. She might be better known for being the wife of Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd singer John Lydon, and the mother of Ariane Forster, better known as Ari Up, vocalist for the English punk rock band the Slits. I’ve been a fan of Lydon’s music ever since I was a kid, even though some of his recent statements regarding Brexit and other political matters don’t sit well with me.

I had first read about John and Nora’s relationship when I read Lyndon’s 1994 memoir Rotten – No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs[6], and it was a description of a truly wonderful and loving relationship by all accounts. Nora was several years older than John, and she had been suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease for the past five years. John had been her caretaker during that time. Before then he and Nora had served as as the guardian to Ari’s three children when she found herself mentally unable to care for them and, later, after Ari’s death from cancer. Alzheimer’s and dementia are likely the worst diseases anyone can face, and I can only imagine the hardships that John faced seeing his loved one fade away and having to care for her during that time. It’s a hard road for any partners or family of those affected by dementia.

In her and John’s honor, I’m posting this song. As I kid I was more of a Sex Pistols fan, but nowadays I’m an admirer of Public Image Ltd, so this might be my favorite of his. Rest in power to Nora and I hope John has peace.

– 30 –

Footnotes:

  1. For new subscribers, that’s my hometown. Google it to find out more – it’s the only town in the world with that exact name.
  2. The photo shows the Norbert F. Beckey Bridge, which crosses the Mississippi River from Muscatine to the Illinois side of the river.
  3. Of course I say that, then I wind up doing revisions on this newsletter less than an hour or two before publication lol.
  4. When I say second revision, I mean the second major revision since I’ve submitted it to the publisher. I have completed at least three other major revisions and about the same number of minor revisions before that process.
  5. As previously stated, lol.
  6. That is a great read that I would highly recommend.

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.

A Week in the Writing Life, 1 April 2023

I will say that I am always glad when this day falls on a weekend. You do not want to be in a school on this day, much less teaching there. Any interest that I once in pranks or pranking people left me a long time ago. My personal opinion is that it gives some people permission to be absolute jerks, not that people need much of an excuse nowadays.

Aaaaaand that was enough misanthropy for a while. Let’s get to the writing talk, shall we?

Home Front Stuff

I usually don’t celebrate my birthday publicly, but I decided to do that to see who might actually be willing to support my writing (more on that later). As I hinted last week, I have started to write these more than a few days earlier than it actually runs, because otherwise I’m going to be rushed to get this up at a reasonable time on Saturdays and the quality might be a little bit low.

Anyway, the reason I’m mentioning this is because the plan is that today (1 April) I will be having a joint birthday feast and celebration with my daughter, and my wife and son will be there too, maybe even my parents. I do plan on visiting my parents before that as well. It is rare for us to get together since we now live halfway across the state from each other, and I treasure that time with them. I try to call them on a regular basis because I now know what it’s like to be wondering how my kids are dealing with young adulting and hoping they’re okay. Goodness knows how my mom and dad handled it with me being their only kid, and I last lived full-time with them at least twenty-five years ago.

What I’ve Been Writing

I’m deep into a second revision of The Yank Striker this week. Now that I’ve checked to see that all the first revisions got taken care of (good news, the vast majority of them are done), I’m needing to review for any other major revisions (or minor ones) before we go forward. How many more times through the process we’ll go through, I can’t say, but this is coming closer to reality.

Work on The Yank Striker 2 has paused a bit. I want to make sure that I’m going to be productive with the blog since I’m actually expecting people to pay for reading some portions of it lol. The other issue is that I want to make sure that what I have written looks good enough to match with the first part, so much of that work is going to be revisionist in nature rather than new writing, at least at first. As of right now, I already have 15,000-plus words in the rough draft, so that’s a little progress. (I’m not expecting the second book to be much longer than 80,000 words.)

I’m also planning to write my new piece on worldbuilding locations, with some of the experiences that I’ve had with both The Yank Striker series and my first book, The Holy Fool. The plan is to make that the first ever subscriber-exclusive piece for Liegois Media and The Writing Life With Jason Liegois. Now, whether I manage to actually write this piece is a totally different situation. Let’s all watch here to see if I make this deadline. (I think I might?)[1]

As for other stuff, I’m still doing dribs and drabs of the fan fiction, usually just to make sure that I’m at least writing something. I’m not as dedicated to it as I was, say, a couple of years ago, but it is something that is a good creative outlet for me. One advantage to it that other outlets don’t have is that I don’t have as much pressure to like promote it or monetize it like other things that I create.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing

At this point, the paid subscriptions on Liegois Media (WordPress) and The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (Substack) should be up and running. Whether it is running smoothly or not is another issue. I mentioned before that there might be some technical complications to setting up some of the paid sections. I do not consider myself a webmaster or programmer by any means, but thankfully being online no longer requires you to have a basic knowledge of HTML programming or anything like that to set up a web site. I’m it when it comes to who’s behind everything, everyone.

I am not too concerned about whether everything is totally perfect for this launch or not. I’ve come to believe that it’s better to jump into this rather than try and tinker with everything and try and put together the perfect plan to run a site, which doesn’t exist. Might as well have fun with this and see where it leads.

Free Piece of Writing Advice for the Week

It is going to be very interesting to see if I can make this a a good section of the newsletter and not be repetitive. It might if I keep it quick.

Remember how I said last time that it’s good not to rely on “crutch words,” words that wind up being repetitive filler in your writing? I would also say that you should make sure to not use “crutch punctuation,” as well. For example, I realized after I had one of my more recent works proofread that I was relying waaaay too much on em-dashes (basically, this: – ). I should not have been using them all the time to try and make these big long pauses, or as a replacement for ending a comment. If I really wanted to merge two sentences together, I can use a semicolon every one in a while, or maybe a colon if the second sentence directly explains something in the first sentence.

What I’ve Been Reading/General Recommendations

I always feel like I want to try to read something I’m going to learn from, even if I’m not sure that it will be a reading experience that I want to return to. It’s a way of challenging myself, which is why I insisted on buying Infinite Jest and The Pale King by David Foster Wallace and insist on trying to read them, even though I couldn’t even get through the first fourth of each book[2]. I get that same feeling reading Brad DeLong, an economics professor at University of California at Berkeley, a deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Treasury during the Clinton Administration and the author of a few books. He wrote this breakdown analysis of the new GPT-4 chatbot soon after it came out, and I’m always interested in hearing about how AI will change things or not. Give him a read.

Paul Krugman is not a writer who needs my hype, but I’m giving it to him anyway. A professor of economics at such places as MIT, Stanford, Yale, and Princeton, among others, he’s the winner of the Nobel Prize of Economics for his theories on international trade theory. He’s also pretty much the only columnist at the New York Times that matters. He knows how economies work. If you have the cash to get a NYT subscription, he’s worth a read.

Writing Quote of the Week

As my next big fiction project (other than The Yank Striker series) will involve fantasy, I figured a quote from one of the first fantasy writers I fell in love with might be appropriate.

Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it.

Lloyd Alexander

Final Thoughts

Well, that’s it for now. Hopefully you, the reader, is getting something out of this, and you should be assured that I’m willing to write something even when I’m not trying to promote something. You’ll hear from me sooner rather than later.

– 30 –

Footnotes:

  1. I’ll probably post something quick right after it goes live.
  2. I did pick up a love of footnotes from DFW, so there’s that.

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.

A Week in the Writing Life, 25 March 2023

Hi, again. [Please note, the above image is not my actual birthday cake lol.]

Although I find that I am doing pretty well with putting out a weekly newsletter, I have to note that I am starting to put it together earlier and earlier in the week (although not necessarily finishing it early in the week). One of the difficulties that I find on a regular basis is finding readings to recommend and give links to, especially when I find myself busy with writing and the day job (teaching).

Home Front Stuff

As I might have mentioned previously, I’ll be celebrating my 50th birthday soon (no use in denying it when I can use the occasion for a promotional event lol). As for the family celebration of the event, that might have to wait until the following weekend. It appears that we might be combining the celebration of my 50th birthday and my daughter’s 21st birthday (nine days prior to mine) into a single event. This is a side effect of having my kids living in two different cities, none of which I live in.

At least for now, we all live in the same state, but who knows how long that will last. I never lived in the same state as my grandparents and most of my aunts and uncles, but my kids lived in the same area as their grandparents and maternal aunts for most of their childhood. Circumstances can always change, and I just treasure the times that I am around any of my family, especially my wife and kids.

What I’ve Been Writing

New sneak peek picture of the inside of The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning.

I’ve already gotten my second proof for The Yank Striker in the mail on Monday. Now it’s sit around and wait as I get the next proof back and see what else needs to be done. I hope there’s not too much left to do, but I can’t rush things either. Of course, I have to check and make sure that all of the revisions I asked to get done actually did get done. As I started looking at that this week, it appears the vast majority of those did happen, which should help out my second round of revisions.

I thought it might be useful to some of you writers who are looking for a system to help revise your longer projects to give an insider’s look at my process behind The Yank Striker, something I began with my first book The Holy Fool and refined during this project. It’s going to post here about an hour after this post goes live, so go check it out.

As for other writing, once I finish the first look at the new proof, I hope to get back to writing The Yank Striker Part 2 (working title). Like I mentioned last time, one of my issues stemmed from me not really being comfortable with the description of a particular setting in the first book in the series, so I didn’t want to proceed with scenes at that setting (an important one in the book) in the new book until I resolved it in the first book. Especially with it being a series, I knew that I had to get it right the first time to avoid continuity errors and awkwardness.

With that in mind, I’m planning on putting together another article for the following week that covers putting together settings for a fictional place. I might even turn it into my first subscriber-exclusive piece for Liegois Media and The Writing Life With Jason Liegois. Keep checking those spaces.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing

I think I might need to explain a reference I made last week when I compared the monthly meeting of my writing group to the plot of the film Saturday Night Fever. I have to remember once again that there are an ever fewer number of people who have a direct memory of the 20th century, although I had to realize it about 10 years or so when I was teaching a class of eighth graders and I started to figure out their ages[1].

Many film fans (and music fans as well) of 1977 saw the music and the dancing and the fashion of the movie and didn’t get much farther than that. But a lot of the perceptive people recognized the film as an exploration of characters looking for meaning and validation in their lives. Gene Siskel, the late great film critic of the Chicago Tribune, was so obsessed with the film that he eventually purchased the white suit that star John Travola wore at the film’s climax. Anyway, this was a long-winded way of saying that writing and my fellow writers are a great escape from the regular grind of my workdays and something I truly look forward to.

Last week, I already talked about preparations for paid subscriptions on Liegois Media (WordPress) and The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (Substack). I’ve already got the payment systems set up for both sites, so it’s just a matter of getting the subscriptions to go live. As I promised, that will happen at 8 p.m. Central Time March 30. For Substack, the process will be more or less immediate.

However, it will be more of an evolving process on WordPress, because you can’t simply have a certain amount of posts become subscriber exclusive. Apparently, you have to have subscriber exclusive boxes so that you can get the subscribers to pay for it. That means I might be more than just a few days reformatting new subscriber box content. Now, I say all this, but watch and see the Substack be more complicated than WordPress. I might be able to let you know how it’s going by the next time I post the next A Week in the Writing Life.

Free Piece of Writing Advice for the Week

During our members’ meeting of the Iowa Writer’s Corner last weekend, we had a great presentation from one of our new members, writer TK Cassidy. It was entitled “Crutch Words and the Dreaded Lack of Definition.” To summarize the presentation, she talked with us about words that we tend to use repeatedly in our writings that can be both monotonous for our readers and not specific enough to be properly descriptive for them as well. They tend to happen in everyday speech quite a lot[2].

Go ahead and use the “find word” function in the word processing program of your choice. If you find yourself using certain words hundreds of times over the course of a book-length manuscript (especially these ones, thanks to Hannah Bauman for them), try to change them out for more descriptive alternatives[3][4].

What I’ve Been Reading/General Recommendations

Korynn Morrison is an artist from Sydney, Australia, I met on Substack. She’s just as good of a writer as she is a visual artist, like this piece on the concept of stillness and how it can lead to more self-awareness. Check her out.

I had a chance to reread my copy of Up the Down Staircase, Bel Kaufman’s classic 1964 novel of a young female rookie teacher in the New York public school system. The trailer for its 1967 film adaptation appears to be a bit extra. A movie trailer more than four minutes long? Anyway, see it for yourself:

One of the things I noticed about the book was how a lot of the issues teachers had to deal with back then are just as present now, if exacerbated by increased pressures on students and technology. However, it would be quite easy to re-adapt the book for today’s time, switching out those letters, assignments, and interoffice memos with emails, texts, and Google Classroom files.

Writing Quote of the Week

Since I was talking earlier about eliminating crutch words and vivid descriptions, this seems appropriate.

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

Anton Chekhov

Final Thoughts

Let’s close things out with a jam. If someone tells you that all of the music of the 1980’s and their music videos were overproduced mush, you might want to show them this little number from Minneapolis, Minnesota’s own, The Replacements.

Thanks to all my readers, and especially my subscribers, for your continued support. I appreciate it very much, and I’m not going to forget it.. Writers keep writing and everyone take care of themselves.

– 30 –

Footnotes:

  1. Then again, they could just look up the history like I did. One of my personal mottoes is “I looked it up.”
  2. I tend to believe the theory that people use these words in speech to buy time to allow you to think about what to say next.
  3. Of course, when it comes to dialogue, this rule doesn’t necessarily count. In fact, a good amount of realistic dialogue would contain plenty of crutch words.
  4. Yes, I’m getting on my footnotes again.

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.

A Week in the Writing Life, 18 March 2023

And we’re back. Let’s talk about what’s been going on.

[PHOTO NOTE: A quick picture of the Aerial Lift Bridge in Duluth, Minnesota. Good times there.]

Home Front Stuff

Not too much to report on this part. I’m about two months away from summer break, and I have the feeling that the kids I’m teaching are starting to feel it as well. All will be fine in the end.

Reddit was on the fritz for a while on Tuesday, so that was a bit of a trauma. I spend way too much time on that site, which I might talk about sometime if I get bored.

In absence of personal news, here’s another throwback picture of my dog, Winnie, just because.

.

What I’ve Been Writing

Just when I thought I wasn’t going to meet my self-imposed deadline, I got all of my revisions and edits for The Yank Striker done and the changes off to my publisher. Now it’s sit around and wait as I get the next proof back and see what else needs to be done (My hope is not too much, but I can’t rush things either.)

I think my next big weekend story (that is, this weekend) will be about how my revising process has gone and how to strategically tackle it. On something like this, you need to have a good blueprint before starting out. For example, that’s one of the reasons I gave points to my junior high students for completing their prewriting so that they know what to do before they start writing their latest essays. Otherwise many of them just tend to write whatever comes into their heads in whatever order they are in the mood for, which can be good for spontaneous creativity but not so well in formal essays.

As for what I’m writing (other than the blog stuff, which is beginning to take up a bit more time and space than it has for a while), I think that I will need to get back onto The Yank Striker Part 2 (working title). I really was not quite comfortable writing on the new book until I resolved something in Part 1, so to speak. I’ll detail this in another post, but essentially, I realize that I’m a bit nervous about proceeding with a story if I don’t have a setting put together and laid out in my head, even if the reader doesn’t, in a sense, get a full tour of the place. This wound up happening when I took another look at a major setting in my book and it was not up to my expectations. Again, I’ll go over all those details during a separate post this weekend.

However, if I’m going to want to keep up the type of writing numbers that I managed, say, last week, I might have to put together those numbers writing here on the blog and some of my fanfiction that I tool around with just for fun. I want to make sure that what I am writing in Part 2 matches Part 1 perfectly.

It’s good that I’m starting to write a series, but it can be a bit stressful in making sure all the pieces fit together.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing

Once again, I’m getting ready to get together with my writing group over the weekend. There is a bit of a Saturday Night Fever (Saturday Morning Fever, anyway?) in getting ready for those get-togethers on the weekends as the week goes on. I definitely think that I’ll be keeping an ear open at the meetings for any words of wisdom from my fellow published writers (who are all trundling along on this writing road with me), and I’d definitely be willing to share things that I picked up as well.

In fact, I’m thinking that I might add an “advice corner” to these weekly posts where I give a quick tidbit of advice rather than longer ones, although I will definitely keep doing the longer advice pieces every so often. Any thoughts on this? Let me know in the comments.

Also, I’ve been keeping busy with prepping for my birthday celebration, which means getting everything ready for the option of paid subscriptions here on Liegois Media (WordPress) and The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (Substack). I will say that given the setup of both platforms, it will be a different experience with both. I might get into some of the more technical details with you later, but it will be a lot easier to set up subscriptions on Substack while there might be more of a variety of ways to bring in revenue with WordPress, from my initial study of the platforms.

I will say that even though I might not get everything right on blogging, I think it’s better to just jump out and get going rather than overplan and worry that everything isn’t perfect when you start out. If there’s something that I can improve on though, please let me know at jasonliegois@liegois.media or in the comments.

What I’ve Been Reading/General Recommendations

Let’s keep it short this week.

I’ve been raving about Substack for a while (obviously), but some people who might not be familiar with the platform might wonder what type of writing they might find there. For a quick review of what’s going on there, you could do much worse than Substack Reads, a weekly roundup of creativity from the site suggested by readers and staff. That’s how I just found out this week that E. Jean Carroll is lurking around on Substack. Check them (both) out.

If you are interested in writing proper titles for your stories (or anything else, really), this headline capitalization tool is pretty handy. Since I’m a journalism snob, I tend to stick to the Associated Press style of capitalization.

Writing Quote of the Week

For this week, here’s a longer one from The King.

The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.

Stephen King

Final Thoughts

That is going to be IT for the newsletter this week, but trust me – there’s more to come down the line, even this weekend. Take care, everyone.

– 30 –

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

Subscribe to my Substack here.

A Week in the Writing Life, 11 March 2023

We’re back again for another edition of A Week in the Writing Life. Let’s get started.

Home Front Stuff

I happen to be by myself for the past day or so while my wife in on a business trip out of town. I have to admit that although I can manage all right by myself, it’s always difficult to not have her to talk with, commiserate and converse with. She absolutely keeps things together for us as far as organizing and planning, and I definitely consider myself a “Type 2” personality as compared to her “Type 1.”

We do have one pet who will keep me company – Winston, AKA Winnie, our Shih Tzu dog of well over a decade. We inherited the good boy from a friend in Muscatine when he was three years old, and he has been with us ever since. He soon hung out with his “brother” and fellow Shih Tzu Snickers and our elder kitty girl that came from a friendly landfill, Samantha. 

Both Samantha, the Cujo Kitty in her fiercer days, and Snickers have since passed on across the rainbow bridge. Samantha followed us from Clinton, Iowa, to Muscatine, Iowa, and now rests there. Snickers followed us from Muscatine to Chariton and now rests there. Only Winny remains, going strong for an older boy but moving at a slower pace.

The boy himself.

It has been a rewarding experience having him and his other companions. I was past 25 years old before I had a pet cat or dog in my home. Somehow I never got along with them as a boy, but they’ve been great furry friends to have around. Laura and I have decided that we won’t be getting a new dog whenever Winnie passes on because we want more freedom to travel and do things now without having to worry about his care. However, we’ll miss him very much whenever his time comes. He has always been a great chill bud and I’m glad he’s been a part of my life.

What I’ve Been Writing

I’m hoping to finish up my read through of The Yank Striker by the end of this weekend. If it carries over a few days, it won’t be a disaster, but I do want to try and wrap things up. Again, though, sometimes I’m allergic to deadlines.

I talked a little bit about exactly how I’ve been revising the manuscript, but I’m thinking now that it might be worth discussing what that process looks like. Some people might find this difficult to do, or figure out how to pass along revisions to editors and so forth. I think that is something that I will explore in a later essay.

As I’ve said time and time again, as soon as I have a publication date, you will be the first to know and take part in the celebrations, which will likely involve a contest or two. Watch this space.

The Iron Pen

Unfortunately, I will not be in Davenport this weekend, as I was not one of the lucky winners of the 2023 Iron Pen Competition sponsored by the Midwest Writing Center. However, I very much enjoyed the challenge and experience of the Iron Pen, and I absolutely would want to try it again next year. Considering there was about 120 participants in this year’s event, I don’t have hard feelings about not making it to the top. Apparently there were a lot of quality entries.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing

This section will be pretty short, as the main stuff I’ve been dealing with will be a big announcement in an hour. Trust me, though, it will be a good one. Keep posted.

What I’ve Been Reading/Listening to/General Recommendations

I’ll give you three for this week.

I first found Laura Jedeed on Twitter covering far-right conservative protestors in the Portland area. (Both she and I now have similar feelings toward Twitter.) She’s moved to New York and now writes on Substack about conservative politics. She comes up with some great work like this one about the rise in hatred of trans people. And she answers her emails, which is cool. (I’m the one who talked about seeing her on Twitter talking about Portland.)

Art Cullen is the editor and co-owner of the Storm Lake Times Pilot who won the Pulitzer Prize a few years ago for editorial writing. Here’s a recent sample. We don’t have enough guys like him in Iowa or in journalism, but I’m glad we have him.

Even though I didn’t win their contest this year, the Midwest Writing Center is a great resource for aspiring and established writers alike in the Midwest area, especially Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois. They’ve got plenty of programming and support opportunities available. Go check it out.

Writing Quote of the Week

Today’s quote comes from one-time Muscatine, Iowa resident and famed American writer Mark Twain. My corollary to this is the fewer words there are in a work of writing, the more true this becomes.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.

Mark Twain, The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain

Final Thoughts

So, I bring this edition to a close. Hope all is going well. Writers keep writing and everyone out there 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.

A Week in the Writing Life, 4 March 2023

As a famed television advertisement of my youth once said, it’s time to make the doughnuts.

Home Front Stuff

Again, there is not too much to report here. I think there was some thought that there might be one last massive winter storm, but I think that anything like that is going to pass north of us.

My wife and I spent Friday night watching the new Dateline episode about the South Carolina attorney whose family was big in the legal profession in this one corner of the state, ended up ripping off a lot of his clients to apparently fuel his pill habits and then murdered his wife and younger son. It was wholesome couple time for us.

I just learned that St. Louis finally got its Major League Soccer franchise (St. Louis FC) and is playing this year. It was a total surprise to me, but I had some knowledge that the city had some previous soccer history through the decades. I might have to check them out.

On the weeks where there is not much to report on me personally, I think I just might write “All Quiet on the Home Front” and leave it at that. I loved All Quiet on the Western Front, but I think the new Netflix adaptation really loses sight of the main themes of the book by getting too cute with the generals planning and all that.

What I’ve Been Writing

I’ve essentially finished stage one of my read-through of .The Yank Striker. I’m going to have to get pretty hardcore to have this ready by the end of next week, which I thought should be enough time to get all of that taken care of. Well, you might have heard how one of my writing heroes growing up, Douglas Adams, felt about deadlines.

The next part of that will involve me having both a list of revisions and the revised version of the manuscript on two different electronic documents, as well as my well-labeled proof that you saw before.

And if that seems like it might be a bit awkward and time consuming, you would certainly be right. But, I do want this to be the best I can produce.

As I’ve said, as soon as I have a publication date, you will be the first to know and take part in the celebrations, which will likely involve a contest or two. Watch this space.

Regarding my other writing projects, those are slowing down as I try to work out these revisions. One of the things I’m using the fan fiction for is to actually write something creative without a lot of “professional” pressure. It’s also a bit easier to write those spontaneously rather than put together something like, say, this weekly update. However, I think that I have to put more effort into the “work” writing rather than the “fun” writing at this rate. (I’m finding myself staying up a bit late Friday night to get this post done because I’ll be on the road for a good part of today.)

My hope is still to get Book Two in this series completed by the end of the year. This would be the fastest turnaround I would have for a book, but I think that I can still manage it if, as the numbers are telling me, I’m being more productive than at any other time in my life from a writing standpoint. As they say, no guts, no glory.

The Iron Pen

I promised last time that I’d write a separate story on this experience, and I will in a day or so, even if it is a short post.

The Midwest Writing Center will announce the winners of the contest next week. I’m not sure I’ll win, but I might be tempted to attend the award ceremony. If’s been a while since I was in the Quad Cities.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing

I want to start checking in with other Substack writers to see what they are charging for paid subscriptions. I think I could start doing that, but I’m not sure that I would be able to be as productive as some of the other people I’ve met on Substack. I’m going to get a better feel for that and report back, because getting a paid subscription option was a goal of mine this year (although I will always have a free option on the WordPress and Substack sites).

What I’ve Been Reading/Listening to/General Recommendations

I’ll give you three for this week.

Heather Cox Richardson is a history professor writing about contemporary American politics and does a good job of it at a Substack called Letters From an American. I also appreciate a writer who can just admit she might not be up for it on a certain day and post something like this instead. That can take guts.

I found another fellow English teacher and writer out there named Charles Schifano called Desk Notes by Charles Schifano. This is a piece he wrote regarding a problem he sees with contemporary English teaching. To me, it’s a well-thought out piece on where some educators might be losing their way.

Not a writer or a writing platform, but Canva allows you to design some cool stuff, including book covers. I didn’t use it to design my upcoming cover (that I credit to my publishers Biblio Publishing), but it did allow me to design some interesting items that will pop up in the book. I recommend them.

Writing Quote of the Week

I’m going to be really arrogant and have a quote of my own here. It’s inspired by the great Liverpool FC manager Bill Shankly.

Some people think football [soccer] is a matter of life and death. I don’t like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.

Bill Shankly

That made me think of something that I’ve been considering about my point of view on writing in my life. Here it is.

I don’t consider writing to be a career for me. I’ve come to realize that it’s much more important than that.

Jason Liegois

Final Thoughts

So, I bring this edition to a close. Hope all is going well. Writers keep writing and everyone out there 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.

A Week in the Writing Life, 25 (Oops, 26) February 2023

Hi, everyone. Sorry for the bit of delay, but I was on the road pretty much all day yesterday and I was also busy with a bit of a writing contest. I’ll get into all of that below, but it’s great to check in with everyone.

So, on we go…

Homefront Stuff

Not too much on the personal level this week. I think our portion of south central Iowa should be done with snow days for the next several months, but perhaps I should not say never. After maybe one or two snow days for the entire winter, we had three in two weeks, which is a bit of a surprise this late into the winter.

So, that’s the weather from south central Iowa, and only about three more months before the school year wraps up.

What I’ve Been Writing

I’m still deep into reviewing the first proof of my new book The Yank Striker (which will hit the book shelves, virtual and otherwise, this year). If I want to make sure that I am getting this done in a timely manner, I’m pretty sure I should get this wrapped up no later than two weeks from now. This is my way of hinting to myself that I need to get back on this, oh, say, tonight.

Current state of my first proof. I was actually reviewing the proof during my visit to the Johnston Public Library Saturday (25 February 2023), and it wound up being a good talking point to visitors.

I’m well past the first half of the book for sure. I am finding myself being excessively fussy about certain items, especially anything that might be considered a continuity error. I’m being extremely fussy about this since this is going to be the start of a series, which is a brand new thing for me. I don’t want to be in a situation 10 years later when some reader asks me a question and I have to admit that it was a screw-up on my part.

Afterward, I’m going to start generating a revising document where I lay out exactly all of the changes I want to make to the text. Usually, what I will do is put together a separate copy of my manuscript so I can have all of those changes in one place as well (while keeping the original text in a separate file). All of this means that my productivity as far as new writing is going to nose-dive again while I devote time to finishing this revision process.

As I’ve said, as soon as I have a publication date, you will be the first to know and take part in the celebrations, which will likely involve a contest or two. Watch this space.

The other writing projects have slowed to a crawl, but I managed to put together one chapter of a fan fiction project I hadn’t been working on for a few months. That was a way to blow off some creative steam. However, once I’ve started to sort out the revisions on The Yank Striker, I think I’ll feel more confident to continue my work on Book Two in the series. I’m still hoping I can get that done by the end of fall this year. (Fingers crossed).

Speaking of creative steam…

I Survived the Iron Pen

The Midwest Writing Center is based in Rock Island, Illinois, but it supports writers in Iowa, Illinois, and the greater Midwest, and I was proud to be a member at one point. Maybe I will be one again, depending.

Every year, they host an annual Iron Pen contest where the MWC releases a writing prompt to participants in the contest and they have 24 hours to produce a work of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry based on that prompt. I got it at 5 p.m. Friday, so I had to produce something by 5 p.m. Saturday.

Due to my traveling around that day, I had to expedite the process that evening. After turning over the idea in my head for a couple hours, I started the writing at 10 p.m. Friday and emailed the MWC something by 2:30 a.m. Who knows, I might win a prize or two.

I think I do another post later going through what it was like to put that together so fast, but I will say for now that it was a great creative challenge and a fantastic experience.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing – Meeting and Greeting in Johnston, Iowa

Yesterday was the Local Author Fair at the Johnston Public Library. It was the first time that I’d ever been to the library, but it was a fantastic facility, and the staff were absolutely fabulous to me and my fellow writers.

Me at work during a (very brief) lull in the action.

I had an amazing time talking with fellow authors and book lovers. It’s a good thing that I had some cards for my WordPress and Substack pages because I handed a lot of those out to fair goers, and their library now has a copy of The Holy Fool. And I actually sold some stuff, can you believe that?

Anyway, here’s me talking about if for a moment on Facebook.

https://fb.watch/iXQ3LnHtwI/

I absolutely enjoyed the afternoon there, and I’ll look forward to going there again next year if my schedule allows for it.

What I’ve Been Reading/Listening to/General Recommendations

I’ll give you two for this week.

Misty Urban is a great writer and teacher who got her MFA from Cornell University and ended up settling down in my hometown of Muscatine. She’s won a ton of awards and I’d consider her a friend for sure and someone who I sought writing advice from in recent years. She’s written about everything from Middle English literature to a Midwest woman switching places with a Hollywood actress. Tell her I sent you.

With Grant Wahl passing on last year, maybe you’re looking for more soccer journalism. Grace Robertson has an interesting blog on Substack called Grace on Football. She did some good coverage on the World Cup last year, including this piece on the final.

Writing Quote of the Week

For this week’s writing quote, let me try one from one of the 20th century science fiction (and fiction, period) masters. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ray Bradbury:

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

Final Thoughts

Last week, I had a short tribute to the longtime Quad City Times columnist Bill Wundrum. At the end of that section, I wrote the number 30 like – 30 -. I suddenly realized that probably one percent of the possible readers of this blog would not have any idea of the significance of the symbol.

The number 30 was long used, especially in the late 19th and the 20th centuries, by American newspaper journalists to indicate the end of their story. Although this is typically not done anymore, especially not in online journalism, there probably a few older reporters (like Bill was) who would recognize it.

There are several different theories as to why 30 was used to end stories. The one that seems to make sense to me is that telegraph operators used to use the letter “X” to indicate the end of things. For example, X would be the end of a sentence, XX would be the end of a paragraph, and XXX would indicate the end of the message. Of course, XXX are also the Roman numerals that indicate the number 30.

Whenever I’ve come to the end of a school year (or the end of my time at a school), I usually draw a large 30 somewhere on the whiteboard. I’ll probably keep using it for these weekly columns/newsletters. Even though existence is never-ending, stories eventually have to stop somewhere.

– 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.

A Week in the Writing Life, 18 February 2023

Welcome back, readers. I’m hoping that you are enjoying these regular posts and that I’m not repeating myself too much on a weekly basis.

However, I do think that it is important to write consistently and with a particular purpose. Whether you call what I’m doing here a newsletter, a weekly update, a plain old blog, or whatever, the purpose is clear: let you know how my week in the writing life has been going, one way or another. It’s also a way for me to figure out what has been going on with me, especially as a writer. If it’s been going well, I follow the advice I often give my students : “If something works, keep doing it.” And, if it’s not working for me on a particular week, it’s a good way for me to try and figure out what I might be able to improve on.

With that, let’s get started.

Homefront Stuff

My daughter has now returned to her apartment in Iowa City. It has been a bit of a downer not to have her around, but like I mentioned last week, I have to be proud of them being independent people, especially since some young people are not so financially or emotionally fortunate. In a little over a year, she’ll be graduating from the University of Iowa with a degree in engineering and who knows where she’ll be afterward.

As for myself, I found myself not working (or “decommissioned,” as the British lovingly put it) for two days this week due to the surprisingly large amount of snow dumped upon the state of Iowa during a 24-hour period starting roughly on midnight of 15 February. (The results of which you can view in the featured photo of this post.) Of course, everyone complains about the teachers and students getting days off, but I am sure that they would complain more if a school bus slid off a rural road and led to the deaths or severe injuries of Iowa students.

You’d think that I got some writing done during that time, but I also wanted to do some cleaning for my beloved wife and sometimes your head isn’t in the most settled of spots on a snow day. I even wrote a poem about it once.

What I’ve Been Writing

I’ve started the second review of my new book The Yank Striker. The proof of my book is already sprouting a legion of little note flags, so who knows what I’ll have to finish up before I’m all done.

Once I get some feedback on the book and some related items from my Iowa Writers’ Corner friends, I’ll start putting together my revision notes. I am hoping to send those along, as well as some additional logos for the fictional teams in my book, my back cover blurb, author’s note, and acknowledgements by either the end of this month or the beginning of next month, which is lightning-quick in the traditional publishing world.

As far as the logos for the sports teams in my book, I designed those myself with the aid of the Canva program. I used the pro account and it has been massively helpful in producing those logos, and I get much more consistent quality than I did with other free programs. If you are looking to design anything, including book covers, I would definitely recommend Canva.

Again, as soon as I have a publication date, I will do a contest or two, book launch event, etc. Watch this space.

As for my other writings and projects, they have naturally taken a back burner. Book Two in the Yank Striker series has paused for a moment until I make sure that everything in the first book is locked down. One of the biggest worries on that revision? I want to make sure that I’m properly describing the main training facility of my soccer team, and I’m wanting to make sure that the descriptions make sense. I’m reviewing a few training centers of Premier League teams to make sure mine sounds realistic. I also have to make sure that the quality of the facilities matches a modest London team and not exactly one of the “Big Six” teams. It’s a bit of a balancing act, but I think it’s worth it to make something that’s realistic and of good quality.

I also continue to dabble in my fanfiction writing whenever I get blocked from doing any other type of writing. It is always a bit refreshing to write something that has no chance of being commercially viable, or any limits on word count, or any rules about writing the last of nine or so stories in a series before finishing the fifth story in the series. It’s been a liberating experience.

Anyone want to see how hard that I type on my keyboard sometimes? This hard:

Notice all the wear marks on the keys, especially the space bar.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing

Just a reminder, my first public appearance of the new year will be coming up very soon – one week from now, as a matter of fact.

I’ll be participating in the Local Author Fair at the Johnston Public Library on Saturday, February 25. I’ll be out there with many other area authors from 2 to 4 p.m. that day. I’ll bring myself and copies of The Holy Fool for purchase, and I’ll also be there to talk about my upcoming series The Yank Striker. Thanks to the Johnston Public Library for the invitation, and I look forward to meeting old friends and new acquaintances there.

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Local Author Fair

Please please please come out there and say hi to me and all of the talented writers out there. Several of my IWC compatriots will be out there as well, and I would highly recommend all of their work.

What I’ve Been Reading/Listening to/General Recommendations

Time for some more reading recommendations. Hope you like them.

Max Allan Collins is the other, more successful writer from Muscatine, Iowa, who has written everything from Road to Perdition, the Nathan Heller crime series, and a biography of Mickey Spillane, among others. He has a nice little web site that has his blog and all the stuff he’s written. Go ahead and check it out and tell him I sent you.

I found out this guy on Substack named Noah Smith, who writes about economics, technology, geopolitics, and culture on a site called Noapinion. I liked this article he wrote recently on artificial intelligence and its influence on coding. Check him out.

It was on Twitter where I discovered the writer and essayist Charlotte Clymer, a trans Christian Army veteran from Texas who writes about politics, pop culture, religion, and LGBTQ issues. I’m no longer on Twitter, but you can find her on Substack at Charlotte’s Web Thoughts. Here’s an example of her podcast. Check her out.

Writing Quote(s) of the Week

Once again, I go to Big Daddy Stephen King for some advice about writing. One thing that you should keep in mind is that when he talks about reading, notice how he doesn’t talk about what you are reading. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, screenplays, instruction manuals, good writing, bad writing… all of it has something to teach you, trust me.

If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.

Stephen King

Shoot, why don’t we throw in another one from Stevie just for the heck of it.

Fiction is the truth inside the lie.

Stephen King

Random Song That is my jam for the Week (at least).

I was a longtime fan of Gary Numan and his song “Cars,” among others. Over the past few years, I’ve been exploring some of his back catalog on YouTube. This was my most recent discovery and it is a jam.

Final Thoughts

Sadly, this week was one where we in Iowa and Illinois mourned the death of a legend in journalism and in the Quad Cities. Bill Wundram died on Valentine’s Day of this week at the age of 98. He had written for the Quad City Times, the newspaper of the Quad Cities area of eastern Iowa and western Illinois, for more than 70 years, beginning as a 19-year-old cub reporter in 1944.

Many others who knew him better than me will write better tributes than I ever could. I was just a guy he met once, just like the dozens and hundreds of people I’ve met for a brief moment during my own journalism and education careers. What I will say is that people like Bill, who was both the voice and the living history of his community, are always rare treasures. We need to properly celebrate those we have lost, treasure the ones that remain, and cultivate those of the future. Take care, Bill.

– 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.

A Week in the Writing Life, 11 February 2023

Hi, everyone. Back to let you know what I’ve been working on and what I’ve been doing writing-wise this past week, as well as a touch from the home front.

Homefront Stuff

My daughter is spending a week with us, and it is great to have her home. She is about to turn 21 in a couple weeks, but I still see her, in part, as the little moppet that was scampering around my house 15 years ago. However, that doesn’t quite fit the young woman who is now at least her mother’s height and wrestling around with chemistry problems that I have no idea how they work.

I am glad that both of my children (Jake, 22, and Maddie, 20) have made long strides in being self-sufficient. Jake is living on his own and working toward his dream of being a journeyman heating and air conditioning (HVAC) technician, and my daughter has an apartment near the University of Iowa, where she is studying chemical engineering. But it has been a big adjustment not having them here all the time like they were for nearly 20 years. I’m not sure how my parents handled not having me around, and it’s been around 25 years since I last lived with them.

What I’ve Been Writing

I’m now deep into my review of my new book The Yank Striker. This was just the first read through, as I was trying to look for big, fundamental changes that I would need to make to the book.

When I say big and fundamental, I don’t mean major plot points or things of that nature. I’m thinking of items like – did I spell the names of all of my characters correctly throughout the story? Does one of the major characters in my book really need two Xs at the end of his name? Did I properly describe a training center in a way that makes sense to me? Also, I probably should be including a back-cover blurb, an author’s notes section, and an acknowledgements section, right?

That’s the main stuff that is up for grabs. I’ll probably do a line-by-line read at some point, but I’m not as much stressed out about that as I was with my first book, since I already had this manuscript professionally proofread, and thus I’m not expecting the sort of mistakes that I ran into too often with the last one.

Again, I’m excited to hear what sort of feedback I might get from my writing group. I’ve already heard some good things from one of my members, and I’ll also have them take a look at some of the other copy (the back blurb, etc.) I’m putting together as well.

When I get deeply involved with this process – that is, in the final steps – I suspect that it might be a slog. I’ll likely have to have three different documents open as I do this – the first manuscript, the second manuscript in the series that I’ve started to put together, and the list of all of the revisions that I’ll start assembling for my publishers in the next few days.

Obviously, this work on the The Yank Striker has been a bit of a cramp on actually writing things. I am glad that I managed to put this post together in my off-time, but the revising has been a big time drain, especially since I want to make sure that I get my feedback to my publisher’s as soon as possible. I definitely plan on having this book done by this year so readers can get a look at it for themselves.

I’m still trying to put together some of my fanfiction work as well, but other than that and the second book in the Yank Striker book series, as well as this writing and my day job… there hasn’t been too much time for much else.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing

Just a reminder, my first public appearance of the new year will be coming up very soon – two weeks from now, as a matter of fact.

I’ll be participating in the Local Author Fair at the Johnston Public Library on Saturday, February 25. I’ll be out there with many other area authors from 2 to 4 p.m. that day. I’ll bring myself and copies of The Holy Fool for purchase, and I’ll also be there to talk about my upcoming series The Yank Striker. Thanks to the Johnston Public Library for the invitation, and I look forward to meeting old friends and new acquaintances there.

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Local Author Fair

What I’ve Been Reading/General Recommendations

Time for some more reading recommendations. Hope you like them.

There’s one blog I ran across that I liked called Men Yell At Me on Substack. It’s a good perspective on life in what they call the red states and the struggles of people, especially women, there. This article she wrote a week or so back about the sustainability of journalism, especially in Iowa, that reminded me way too much about my own journalism career. It also makes me think that the theme in The Holy Fool about the sustainability, or lack of it, of for-profit journalism is more relevant than ever. Anyway, I’m still trying to figure out whether I can personally afford any subscriptions, but I figured a plug wouldn’t be a bad thing.

I’ve become intrigued by an author on Substack named Elle Griffin who writes The Novellist. She’s putting together a utopian, not dystopian, novel called Oblivion in real time. And she wrote this article about what’s wrong with Twitter that both talks about how the platform feeds into the basic needs of humans that shouldn’t be fed while explaining why Substack doesn’t do that.

You should check her out – I know I want to read more about her book project. She might have an idea as to how to use this Internet thing to a writer’s advantage.

As for WordPress, one of the guys that has followed me the longest on that platform is Kent Wayne, who runs the bog Dirty Sci-Fi Buddha. He has three whole sci-fi series ongoing, which is quite more productive than I have been in recent years (but I am looking to try and pick up the pace, heh heh). He’s actually pretty funny when he’s promoting some of his works. Go ahead and check out his various series.

Writing Quote of the Week

I’m not a massive fan of this author, and I’m not a fan of his book A Catcher in the Rye (I might have felt something for the main character in my late teens, but I’ve got too much distance between those days when I couldn’t call myself on my own garbage), but I do think this sentiment fits me, especially for some of my literary heroes.

As for me, I prefer a cup of coffee at some coffeehouse, but to each his own. I think the closest I ever got to that was me as a kid saying hi to Max Allen Collins when we were in line at a now-defunct Baskin Robbins ice cream shop. And, of course, nowadays when I hang out with at the Iowa Writers’ Corner.

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.

J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Final Thoughts

None much to speak of, although I will say the more that I have been trying to be something approaching a professional writer, the more I’m feeling better about it. I have a while to go, though.

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.

A Week in the Writing Life, 4 February 2023

Okay, welcome back after last week. I’m hoping to get used to the weekly pace of putting something out every week. I’ve been sticking to it fairly well so far, but I want to keep consistent and try and write quality work (heh heh) as well. Let’s see how it works, shall we?

Homefront Stuff

The photo for this entry is once again courtesy of my wife Laura, and it’s a sunset scene from Lucas County, Iowa. I always remember the quote from Mark Twain about my hometown, although there’s some good sunsets around here as well.

Below is the quote, for those not familiar with it. Twain lived in Muscatine for a short time and even worked for the paper there (the Muscatine Journal, which Twain’s brother co-owned at the time.).

And I remember Muscatine—still more pleasantly—for its summer sunsets. I have never seen any, on either side of the ocean, that equaled them.

Mark Twain

What I’ve Been Writing

I’ve been taking a close look at the beginnings of my rough draft to the second book of my series The Yank Striker. This has resulted in more looking than writing, but I consider revisions and planning to be equally as important as word count, even though I’d still like to have at least another 200,000 words under my belt by the end of this year.

I’m realizing that something that I need to worry about, since I am actually writing a series for the first time in my life, is the concept of continuity. According to an article on Wikipedia (which states at the beginning that the article has “multiple issues,” so take this with as much credibility as it’s worth, continuity in fiction is:

…a consistency of the characteristics of people, plot, objects, and places seen by the reader or viewer over some period of time. It is relevant to several media.

Wikipedia (?) (Shrugging emoji)

Sometimes, these types of mistakes are obvious. I remember watching the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Commando with my grandparents, my father’s parents, at their home. I remember my grandfather being quite impressed with the film as we all shared bowls of popcorn, and it was a good slice of American 1980’s action cheese.

There was one scene where Arnold turned a wrecked convertible that had landed on its side back onto its wheels. However, when Arnold and the girl who was hanging around him (Rae Dawn Chong) drove off in the car, it was without a single scratch. (Continuity…)

This is apparently not a new thing. I learned this week about the concept of “Homeric Nods,” which is a term referring to continuity errors occurring in the epic poems of Homer when he wrote them 2,700 or so years ago. To be fair, his works and others were told by multiple authors over a period of centuries, so he had a bit of a disadvantage trying to keep everything straight[1].

With a novel that ends up being at least more than 50,000 words and often can run close to twice that amount, that means there are a lot of moving parts and facts that you need to keep straight and not get inconsistent with. When that becomes two novels, that’s twice as many moving parts, and if it is in a series, both of those novels have to be consistent with each other. The more books you add to a series, the more that Charles Lindbergh’s saying about three engines making it three times as likely to have engine failure makes more sense[2].

However, I am looking forward to this work. This will be the last opportunity for me to sort out any weirdness with the first book, because once it gets published, you sort of have to stick with it. Of course, that is going to wind up taking away from pure writing production, but this is not something that I can just blow off. It’s a time commitment that is well worth it for a good final product.

I’m also looking forward to getting some feedback on the book from my writing group. I’ve sent them an electronic copy of the manuscript, and I’ll be hearing from them in a few weeks, anyway.

With proofing The Yank Striker and trying to make more progress on the second book in the series, as well as trying to write here, I’ve not had much time for other projects I’ve discussed, such as the memoir, my fan fiction, and the poetry collection. However, all of that is not too far from my mind.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing

My first public appearance of the new year will be coming up very soon – three weeks from now, as a matter of fact.

I’ll be participating in the Read Local Author Fair at the Johnston Public Library on Saturday, February 25. I’ll be out there with many other area authors from 2 to 4 p.m. that day. I’ll bring myself and copies of The Holy Fool for purchase, and I’ll also be there to talk about my upcoming series The Yank Striker. Thanks to the Johnston Public Library for the invitation, and I look forward to meeting old friends and new acquaintances there.

What I’ve Been Reading

Time for some more reading recommendations, especially people I’ve been checking out on Substack. Some of these are going to be slight repeats from last week, so be gentle with me and I’ll share more links than I did before.

I talked about the fact that Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaiden’s Tale, has a good presence on Substack. A few months ago, she had a very interesting article entitled “SOME VERY BASIC BASICS ABOUT WRITING NOVELS.” She attempts to define what a novel is, and I think she does a fantastic job while having fun with the concept. You should check it out.

I talked last week about the Iowa Writer’s Collective and the great work they are doing on Substack telling the story of Iowa. There’s two people I wanted to point out. Laura Belin is one of the top blogging journalists in Iowa, and I’ve been reading her site Bleeding Heartland for at least the past five or six years. However, she is also on Substack on the page Iowa Politics with Laura Belin. If you want to find out what’s going on with Iowa politics, that’s where you want to go on the Internet.

And if you want to find out what’s going on in Eastern Iowa, especially the Quad Cities area where I first began my own journalism career, check out Along the Mississippi. For 32 years, Ed Tibbetts was the man when it came to covering government and politics for the Quad City Times, and I was proud to consider him a colleague. Now he’s taking his skills freelance, reporting on important items like this one about a railroad merger with an impact on the Eastern Iowa area. I would urge you to give him a read – he is one of the best I’ve ever seen in action.

If you’re interested in writing fiction and possibly making money writing fiction online, I’d check out Fictionistas on Substack. I’ve subscribed to them in an attempt to start sorting out how I might actually start creating my own online fiefdom, and read interesting articles like this one by Michael Mohr on how to create tension in fiction and memoir.

Finally, there’s a melancholic plug for Futbol with Grant Wahl. This was the Substack site of Grant Wahl, the best American soccer writer that I’ve ever read in my lifetime. Grant passed away late last year while covering the World Cup, but you should visit the site and see what he had to say about the Beautiful Game.

Writing Quote of the Week

A while ago, when I was mainly on Facebook, I was in the habit for a while of posting quotes about writing on Mondays for some random reason. I’m still a fan of quotes about writing, so I decided to revive the practice here from a quote from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams. Considering it took me until 9 p.m. Central Time to finally get this posted, I though the quote was particularly appropriate.

I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.

Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

Final Thoughts

You might recall that I posted a while back regarding my love for my out of date Alphasmart word processor. I really wish they were still in business, but no dice. There’s this company out there called Freewrite that is trying to put out “simple” word processors that are very portable and durable. However, their cheapest model runs for $500 – the same as most full-service laptops – and the most expensive Hemingway “Signature” edition runs nearly $1,000. I’m a writing hipster, but not that much of a freak.

However, I just learned that the company is releasing a new product, likely in July of this year. It’s called the Alpha. Hmmm… reminds me of something, and it only is running around $300. It might be worth a look.

This week looks sort of thin for this post, but hope springs eternal for next week. Take care everyone, and feel free to read my obligatory plug for my Substack.

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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Footnotes

  1. This made me think – when was the first time in literature that there was a consistent revision and editing process? Does anyone have a idea of when that first started happening? I’ve been teaching writing process for 25-plus years but I have no idea about that and it seems silly to just Google it for some reason. Someone, please prove you’re smarter than me or at least less prideful than me and comment if you know the answer.
  2. Then again, he was wrong about the Nazi’s and didn’t have the guts to admit he was a polygamist, so what did he know?