Getting Up Again

I reached a milestone yesterday: I finished a novel.

Let me explain. Yes, if you look on the sidebar, you’ll see I have novels for sale. And yes, they are finished novels. So what’s the big deal?

A little something called a slump. Or writer’s block. Take your choice.

A few years back, as I was writing my fourth novel about Lyle Villines (part of the Rural Empires setting with a working title of Hillbilly Hunt), I was shopping the novel Startup around to agents in New York. One of the submissions was to Aaron Priest, who rejected it, but didn’t send me a form rejection. He said that he loved the writing, but didn’t feel like anything happened for about the first one hundred pages.

Knowing it was against etiquette, I wrote back, asking if he would take another look (all while pointing out I knew it was against etiquette) if I rewrote that first part. The answer came from an assistant, who said she would read the rewrite, and if she judged it good enough, she’d forward it to Mr. Priest.

Fair enough. More than fair, in fact.

Long story short, I was rejected again. And I could see no way around it.

Now, to be fair, Mr. Priest did point out, in his original rejection notice, that this was his opinion only and another agent might well pick it up.

But I had stars in my eyes. Aaron Priest is Robert Crais’s agent—and Robert Crais is one of my favorite authors. Who wouldn’t want to share an agent with one of your heros?

The second rejection did something to me, and in the ensuing years, writing has been hard to do. I know it’s mental, that I need to find a way around it. Add to that the fact the novel I finished is a mystery—my first—and that compounded everything. I’ve never written a mystery, and they require some finesse. You don’t want to give it away, but you don’t want it to be impossible for the reader to solve, either. It’s a fine line you have to walk.

I kept getting closer and closer, but I’d write a passage or two, then stop for months (or longer) before I went back to it. I had to drag the last quarter or more of the novel out kicking and screaming.

Then, last week, my mentor died. I wrote about him in my last post. I won’t revisit all that, but I will say this: when Dusty Richards died, he’d written over 160 novels.

Let that sink in for a minute. One hundred and sixty.

Dusty’s philosophy? Keep writing.

No matter what happens in your life, keep writing. You’re a writer, so write. It’s that simple. He cranked out three or four books a year that way. Yes, they were westerns and some of them were short. But not all of them. Not by any means.

His dying changed something in me, something more than what happens when you lose someone who means that much to you. I realized that all the people Dusty had ever encouraged to keep writing were his legacy. And that most definitely included me.

I had to make him proud of the time he’d invested in me and others. Yes, many of them no doubt gave up. Make no mistake, this is a tough business, and you have to grow a thick skin. You’ll see far more rejection than you will acceptance.

But, as Dusty admonished so many budding writers, keep writing. Why? Because it’s your dream. Not everyone is cut out for this. Heck, not everyone who writes should be doing it. Let’s be honest here. But many, possibly most, are. And even those who can’t write very well yet will improve if they fall in with the right people, people who give them constructive criticism and encouragement.

And above all, keep writing.

Chances are, if you keep at it, you’ll run into a situation similar to mine, where you hit a wall and have trouble putting words on paper. Maybe life interferes. Maybe you get sent to Eastern Europe to spy on the Russians (if you do, mine that shit for stories). Maybe you have your first child. Maybe someone important to you dies. Maybe the rejection notices keep piling up and you wonder if it’s worth it to keep doing this.

Whatever the cause, for some reason, you can’t write. It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it happens to enough of us that there are endless articles about it and methods to deal with it.
The simplest solution is to do as Dusty told so many of us.

Keep writing.

I don’t care if it’s recipes, or crap you delete the next day, a frown of disgust on your face. And maybe you do it again the next day. And the next. And the next.

The point is, you’re doing something creative, and eventually it’ll turn into something you read, then nod to yourself and think, I’m keeping this.

It has taken me two, maybe three years to finish Animal Sacrifice, despite knowing, in general, how it was supposed to end (if your read this blog regularly, you’ll know I’m what’s called a pantser—I don’t outline my novels). I wrote some other things in between. I have a couple other novels started, and I managed to crank out a few short stories to keep the creative juices flowing at least to an extent.

But Animal Sacrifice sat there in its file, mocking me, it seemed. I knew what needed to happen, but getting the words out was all but impossible.

And yet, I kept writing.

Why?

Well, I have four finished novels prior to this. That’s proof I can do it. And it means I can do it more than once. Plus, I believe in this story, think it’s a good one, and it needs to see the light of day. Yes, there will be rewrites to turn it into a real mystery a toddler can’t solve in the first twenty pages, but the straight-line story is there, and it’s a good one. I say that without ego.

But I also saw my mentors, Dusty and Velda Brotherton—the two who started the writing group I’m a member of—turning out books, no matter what went on in their lives. Dusty spent a month in the hospital with pneumonia last spring.

He kept writing once he was out.

Velda has lost her husband, and her health has put her in a wheelchair.

She keeps writing.

That’s inspiration, folks. That’s drive.

That’s what we need to emulate.

I finished my novel, regardless of how hard it was to write. So go out there and finish yours, and finish the one after that, and the one after that, ad infinitum.
Keep writing.

Later,
Gil

The Passing of a Legend

I’ve been quiet over the holidays for a couple of reasons. Partly, because it was the holidays. But mostly… well, you’ll see.

About ten years ago, I walked into a writers group in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I was ready to get serious about the writing, ready to improve my craft. I can’t remember now how I heard about this particular group, at least not this time. I’d heard of it once before from a friend, but I guess I wasn’t ready for it yet, wasn’t ready to let strangers see my work.

But by then I was. I’d worked on a space opera, had written quite a bit of it, and wanted to see what others thought. I was arrogant and timid all at the same time. Part of me thought I was gonna knock em dead—that audacious part that every writer has to possess to have the courage to put his words out there for somebody. But the majority of me just hoped I would be up to snuff.

I knew no one there. I sat at one end of the group of tables in a room they used in the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. A member of that church was also a member of the workshop, and that’s how they had access to this building.

I had no idea how fortunate I was to happen on this group. The two who ran it, Dusty Richards and Velda Brotherton, had been published in New York, Velda years ago under a pen name just before the bottom fell out, and Dusty under his own name, writing westerns.

I’d known of Dusty since I was a teenager. I’d worked an FFA rodeo once in I think it was tenth grade, and Dusty was the announcer. He was a local celebrity even then, appearing on a regional morning show, doing the farm report. He’d been a biology teacher at my alma mater, Huntsville High School, as well as a field man for Tyson, traveling around to the chicken farms, helping them raise better chickens.

Over the next decade—or close to it—I stayed faithful in that writers group, and I came to know Dusty more. He became a mentor, a friend, a father figure, especially after my own father died. Time after time, I watched him encourage new writers, and he always told them the same thing: It’s good. There are problems, but don’t worry about that. Just write. Get the story out. You can fix it later.

There were times when I wondered how he could do that, because I thought some of them were horrible writers. But Dusty never said that, never discouraged a single one of them, regardless of their quality. I think perhaps he could see something the rest of us—or at least that I—couldn’t see: the potential of every writer to become more than they were when they walked into the group.

I watched a lot of writers come and go, and Dusty never failed to encourage them. He had a heart, as my boss Casey Cowan says, bigger than the western skies he wrote about. He was generous to a fault, and optimistic like few people I’ve known. To once again steal from Casey, Dusty woke up every day thinking of it as a new opportunity.

On December 19, Dusty and his wife Pat were on their way home from a lunch meeting with Casey and the Oghma business manager, Venessa Cerasale, when he apparently passed out and left the road. He crossed oncoming traffic—luckily not hitting anyone else, and, in one of life’s ironies, the Ranch Boss—as we affectionately called him—crashed through the fence of a horse pen.

I’ll spare you the medical details, but suffice it to say he and Pat lingered a time longer, and even looked to be improving briefly.

Then came the news that Pat had died.

To say we were shocked is an understatement. Pat was Dusty’s rock. As loud and boisterous as he could be, she was the only one who could control him, the only one who could rein him in. She was a quiet influence in his life, his bride of fifty-six years. While he was the center of attention, Pat would sit off to the side, reading her romance novels, the only kind I ever saw in her hands. Bodice rippers, as they’re known. She loved them, but I never really heard her talk about them.

Pat died January 10th. Dusty followed her on the 18th. Immediately after the wreck, he was in a coma, and once he woke up, he sometimes knew himself, sometimes didn’t. But, as another friend of mine said, I believe his spirit knew Pat was gone. Two days later, he was moved into hospice care, and we all knew it was a matter of time.

That’s Dusty’s story. But there’s more.

As I mentioned above, Dusty became so much more than that guy at the writers group for me. I had the honor of riding to Cheyenne, Wyoming in June of 2016 with him for the annual Western Writers of American convention. I drove him to hospital when Pat had to go a couple days before we were due to leave. She stayed Friday night, Saturday, and into Sunday morning. We left Cheyenne, made it to Hayes, Kansas, where she had to go back in the hospital. This time, they found the real problem, and she was able to continue home the next day.

But while we sat in the waiting room at Cheyenne, Dusty leaned over and said, “Gil, I hear you’re having money problems.” I was. I worked part-time then, twenty-four hours a week at nine dollars an hour, two twelve-hour shifts on the weekend. I was effectively giving up an entire week’s paycheck to go to the conference, but was determined I wouldn’t miss it.

I explained this to Dusty. He pulled out his wallet, handed me one hundred dollars.

“You take this,” he said. “Use it for whatever you need. Don’t worry about paying me back for it.”

And then, not two months later, he had me meet him at Best Buy and bought me a laptop when he saw I had no way to write if I wasn’t at home. On the way out of the store, he said, “Me and Pat talked about it, and we decided you needed to have that to help you write.”

I tell this as a way to show you how generous, how giving, this man was. He gave, and didn’t ask for anything in return.

After the accident, when we posted news of the wreck on the Oghma Facebook page, I happened to go there to look at another post and saw that one. Over seven hundred comments, and I’m told there were thousands of views. I’d known Dusty was a celebrity, but I had no idea he was that well known. I scrolled through the posts, and comment after comment had to do with how generous he and Pat were, how they’d helped this person or that one in some way or another. One even posted that her family wouldn’t have their farm if not for Dusty and Pat.

It’s been a hard few weeks. I think the conferences will be a lot different without Dusty and his loud laugh. There’ll be something missing from them. But his legacy will live on. We intend to see to that, finding a way to give back to this man who gave so much to so many, a way to keep his generous legacy going.

In the spirit of that audaciousness I first exhibited by going to that writing group, I’m going to do my best to step into Dusty’s shoes and encourage new writers, do my best to help them set their feet on the path he helped so many travel, including me.

Knowing Dusty Richards was an honor, one I didn’t fully realize until this happened. I don’t know if I can ever approach his generosity, his optimism, but I’ll do my best and try, because he had faith in me, believed I was a good writer. I will cherish every memory I have of him, and every time I help a writer, it’ll be in his name, for his legacy. Not mine.

The Ranch Boss is gone. A legend has passed from this earth, a legend I had the distinct honor to know. I believe we all go to whatever we envision to be heaven, and I’m sure Dusty is sitting around a prairie campfire somewhere, spinning tales as he always did, conversing with his hero Zane Grey, and I’m sure people like Luke Short, Max Brand, Louis L’Amour, and who knows who else, are sitting around that campfire, each taking his turn, telling tales to one another the likes of which we’ll never know. At least not until we join them.

Adios, my friend. You had a long ride, and a good one. I’ll miss you, and so will so many more. My heart is heavy, even though I know you’d want me to smile. The pain is sharp now, but it’ll fade, and I’ll be left with so many good memories.

And I’ll tell the stories like you did, passing them along to a new generation of writers, so they’ll know what kind of man you were.

My friend. My mentor. My second father.

Hold a spot for me at that campfire. I want to hear more stories.

Later,
Gil

Snow in Africa?

This post really should have gone up before Christmas, but… well, you know. It’s Christmas. Still, I think this is close enough for it to remain topical.

Like everywhere else in the country, the radio stations around here play Christmas music starting at least right after Thanksgiving, good in some cases, not so good in others (one, which shall remain nameless, goes wall-to-wall, twenty-four-hour with holiday cheer. I avoid it like the plague). The station I’ve been listening to the most plays classic hits, so naturally, one of those songs during this season is “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band-Aid, the charity supergroup.

I remember when this song came out—as well as the response song, “We’re Stars” by Hear-N-Aid, the heavy metal charity song organized by Ronnie James Dio—and thought it was okay. I mean, I was into metal at the time, so anything that smacked of pop music was too commercial, even if it was put together by Bob Geldof.

To show you just how much attention I really paid to the song, it’s been out since 1984, and this year is the first time I’ve really listened to what the lyrics say. Most of it is fine, but there’s a passage in there about how there won’t be snow in Africa this year, implying it’s such a truly sad thing, and that means the Ethiopians—the famine there is why the song was released in the first place—are to be pitied that much more. Because it won’t snow. In Africa.

Look, I get it. Africa has its problems. Has had for who knows how long, and probably will for who knows how long. And there’s the idea we’re supposed to help our fellow man. All well and good.

But please, don’t insult my intelligence (which must have been at an especially low ebb, considering how long it took me to pick up on this particular passage) while you’re doing it. I mean, I guess we’re all aware that the pictures we see of starving kids are culled from the way starving kids really look. Evidently, someone somewhere in some marketing department said, “Yeah, that one there? The one that has flies in its eyes and the skinny arms and big belly? He looks too pathetic. Now that one, the one who can still stand up? Use that one. It’ll elicit more sympathy.”

But wanting me to feel sorry for Africans because it won’t snow there? First of all, they should count their blessings. I hate snow and ice. But that’s just a personal thing. Let’s look at reality a bit, shall we?

It’s Africa. As far as I know, with the possible exception of the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, it doesn’t snow in Africa anyway! And since the song is aimed at Ethiopia, a country that sits close to the equator, it’s near enough to the Southern Hemisphere it’s damn near summer in December at any rate.

Yes, I’m poking fun. A quick Google search reveals that it apparently does snow in parts of Ethiopia, so I’m kind off-point here, but I’m honest enough to admit it. Even so, when you picture Africa, do you picture snow? As I thought about this, I thought it might be more common for it to snow in South Africa, but I doubt snow is commonplace on the continent at large, so my dig at the song still applies, in my mind. After all, they’re addressing Africa itself in that particular lyric, right?

The main thing here, folks, is that it’s Christmas—or was yesterday—and we need to lighten up, whether we celebrate this holiday for the religious day it was for so many years (and don’t bombard me with emails/comments about the Catholic Church stealing Yule and all that; I’m well aware of it), or for the commercial fiasco it’s become—or somewhere in between—the point is, maybe for one day a year, or one week, or even one month, maybe we can let go of all the Trump-gay-conservative-liberal-whatever bashing and bash something that really doesn’t matter.

Like a song that plays on our sympathies by pointing out it won’t snow on a country that isn’t necessarily known for getting snow. A song that’s over thirty years old. A majority of whose performers are retired or dead. Or both.

In other words, lighten up, Francis.

And have a wonderful New Year.

Later,
Gil

The Two Sides of Nostalgia

I’ve talked about nostalgia on here before. At my age, I suppose it’s a fact of life. At some point—I’m not sure exactly when, and I’m sure it varies—a person realizes there are fond memories of youth you’ll never get to relive, except in your mind.

But nostalgia can be a two-edged sword. I’m sure all of us have had the experience of trying to enjoy something from our past only to wonder what in the world we saw in it. One of those items for me is the series The Dukes of Hazzard, a show I watched avidly as a young teen, though interest in it waned as I grew older—and as the show began to outlive its original creativeness. I don’t think I watched hardly any episodes after John Schneider and Tom Wopat—Bo and Luke Duke, respectively—briefly left the show to be replaced by their cousins… who also happened to have blond and brown hair. I can’t even remember the cousins’ names, which is probably just as well.

But, sometimes things do feel the same. I had both experiences recently and, lacking much else to talk about, thought I’d subject you to stuff you probably don’t care about.

Way back longer ago than even the Dukes, a movie came out called The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, starring Dan Haggerty in the title role. Mr. Haggerty—according to what I found about him on Wikipedia—led quite an exciting life, being an animal wrangler for many movies. Like the character he played in the movie—and the later TV series—he had a way with animals.

My wife and I recently checked Season One of the series out from the library and managed to get through the pilot episode. I remember the series fondly, but the reality didn’t quite stack up against those memories. I’d love to find the movie, but it apparently is unavailable.

The series—inspired, no doubt, by the popularity of the movie—lasted only two seasons. The pilot episode was fairly unexciting, and there were plot holes in it a mile wide. For instance, unlike the real Grizzly Adams, the TV version wouldn’t eat animals—which left one wondering just exactly what it was he lived on up in those mountains. Sure, there are plants to eat, but the winters are long, and I’m not sure how he could get by without dying of malnutrition.

And what about Mad Jack, the character played by Denver Pyle (incidentally enough, the actor who later played Uncle Jesse on The Dukes of Hazzard)? What, exactly, did he do? He visits Grizzly on a regular basis, always griping at and threatening the mule he called Old Number 7—because that was his seventh mule, presumably—a pack animal he never rode, and whose character evidently existed solely to bring supplies from down below to Grizzly—and provide some comic relief.

And where did Jack get those supplies, anyway? If the show were historically accurate, the man would had to have traveled all the way across the Great Plains to Saint Louis, a journey of about three months, if I recall correctly.

Despite all this—which didn’t bother me when I was a kid, of course—there were still some things about the show I liked. My dad took me to see the movie at the old Madison Theater (which I talk about elsewhere on this blog) when it came out, and it was the only time my dad ever took me to anything like that. He wasn’t big on going to movies, so even though I remember no real details, the event itself is burned into my mind, lo more than forty years later.

On top of that, the movie—and later the series—started my fascination with mountain men. It’s probably my favorite era of the expansion into the Old West, a brief period when men ventured into the mountains in search of beaver pelts to sell to the fur companies. Beaver was exceedingly popular back East and in Europe, and the mountain men and fur companies catered to that demand. Of course, there were only one or two fur companies to sell to, so the mountain men pretty much got fleeced every year at rendezvous, but they must have figured it was worth it to go for a year without seeing very many other people. When the public decided to move on from beaver to something else in the mid-1830s, many of the mountain men stayed on, eking out a living as best they could, while others came down out of the hills to serve as guides for rich hunters or the military in the latter’s growing war against the Indians.

Watching The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams made me fall in love with the mountains. The scenery in those shows is spectacular, even if the plots were less than stellar. I spent all my youth in love with places I’ve yet to see, and I still have enough fondness for them that I long to visit them yet.

That love was only enhanced later when I saw movies like Jeremiah Johnson and The Mountain Men, and even the recent movie The Revenant.

So, the results of indulging in that nostalgia were a bit mixed.

On the other hand, Saturday I got a much-needed haircut. The place I go is a hair academy, where students cut your hair. They’re supervised, and I’ve never had a bad experience, but as I waited, I looked up at the whiteboard where they post their specials, and someone had drawn a snowman and evergreen trees, along with falling snow, on the board to accompany the weekly special. I don’t remember what the special was—it wasn’t something I would want—but I remember that picture, because it reminded me so much of the Christmas cards that used to fascinate me when I was a kid.

I can’t tell you exactly what it was that enraptured me of these cards, but I’ve always been a sucker for good artwork. Most of the cards my family received during the seventies were very atmospheric—sleighs, snow-laden trees, houses covered with snow, their windows glowing buttery yellow with warm light. Some had actual glitter on them to make them sparkle, and I can still remember their rough texture under my fingers. Wreaths adorned them, and so did Santa in hundreds of poses—though usually laughing, sometimes with kids around him, sometimes standing in a room lit only by flames in the fireplace as he ate milk and cookies left out by the more thoughtful families.

And, of course, Christmas trees, clad in lights, ornaments, and garland, a large star on top, brightly wrapped presents around its feet—who could forget that?

All of this and more I saw in this simple yet elegant drawing on the whiteboard, and it brought a smile to my face. I can’t go back to those times—alas—but I can cherish them in my head. There was magic on those cards, and, to me, that magic isn’t there on modern cards. The subject matter seems to have changed, maybe gotten more generic or more politically correct, I’m not sure, but they don’t have that same allure they did to me as a child.

Probably because I’m a jaded adult now and, let’s face it, Christmas really is for the little ones—what my wife fondly calls tiny humans.

I hope you have a Merry Christmas, full of joy and love…

And more than a touch of magic.

Later,
Gil

As a human being, seeing all these sexual assault cases in the news lately is… disheartening to say the least.

C’mon, guys, how hard is it to keep yourself to yourself? I mean, you literally have to do nothing in order to avoid being one of these creeps.

And they’re guys we’re supposed to be able to trust. Look at Bill Cosby. I’m not gonna go into the arguments about whether or not he’s really guilty—that’s a moot point by now. The image he projected is tarnished, and that’s a damn shame, because I was a fan of his. I still think he’s one of the funniest comics out there. His talent for taking everyday things and showing them to us in a slightly different way to make them funny (think of his brain damage routine when it comes to kids, or the quip about men doing a lot of work to avoid working) was practically off the charts.

Who knew he had this dark side?

I certainly never suspected.

And that’s part of the problem. I mean, look at most of these guys: they look and act respectable in public. But get them in private with someone who’s maybe star-struck to be in their presence, and they take advantage of that power and abuse it.

Really? You couldn’t maybe, I don’t know, be a positive influence for them?! Why is it you’d rather be a horrible memory than a cherished one? W.T.F. Is. Wrong. With. You?

I’ve never understood that mindset. Yes, I’ve looked at women and said, “Whoa.” I’m human, and I’m not perfect. But the true differences show immediately: I don’t act on what I think (which is appreciation, not mentally raping them) and never have, and the thought of molesting a woman in any way doesn’t enter my mind. More to the point, if I were to see a man doing such a thing—not likely since 1) I don’t associate with men who would do such a thing, and 2), these degenerates generally don’t do this kind of thing in front of other people—I would do something about it.

I say all this to make it manifestly clear that I don’t defend these creeps in any way, and that I am… I don’t even know a strong enough word to convey my feelings.

But here’s the thing: human nature being what it is, I fear witch hunts. History has multiple examples of this happening, from the real Salem witch hunts (as an example) to the House Un-American Activities Committee and who knows how many others.

Let’s take the latest (as I write this and am not looking at Facebook) example: Matt Lauer. Newscaster for NBC. Trusted talking head to many. Exposed for sexual misconduct. Looks like a clean, respectable guy, regardless of whether you agree with his politics or not (I have no idea what they are, so don’t ask).

Cue the usual chain of events: Accusers come forward. There’s outrage on Facebook. Lauer is convicted in absentia before the news has reached all the corners of the earth.

Do you see what’s happening there? And not just with Lauer. There’s Roy Moore. Al Franken. And, unfortunately, so many more. In each case, even if they’re not convicted in the media (who are always careful to add the word alleged to their headlines), they are on FB so quick it spins your head. Kessel Run in twelve parsecs, anyone?

No, it’s not funny. None of this is. As I took great pains to point out, I have no mercy for these guys—if they’re convicted. But to convict them before they get to court… well, that way lies lynch mobs and vigilante justice. Something we always have to guard against, for sure.

But here’s the thing: to continue with my example, let’s say the Matt Lauer thing goes to court, and it’s clearly shown he was innocent. What then? His reputation is already besmirched because we’ve convicted him in the People’s Court of Social Media. He can’t get a job doing anything remotely like he was doing when NBC fired him sight unseen. Because the People’s Court of Social Media never closes. It’s open 24/7, and there’s no lack of people out there who will disbelieve any amount of evidence they’re shown (witness Flat Earthers, if you doubt).

Innocent until proven guilty is one of the most important cornerstones of our judicial system. Yes, I know the government is just as guilty of breaking this standard as anyone. But maybe it’s time we reminded them of the standards and stood up to that kind of behavior.

This great American experiment will never be perfect, and we need to stop expecting it to be. The idea behind our system is if you don’t like the way something is done, change it. That’s how we abolished slavery, despite it initially being an intrinsic part of our economy. People stood up and said, “Hey, we’ll do without some luxuries to give these people their rights.” And they were correct to do so.

That’s the power of a Constitutional Republic versus a Democracy. We are supposed to be the former. If you study the history of the Abolition, you’ll see that one of the factors influencing the abolishment of slavery was the jury trial: jurists refused to convict runaway slaves despite it being the law of the land that they should do so. Notice I said jurists, not judges. Judges are not supposed to legislate from the bench. They are supposed to be independent, objective referees. In our system, though, members of the jury have the right to refuse to convict if they see the crime as being immoral.

A modern example of this would be some poor sap who’s been convicted for possessing a dime bag of pot. Exonerate him, make more room for these predators preying on women and scarring them for life. They’ll get really special treatment when they get inside.

Look, I will never advocate for light sentences for these guys. Violating a woman’s right to her own body… no words for how wrong that is. I have a wife and a daughter, and the thought of anyone doing that to either of them—or to any other woman I know or don’t know—is repugnant. I don’t get why someone would want to be that way, but that’s why I write crime fiction—to attempt to understand these people (though I probably will skip these guys).

But neither will I condone kangaroo courts or lynch mobs, and neither should you. Because the next person could be you.

Later,
Gil

I Lost My Wife to NaNoWriMo

I’m an NaNoWriMo widower… at least to an extent.

If you’re not familiar with NaNoWriMo—or can’t remember when I’ve talked about it before (I sympathize, believe me)—NaNoWriMo is internetspeak for National Novel Writing Month, and you can find out more about it at nanowrimo.org. The simple definition is this: you write 50,000 words in a month. The aim is to write a short, completed novel, though some begin early and use that crunch to finish—or at least get close to finishing—a novel. It happens every November. The idea behind this is to get the story down on paper. Don’t edit. Don’t polish. Just write. What my wife calls word vomit.

Yes, we’re back to my wife again.

See, I got married in July to the woman I’ve spent my life looking for. Less than four months later, she’s writing a cozy mystery for NaNoWriMo. In and of itself, I love the idea, and I’m fully supportive. But as I write this, it’s November 7th, and I miss her already.

See, to achieve this goal, she has to write an average of 1,667 words a day (50,000 ÷ 30 = 1,666.66667, for you math nerds), and she has to do this in the evenings after she gets home from her day job (you know, that nasty thing we writers have to have to do things like eat food). And that means she has very little time to spend with… me.

I know: cry me a river.

Though this post is largely tongue-in-cheek, I have to be honest and reiterate that I support her fully. Way back when we reconnected (my wife and I once knew one another more years ago than I care to talk about), during the catch-up stage, I told her I was a writer and had four books published. She admitted that had been a dream of hers all her life.

See how we’re so well-matched?

But here’s the thing: she saw my writing, and that of the people I associate with, and I think it intimidated her. After that initial mention of wanting to be a writer, she didn’t bring it up again.

And that bothered me.

See, I’d read some of her Facebook posts. And thesis papers. And I knew she could write, if she’d just give herself permission to. But I had trouble convincing her of that.

I stayed patient, though, not because I’m a saint, but because every writer in history has been there: we want to write, but have no confidence in our abilities to do so. We want to be (insert name of favorite author here) right off the bat without going through whatever (favorite author) went through to get that good. It’s normal, and very human, and it’s not limited to writers and would-be writers. I’d guess every creative person is that way.

What separates the wheat from the chaff—or elevates a would-be to a writer—is the discipline to put butt in chair and write. You gotta have your chops, and while meditation is a good thing, it will never totally replace action, especially when it comes to being creative. At a certain point you simply have to do something about your dreams, rather than just dreaming them.

My wife loves cozy mysteries, and she came up with an idea for one (I refuse to share it here until she’s done with it) that I think is excellent, and it draws on her own experience, which will make it more authentic. She’s let me read most of it as she finishes each section, with the caveat that I turn my editing off, and it’s excellent, especially for someone who said she couldn’t write. I’m not much on cozies, but I know good writing when I see it, and she’s got it.

I encouraged her, so I guess I’m getting my just desserts.

But you know what? That’s okay. It’s made her happier than I’ve seen her yet, and she loves that I believe in her, and that makes it worth anything I could go through. After all, she sits in bed to write while I’m reading (how’s that for a hot time in the bedroom?), so we’re still spending time together, and it doesn’t get much better than that.

Only twenty-three more days to go…

Later,
Gil

Two Firsts

This past week marks two firsts for me—the first time I’ve had a book re-released, and the first time I’ve been featured on someone else’s blog.

Let me explain. I’ll start with the re-release.

If you’ve paid attention to my offerings here, you’ll notice I took the link down for Spree. That’s because I got the rights back at the end of last year and a new edition has been in production since, with a far better cover and interior layout.

And the return of my original opening sentence.

When I originally conceived of Spree, I wanted to have fun with it. So I made the writing style a bit irreverent, and very informal. I wanted it to be more stream-of-consciousness than some stodgy, formal thing (I hate that anyway, anymore). Yes, the story becomes serious—as it should—but I wanted the reader to have fun getting there.

In this spirit, the original opening sentence to what I guess you’d call the prologue read This is how it went down. I thought that, in a sentence, summed up the experience I planned to give the reader.

But the original editor/publisher believed that sentence was too omniscient. Not enough deep POV. So it was scrapped, and I’ve always regretted that. Let that be a lesson to you, kiddies: don’t always give in just to be published, which is sorta what I did.

There was one other passage I had a minor problem with, where I had my cop character have a hunch, and the editor didn’t like it. He wanted to add in that the information had come from a confidential informant. I’m not sure exactly what the objection was to the hunch—it’s been long enough that, if there was a reason given, I don’t remember it. Some people just don’t like the idea of people getting hunches, but I’m convinced cops—and people in other professions as well—get these hunches based on their long experience in their jobs. They’re not something weird and mystical, they’re just our brain and subconscious working together in ways we don’t fully understand yet.

But, I let it stand.

Most of the other editing was fine. No objection. But, on the whole, I wasn’t that happy with the publisher, so when it came time to renew the contract, I opted out.

Now, on the other subject, though I’ve been a published author for some time, I’m not good at the PR end of things. I even stopped doing this blog because, quite frankly, I ran out things to write about. There at the end, I was trying different strategies to make it more relevant and less focused on things only other writers would be interested in, but it didn’t work too well.

And, quite frankly, I lacked the self-confidence to promote myself on others’ sites.

But my wife—God bless her—wants to see me succeed, probably more than I do, and she’s getting me out there, making me do things outside my poor, introvert’s comfort zone, which means I’ve been featured on Ninetoes Loves Books (https://ninetoeslovesbooks.wordpress.com/2017/10/26/introducing-gil-miller/), so pop on over and give it a quick read and see what you think.

I’m still not sure what to think of it, but I’m happy to report that the man himself sent me a friend request on Facebook, and we talked a bit on Messenger and it turns out we’re a lot alike, so if nothing else, I got a new friend out of it. And I hope for both our sakes we get a lot more than that. If we can give each other a boost, so much the better.

And if I haven’t put up links to my newest books—including the re-release—by the time you read this, rest assured they’ll be up soon.

Later,
Gil

Westward Ho!

In just a little over a week, I’ll be getting on a plane and flying to LA to be at my daughter’s wedding, and I have mixed feelings about it.

First of all, there’s the simple fact that, in my mind, she shouldn’t be old enough to get married. She’s 29, and I should be younger than that. Like a popular meme says, people my age are so much older than I am. When I was 25, I thought it would be eons before I crossed that half-century mark, and as I write this, I’m two years past that and close to being three years over the line.

Then there’s flying. Could the airlines and the government come up with a more tortuous process just to save time? I mean, if we really want the terrorists to give us information, we should just put them through what we so-called free citizens have to go through just to get on an airplane. And never mind the cramped indignity of actually flying.

Then there’s Southern California. I know there are people who like it, love it even. And to be fair, where I’ll be staying is pretty awesome, just a few blocks from the beach and the Santa Monica Pier, plus the wedding itself is in Simi Valley, so I’ll get to see a part of the state I’ve yet to see.

But… it’s LA. I mean, it’s Los Angeles, man. It has its good points, such as the climate (especially close to the ocean like I’ll be), and the palm trees and such, but I have no interest in seeing any celebrities, and there’s the litter and… to use one of my wife’s words, it’s too peopley.

On the plus side? There’s my daughter. I don’t get to see her nearly enough, and since it’s her wedding week, I won’t get to see much of her while I’m out there, but anything is better than nothing. We talk (i.e., text) on a regular basis, but that’s not the same as spending time with her. She’s really cool, as much my friend as my kid, and I have to say any time spent with her more than makes up for whatever inconveniences I have to put up with to get out there to her.

Besides, as a writer, I’m sure I’ll see something that’ll work its way into one of my books. Even with what little time I’ve spent out there, I can see why so many writers like to set their books in LA. It’s such a varied city, with so many wonderful locations to set the action that I couldn’t resist indulging a bit myself, with some action taking place in Santa Monica in two of my Rural Empires novels.

On a more personal note, as a dad who dearly loves his daughter, I’m so glad to see her getting married to a guy who already treats her like a queen. She was able to come here to Arkansas for my wedding in July and even played a part. Her fiancé was able to be there as well, which was a very special treat for me. And my daughter and my wife bonded very well while she was visiting, so there’s that as well.

It’s certainly going to be a pleasure and an honor to be at her wedding, and I’m looking forward to it.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll have something really good to tell you about when I get back.

Later,
Gil

Into the Unknown

It’s been quite some time since I told you to look for a comeback from me, and even longer since I’ve posted anything here. If you’ve given up on me, I’m sorry for being absent for so long (though, if you’ve given up, you’re probably not reading this, so…). And if you haven’t… well, thanks for staying the course and please accept my profound apologies for neglecting you for so long.

First, a short explanation: I ran out of things to say.

Short enough for you?

The simple truth is, unless I want to stray into areas I probably shouldn’t—and I touched on them with posts such as questioning whether or not political parties have become cults—maintaining a blog week after week is tough for me. I’ve read books about blogging, of course. I’m anal about researching things to the nth degree. But while those books are good at telling you what you should do (a plug for Rise of the Machines by Kristen Lamb would not be out of place here), very few tell you how to do it, and therein lies the problem for me.

Yes, I realize the details are up to me. I’m not asking someone to hold my hand. The problem likely lies more in my comprehension than anything else. What they say makes sense, I just can’t figure out exactly how to translate that into practical experience.

But I’m gonna work on it.

And I’m gonna get back into blogging. I’ve had others suggest several directions for me to go with this blog, directions that don’t consist of repeatedly talking only about writing and being an author (though I’m sure there’ll still be some of those posts), and I may dabble in many of those suggestions. So if things seem a bit scattered here, that’s why.

In the meantime, a lot has changed in the time I’ve been “off the air.” I’m still somewhat in a writing slump—which no doubt contributed to my long silence—but I seem to be slowly coming out of that and I’m feeling the first faint warmth of the creative fires burning again.

And, about three months ago, I married my best friend. Not to sound melodramatic, but I was well on my way to becoming a bitter, lonely old man (another factor which probably kept me from writing), and then this special lady from the past finds me on Facebook and my life turned around completely.

Which leads to my leap into the unknown.

Being a writer, I’m sure it only makes sense I’m a book nerd. So is my wife. And she’d love nothing better than to see me be successful as an author. To her, I’m a rock star. When last I wrote here, I worked as a security guard, which allowed me to do quite a bit of editing while performing my duties on the job. I’ve since left that job and went to work installing network, fire alarm, and coaxial cable, a job I got laid off from after three months. And, despite the so-called improved economy, I’m having trouble finding a new job.

A couple weeks back, one of the attendees at my writers group offered to pay me to edit one of his books he intends to self-publish. I took him up on the offer, but it got me to thinking, and I talked to my wife about it, and the upshot is, I’m gonna throw my hat in the ring as a freelance editor.

And why not? I now have a couple years’ experience under my belt working for Oghma Creative Media. But we’re still not earning enough money for anyone to make a salary yet—though we’re getting tantalizingly close—and I need to generate an income. Yes, from what little research I’ve been able to do so far, it’s a tough field, but I’m used to that from being an author. And if it works out, it’ll mean no more commuting, which will save on gas, and it’ll be a natural extension of what I already do until Oghma gets on an earning basis. And as my wife said, it’s a good time to experiment and see how it goes while I have some unemployment coming in and no job offers as yet.

Yeah, it’s scary. But following your dreams always is. If you sit on your duff and never take a chance, you never get to find out if you could have made it or not. For some, I’m sure that’s fine, and I won’t argue with them about it.

But I’m not getting any younger. If I’m gonna do this, I better get on it.

I’ll keep you posted.

Later,
Gil

Are the Political Parties Cults?

I’m probably nowhere close to being the first person to realize this. The problem is, us independents are very definitely a minority, so things we notice like this don’t get bandied about on Facebook and other social media. We’re drowned out by the faithful, yammering as they do about their candidates.

And the majority of them actually do act like they’re in a cult.

Consider: you have the Trumpites (Trumpets?), who seem to be the majority on the Republican side of things at the moment. Of course, in political terms, it’s a long, long time till November, so anything can happen by the time the election comes around, but right now he seems to be the one riding the wave. I think it interesting—and a bit disturbing—that the Republican leadership differs with their members on this one, as they don’t like the man. Do they know more than the average Republican voter? Who knows? But one thing is for sure: it’s a disturbing trend—and reflective of a larger issue I see in our government in general—that they are determined not to listen to their constituents on this matter.

Then there are the Cruzerians, following a man many are questioning as they did Obama before him: as a Canadian born to an American mother, does he have the right to even be president? This has plagued Obama for his entire eight-year stint, and will likely follow him to his grave. I imagine the same will happen to Ted Cruz, should he win. Or, for that matter, should he lose the nomination or bid for the presidency. Talking heads will no doubt point to this as a major factor in his defeat—along with the fact he has the gall to actually be religious.

The Rubiomites seem to have a hard row to hoe, as Rubio has flip-flopped on some issues—especially illegal immigration—about as much as John Kerry flip-flopped on our Middle Eastern ventures. He seems to have earned his sobriquet of being a RINO (Republican In Name Only), at least if you ask a Trumpite or a Cruzerian.

On the opposite side, you have the Hillaryans, who apparently believe we need to follow up the first black president with the first woman president, which is fuzzy logic at best. But then, politics and logic rarely coincide. In fact, I was once derided on Facebook for uttering the blasphemous phrase Logic dictates. Apparently the commenter thought making decisions based on knee-jerk reactions (PATRIOT Act, anyone?) and emotions was a much better method than examining facts to make an informed choice. But I digress. Much like the Cruzerians, the Hillaryans have to face the fact their candidate is (yet again) under investigation for something. But hey, since when has a scandal meant anything in American politics?

And last but not least, there is the Church of Bernie, where any day now, he will usher in a utopia where there’s all kinds of free stuff and the lions will lie down with the lambs and all that. I wouldn’t say they’re any worse than the others—after all, I don’t support any of the current crop—but they do seem the least pragmatic, since it’s pretty easy to see nothing is free. But I’m not here to argue policy, and saying he’s the least pragmatic is like saying his shit stinks less: it really doesn’t matter, cuz it’s all crap.

I realize there are likely sensible people who have decided on one of the above candidates for what to them are sensible reasons. The problem is, they’re not the ones you see commenting and foaming at the mouth on social media. They stay more or less quiet—with a few exceptions—and make their voices heard at the polls. I don’t know if they’re in the minority or not, though I suspect they’re not. After all, there aren’t as many rabid dogs as there are good ones, so I imagine those who spout off about anything and everything and resort to name-calling to make their points are an embarrassment to the rest.

And the thing is, the mouth-foamers are the ones you can’t reason with. I have a man I now consider to be a good friend, Gordon Bonnet, with whom I agree on very little politically. But you know what? We can have intelligent discussions about it without insulting one another, and he’s made me rethink some things, as I hope I have him. I don’t want to bring him over to my way of thinking, and I don’t believe he does me, but we can talk about these things and do it with respect for one another. That’s a rare thing these days, at least on the discussion threads I see online.

As an independent, I tend to like to go onto these threads and be a troll, and it’s amazing to me how alike both sides actually are. Not in what they believe, but in the fervency of that belief. They absolutely refuse to entertain any viewpoint but their own—much like, say, Christians and Muslims, to use just two examples—and if you dare suggest anything different, they yell at you and call you names. And when you point out the fallacy of their argument by stating facts and figures—or simply point out that what they’re spouting is an opinion and they haven’t backed it up with fact—they go silent. I don’t know if they’re pouting or what.

And one last thing to consider: both parties are having something of an identity crisis (I suppose that’s the correct term) at the moment. On the Republican side, you have the schism between the party leadership and the voters, where many of the latter support Trump, mostly as a major sea change in the way the party does things (that in itself isn’t a bad thing), while the leaders themselves threaten to boycott him at their national convention.

On the Democrat side of things, the contentions between followers of Hillary and Bernie also seem to threaten to tear the party apart, with supporters on both sides saying if the other candidate wins the nomination, they’ll vote Republican. Or stay home.

The bottom line is, the hate and vitriol I see both sides spewing is very much reminiscent of religion. I saw a meme on Facebook positing that anyone who is against Obama is not only a racist, but also a victim of genetically inherited ignorance. This was put out by Occupy Democrats. I have no idea how radical they may be, but if this is one of their beliefs, I’d say fairly radical. My first thought on reading this was to wonder if they were going to start espousing their own form of eugenics at some point in the future. You know, instead of eliminating “inferior” races, just eliminate those with genetically inherited ignorance, or at least decide they can’t vote.

Cult, indeed.

Later,
Gil