Whiskey and Writing

I’m gonna be 38 in a couple of months. As you approach 40 you start to reflect if your life has any accomplishments. I’ve got some but not much. I’ve been trying to write since I was kid, but frankly, even at this age, you still wonder if anything you do is good enough. I finished a small book. The story is horrible, but the story is mine. I suppose its an homage to certain things, but mostly it was something to help me work out a few things I was dealing with. I try to write now, because I want one good book. Oh I’ll still publish that crappy one, but I’m gonna publish all kinds of stuff. I work on politics, fiction, superheroes, history, things that interest me, things that interest you. Because life isn’t over at 40. Life is like the smoke from a candle. You barely get a glimpse of it and it’s gone. I don’t want to waste time and look back saying I didn’t try to make a mark on the world.

I’m working on a crime novel. The story is pretty much set, I’m just trying to work out a couple of details. But because it’s a crime, I’m trying to turn my notes and things into a sort of case file. Also the story takes place in a fictional town, so I’ve been trying to build the town using pics and drawings, and small props. It gives me sort of a tangible connection to the world I’m building, the idea of doing all this makes it more realistic I hope, and maybe a better story. I can’t do this for everything I write, but I hope it gives me an edge, and my little nitch or gimmick to make me a better writer. I spent a lot of time trying to do research on this thing too. I read books on investigation, and even have tried to draw on my own experiences as a cop, and really as a person to try and create characters that seemed more real, and not just victims, or witnesses, or background to the story. I even came up with playlists so I’d be in a certain mood for this story, this story I hope ...