Whiskey and Writing

 Its been about a year since I managed to publish my first novel. I’ve been trying to work on a couple others, but one is taking a long time, and frankly I didn’t have much to go on.  I’ve been trying to research, and think about some of my own experiences to come up with something, and I think I finally got something good. Really good in fact.  It’s going to be another mystery type story, but I can’t say much now or its going to ruin the whole surprise. I’m finally excited again. 

I suppose we think about things when we have time to kill, when we have nothing better to do, or decide to reminisce.  Some people think about the past because of regret, or they want to remember easier times.  That’s part of the charm of it.  Times seem easier, people were less crazy, and you had less to worry about.  I think about the past a lot.  Not necessarily my own.  And that’s probably why we study things like history, or watch old movies.  Things seemed easier.  They seemed better in some regards.  I don’t think I listen to music made after 1990 at this point.  I don’t watch these new shows and movies that people go crazy for her, some of it is because I don’t care or it doesn’t seem interesting to me, but some of it is because there were better stories, and better actors.  They relied more of intuition, and less on technology. That’s not to say living now is all bad.   We need to look back at some of the great feats o...

 We live in an era of mud.  We have a lot of things going on in the world, people are older, and maybe not necessarily wiser.  I would think some people would’ve had their eyes opened to things especially after the last ten years or so.  Celebrities and politicians were certainly quick to come up with some kind of line that made them sound enlightened.  The truth though is that people aren’t as smart as they think.  People spend all this time trying to be relevant to others instead of being relevant to themselves.  We’re in a mad panic to be a celebrity or think somebody will drop a million dollars on us for posting on Tik Tok.  Life doesn’t work like that.  People think TED Talks matter, or that Bono is the great philosopher of our time.  Normal people don’t watch TED Talks, and I doubt everyone listens to U2 anyhow.  Instead of trying to be trendy try being realistic.  We can’t even use the word “authentic” anymore because it...

 I haven’t been blogging so much because I’ve been writing books instead! I finished a World War 2 book, and started on a western, which I think I’m about halfway through.  Once that’s done I plan on starting work on a spy novel. I’m trying to do some real research on it, so it’s going to take a little while, but I’m really excited about it.  I’m trying my best to do one book in a different genre, I think it keeps things interesting and you’re less likely to be bored if you’re trying something new all the time.

 Just wanted to say Merry Christmas. It’s been a busy couple of months.  I’m trying to write a larger book and it takes most of my time.  I think it’s going to be something special, and probably the biggest thing I’m working on so far.  Anyway, hopefully the holidays are good to you and yours.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 

I’ve been trying to race through some editing.  Once the writing is finished, the editing seems like an even stupider process.  The writing takes a year, the editing takes less, but its like reading something you already read and have to gut it like a fish.  You’ve got plenty of patience getting the original writing done, but the editing is something you want to do quickly.  Sort of finishing a job you already finished.  I hate it, because I do most of it myself, so there’s probably something wrong with the final product somewhere.  I’m trying to write a couple of books right now, one is a story about a man looking back on life, and one is a western.  I plan on tying the western to a little book I did before, at least vaguely.  I think the world is sort of looking for a little distraction, and looking to things that may have been easier, or simpler.  No era is perfect, but there’s reasons we look to other times and other situations for entert...

There’s nothing worse than planning a book. Once you get most of the particulars out of the way, but that planning... It’s worse than writing, because at least you can edit or rewrite the actual writing.  The details have to matter before the writing matters. That’s it, that’s all I got.  I got a vague notion that I want to write something, but no idea if it’ll go anywhere. But that’s exactly I how I started my first book.