A Week in the Writing Life, 10 June 2023

A quiet weekend before getting back on the road

Jun 10, 2023

white blue soccer ball on green grass field during daytime — Photo by Janosch Diggelmann on Unsplash [AUTHOR’s NOTE: The Champions League ball is in honor of the Champions League Final I’ll be watching this weekend.]

It’s Saturday and it’s the Superbowl of world soccer upon us - the UEFA Champions League Final. Given I’m insane enough to write a whole book series about an American soccer player, you should know what my priorities are today. I am a degenerate soccer fan, even though neither of the teams in the game (Manchester City or Inter (officially Football Club Internazionale Milano)) are teams I root for1.

However, I do want to give you a update on how the week went for me.

Home Front Stuff

After two whole weeks of essentially hanging out in the house for summer vacation, I finally took the advice of my wife and made it out to the municipal pool. They have adult swim for an hour every day at noon, so I’ve been making an effort to get out there and get some laps in.

I have to admit a water workout is my preferred physical exercise above others. I have been trying to walk more, but it can be a bit of a wear and tear on your joints. With swimming, it doesn’t strain your joints, and you don’t have to worry about sweating all over the place. I have to say that swimming has always been one of my favorite recreational activities, as far back as when I was a little kid in Texas.

Me back in 1976 on the Gulf of Mexico, Texas. Pic courtesy of my dad.

So, that’s been fun. I’ve heard there is at least one indoor pool somewhere in the next county north of us, so maybe I can continue this type of exercise even after the summer is done. One of the disadvantages of rural Iowa is a lack of indoor pools.

As I mentioned last week, I decided to plunk down some change and get a new office chair. I have started to get fussy about the type of office chars that I use nowadays. If you are a writer, you want to have where you sit down to write to be as comfortable and supportive as possible. You don’t want to feel worse when you get up from a chair than when you sat down in it, surely. I also want to take into account weight limits, and there are some more sturdy chairs out there than some of the typical ones you would find in Wal-Mart and so forth.

As for the chair pictured… I have to say the jury is still out on it. So far, it’s sturdy and doesn’t put any strain on my spine, no matter how long I sit in it. The fixed armrests are not my favorite, especially since you have to have them to keep the chair together. I tend to like either very wide arm rests that either can be kept wide or removed altogether. However, this was affordable and mostly comfortable, so I think I’m going to keep it and see if it works out. I can always try something else later.

What I’ve Been Writing

For once, I’ve been making some progress on the new book in The Yank Striker series. I ended up writing about an additional 1,000 words to the rough draft (I think I learned the term “puke draft” from Wil Wheaton the other day on Facebook).

So, I’ve actually started to add to the draft rather than just putter around on the sides and see how it’s going to lay out. I know what’s going to be in it in this case, and it’s a big help. This is not going to be a long book by any means. If it exceeds much more than 80,000 words, that will be a significant surprise. One of the advantages I can see with writing a series is that I have, so to speak, a pretty massive pizza I can divide up into however many pieces needed to lay out the story. I can make those parts (the individual books) as large or small as needed.

In addition to this, I have been taking a new writing approach I first used to full effect, coincidentally, with The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning. When I first started to write novels, I always proceeded from the beginning of the story to the end. This always seemed to make the most sense for me, but in practice, it led to many times where I just stalled out on a story. It wasn’t really writer’s block in the traditional sense. I knew where the story was going, and what would be happening. I got to certain points in the story where it was just a slog to write them. I’d literally get bored trying to put it together on the (virtual) page.

It was then I had a thought stuck inside my head:

What if I concentrated on writing the exciting parts of my story first and leaving the rest of it for later?

It seemed like a simple enough concept; it seemed too simple when I first considered it. But really; why should I be writing something I’m not finding interesting or stirring? If I’m finding it a slog to write, how would I expect someone to get into reading that particular scene, much less want to continue reading it?

With this all in mind, after I sketch out the basic outline of my story, I start filling in the exciting parts first, what I consider to be the essential scenes to the story.

I fill those in first, with the exception of the last scene. I save it for last, just like if I have some jelly beans and I want to save the red ones for last. That final scene is my stash of red jelly beans.

Once I get those essential scenes done - not in any particular order, mind - I then decide to add those “fill-in” scenes, the ones connecting the essential scenes. Or, I don’t. Maybe I decide those scenes don’t need to be in there. Maybe, I’ve got enough connecting information in those essential scenes that those fill-in scenes aren’t even needed. It’s a useful way of paring down my story to what it needs to say, not what I think it needs to say.

Hopefully, this process will help speed along the creation of this rough draft. If I do manage to make my goal of getting it released in June 2024, it would be the fastest turnaround for any novel-sized project I’ve ever written. And I do like a challenge.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing

Not much to add. I won’t drop my appearances here, but I’ll keep posting the upcoming ones on Substack Notes, Instagram, and other locations, and I’ll have an updated list coming up

I did want to mention something for those who like to go to actual bookstores to find and buy books. You can actually do that in the state of Iowa if you are so inclined. There’s three places carrying them:

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

All three of them are great places for a day of book shopping.

If you are not sure where my links are for not only my Facebook and Instagram pages, but my links for The Yank Striker, either go to my author’s page on Substack or the Link in Bio Page on my Wordpress. You’ll find it all there.

What I’ve Been Reading/General Recommendations

I’ll keep this one brief.

With the passing of the late great Grant Wahl,

Grace Robertson

is the best writer on the sport of soccer I’ve yet encountered on Substack. This week she has a great rundown on the very active transfer market of this past week, which includes a certain Argentine headed for Miami that’s getting everyone’s attention and a reminder Florida might be as tricky of a sporting stop as Saudi Arabia nowadays.

Parker Molloy

has the type of smart media criticism Howard Kurtz used to do before he went to Fox and went off the rails. This post has a not-so-mournful farewell for Chuck Todd, a prediction that CNN’s head would soon be out the door, (a correct one), and calls out the Washington Post for false equivalency when discussing the whack-job “Democratic” presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.