Man, I’ve been keeping busy this week - and I’ve been out of town for a bit as well. So, this newsletter might be pretty short when I get done with it.
However, there was a lot happening this week, and some of it actually has to do with writing. Let’s talk about it.
Home Front Stuff
As you can see, my wife Laura already has the house all decorated for the Fourth of July. We’ll be just hanging out in town for when the Tuesday itself happens, with no plans at the moment to travel.
I did decide to make it out to a soccer match, however. When I was just scrolling around online, I noticed there were still tickets available for the US Men’s National Team’s CONCACAF1 Gold Cup Wednesday night match against St. Kitts & Nevis, to my shock. A visit to Seatgeek and Priceline later, I was headed for a five-hour one way trip to St. Louis to watch the USMNT in action. Although this was my second USMNT live match, it was the first one in a competitive match.






Citypark is right in downtown St. Louis and is definitely one of the nicest and well-designed stadiums I’ve visited yet. The boys managed a 6-0 victory, Jesus Ferreira got a hat trick and became the fastest American man to score double digits for the US, and my old Chicago Fire keeper Sean Johnson captained the team for the first time ever and got his seventh clean sheet for his country. It was a long drive up and down, but a fantastic two days.
What I’ve Been Writing
I ended up getting the first chapter of a new fan fiction piece done this week. I’ve talked about my relationship with fan fiction previously, but I’ve enjoyed my time just writing for the sake of writing, especially the little world I’ve build over the course of a couple years. It can also be an excellent way of breaking a writing block, since I don’t feel as much pressure to be as perfectionist with the material than “serious” writing.
I Finished My Fantasy Game of Thrones Fan Fiction (At Least One of Them)
About two and a half years ago, I was paying attention to the final season of a really popular fantasy series on television known as Game of Thrones. I had been interested in the series for a while, but I was getting obsessed with the season and the ending of the series.
I have a feeling this year fan fiction makes up a far smaller percentage of my total overall production than it has in the past couple years. I believe I have been putting out much more material for my blogs and on my original fiction than at any point during that time. Since I have made notes regarding what I wrote at various times, I could possibly work out those percentages if I really wanted to, but I’m not sure it would be an efficient use of my time.
I can’t say I spend time on the second book of The Yank Striker series, but I do have something that came up. An idea for a brand new series I’m formulating as we speak. I’ll do a separate post on the idea this weekend (this coming Saturday). I hope it will be an intriguing surprise.
What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing
I had my book launch party for The Yank Striker last Saturday!
The Yank Striker is Coming in July [Actually, it's available now]
I'm really excited for my new book, The Yank Striker: A Footballer's Beginning, to be coming out this July. I'm in the process of putting together a official launch date for the book in July, although I am still in the process of determining the exact date for the launch party.
It was great to see my family at Chocolaterie Stam in Des Moines, and thanks to especially to Terri Key, who is a fellow member of the Iowa Writers’ Corner, for helping set everything up.
There’s going to be some more events later this month. I’ll post on my Substack Notes feed a full update on events later today at least. I’ll also post announcements on my Instagram and Facebook pages. If you can make it, I’d love to see you there.
What I’ve Been Reading/General Recommendations
As with last week, I’m going to do one recommendation here and put some of the rest of the stories I’ve read on my Substack Notes.
As what I would call an educated amateur on the subject of the Substack platform, I always like to read the articles on how to better use the platform. This article is about how you can celebrate milestones in a way that can get readers’ attention.
Writing Quote of the Week
Carl Sagan here gets real about where books can take you.
What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.
Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Final Thoughts
That’s it for this week. I might have what I was hinting at in this week’s newsletter ready for next weekend, or not. But I’ll try. Take care, everyone.
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The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, the regional governing body of football.