A Week in the Writing Life, 27 August 2023
I'm in a slight productivity slump, but I'm still working.
Don’t know about you, but it’s felt like August just flew by, even though the weather is not even close to being fall-like.
I’ll warn you, today’s going to be a short one with my schedule this week1.
Home Front Stuff
I’ve now begun the school year in my district with more students than I’ve ever had on a special education roster. However, I’m pretty optimistic about this year and how it will go. I have to say the first three days with students went well.
My son Jacob in Des Moines is continuing with his studies toward his journeyman card for heating and air-conditioning (HVAC) when not working, and my daughter Madeline is now settled into her new apartment in Iowa City and starting her senior year of chemical engineering studies at the University of Iowa.
As busy as I have been with school, however, fall can’t come soon enough. I’m glad the Premier League and the other European soccer leagues have started and the day I see the back of 100 degree-plus and even 80 degree plus days in Iowa can’t come soon enough.
What I’ve Been Writing
As far as the amount of words I’ve been writing this week, I don’t think it’s been much more than last week, and I’m officially in a slight slump. However, I’ve finally resumed work and actual writing on The Yank Striker Part 2 and powering through a key scene in the story. So, I feel good I’ve seen progress.
Over the weekend, I picked up a copy of The Barcelona Complex, a 2021 book by Simon Kuper. He was one of the authors of Soccernomics, the soccer equivalent of Moneyball and a very useful breakdown regarding the world of soccer. The Barcelona Complex is a study of the history and culture of FC Barcelona, former club of Lionel Messi and many other soccer superstars. I’m considering it to be a continuing part of the research I’ve done into the sport for the past decade with the eventual intention of starting The Yank Striker series.
In my continuing efforts to put some interesting content on this site, I’ve decided to do a book review of The Barcelona Complex right here next weekend. And it will be a free story, as well2. Hope you enjoy it.
What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing
This section of the newsletter might come and go, given my ever-changing schedule. With that in mind, I’ve decided to move my little book promo stuff into its own section below.
I am going to take a look at some of my older items here that I imported from my Liegois Media site and see if some of it might be worth a repost, even in revised form. I’m not too worried about you seeing it again because frankly most of you on Substack probably haven’t seen it yet.
Where I’ll Be and Where You Can Find my Books
The Fall 2023 book tour continues:
From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 9, I’ll be at the Groundswell Cafe, 201 3rd Ave. SW, Cedar Rapids, for an Indie Author Book Expo.
From 12-6 p.m. Oct 1, I’ll be at the Windsor Heights Book Fair, 1141 69th St., Windsor Heights. It’ll be my first time at this event, so I’m looking forward to it.
From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 14, at MERGE, 136 Dubuque St., Iowa City, I’ll be participating in the book fair as part of the Iowa City Book Festival that week.
And from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4, I will be at the Elwell Building at the Iowa State Fairgrounds as part of the 8th Annual Indie Author Book Expo.
Unfortunately, due to a change in my schedule, I won’t be able to attend the Badger Book Fair book fair at the town’s library in Badger, Iowa, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. September 16. I would urge anyone available that day to go on out there and meet some of the authors. Several of my writing friends from Iowa, including Darrel Day, Maggie Rivers, and Dennis Maulsby, will be there with their books. It was a great experience participating in the fair earlier this year, and I hope to be back there sometime soon.
Both of my books, The Holy Fool and The Yank Striker, are available in paperback and ebook formats. Check out the links for those books on the sidebar here and in my author’s profile. Any purchases (and reviews) are absolutely appreciated.
If you want to go into a bookstore in Iowa and pick up one of my novels, you can go to:
Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave # S1, Des Moines
Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella
The Book Vault, 105 S Market St, Oskaloosa.
All of the above are fantastic locations for an afternoon of book hunting.
This Week in Writing Advice
This week I decided to hold off on commenting on other writing advice to discuss something I’ve had to deal with a bit recently. In short, that advice is:
Don’t worry about the rough draft being any good.
This is coming from someone who even has a tendency to want to edit and proofread what I write on online forums. It’s good as a writer to be concerned about the quality of what you produce.
However, that drive for perfection can (and has for me) paralyze a writer. I’ve been in situations where I’m so worried about whether something I’ve written is good or makes sense it freezes me in place.
There are places for perfection and excellence. Rough drafts are not one of them. The purpose of rough drafts are to throw your ideas and words onto printed or electronic pages as fast as possible. All of this striving for excellence needs to be saved for revisions and editing. As Sylvester Stallone has said3, the revisions are the fun part. Just throw those ideas and words on the page, and quit worrying about whether or not they’re in the right order or if they make sense. I don’t care if you have to write a series of paragraphs repeating the sentence “I’ll figure out exactly what’s going on in this part of the story at a given moment4.” Just get it done.
What I’ve Been Reading/General Recommendations
I’ll likely have to post more suggestions on Notes later because I haven’t had time for it this weekend.
For now, I’d like to recognize one of the members of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative,
, who is celebrating her anniversary on Substack. She’s got a cool Substack where she writes about what life in rural Iowa is like.
Writing Quote of the Week
This is a good illustration of the saying “show, don’t tell.”
You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying in the road.
― Richard Price
Final Thoughts
Sorry this was a little later than I expected. I’m going to really try and get this thing out on Saturday once again later this week.
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– 30 –
And a bit later in the day than I expected either. (Insert shrugging emoji.)
It doesn’t make too much sense to fully monetize book reviews with all of them out there.
I consider Stallone to be an underrated screenwriter.
The last four words in this sentence were a favored saying of the Dutch soccer player and coach Johan Cruyff (1947-2016) back when he was coach of FC Barcelona in Spain. Cruyff would say the phrase in Spanish (en un momento dado) to stall when he wasn’t quite sure what to say in Spanish.