A Week in the Writing Life, 6 May 2023
Getting things done at the last minute lol.
This week has been a busy week for me when it comes to real life and odd and ends, but not when it comes to writing, perhaps. I have been doing a few things, though1.
Home Front Stuff
It’s finally beginning to get warmer here in South Central Iowa, although today is a quite comfortable sixtyish degree day. These are still in-between days, like I remember as a kid going to school with my coat on and leaving school with it wrapped around my waist. We didn’t have a massive heat wave last year around here, so I hope we get lucky again. My wife knows that this is absolutely the farthest south that I’d ever want to live2.
I’ve gotten more solid confirmation that I will be teaching close to 100 percent high school special education next year, and I’m pretty happy with that and the district. I’ve had a chance to meet some of the new incoming teachers for our district, and I’m looking forward to working with them. Although not a lot is going well for education at times, I am glad that I work for a good district with good colleagues.
It’s also the end of the football (AKA soccer) season in Europe. My beloved Liverpool might have a chance at European football after a long hard season, Wrexham got promoted to the Football League after years of struggle, and Napoli won Serie A (the Italian top-league) for the first time in 33 years, the third time in its history, and the only time without the great Diego Armondo Maradona in their lineup3.
What I’ve Been Writing
I am still in the third round of “final” revisions on The Yank Striker. In my first review of the book and the changes that were made on the second round, I’ve found only a couple errors to note for my publisher. I’m going to undertake a read-through just to look for any remaining proofreading errors. Hopefully, I will not find any others, and this book will begin the final steps of the publishing process and I’ll have a book ready to sell by this summer.
Not to go into word count here in detail, but it has been down for the past two weeks. A big reason is that I have been busy with revising The Yank Striker one more time.
The other reason is that I’ve been putting together an essay for a collection by Writers on the Avenue, the group of writers I belonged to in Muscatine and I really do credit for encouraging me to get back into writing on a regular basis. The essay is an excerpt/refashioning of a memoir project I accidentally started working on over the course of blogging about my past experiences with writing over my life.
A Writer's Biography, Author's Notes, Part 1
[NOTE TO MY SUBSTACK READERS: This post concerns a series of posts that I put out over the years on my Wordpress blog Liegois Media. If you actually want to read those articles in their original form…
When they finally publish the collection my essay should be in, I’ll let you know. WOTA has a lot of very talented, experienced writers that I learned a lot from.
With all of that, I’ve only had a little time for original writing except for a few paragraphs. I’m hoping this next week goes better. I won’t be publishing a paid-subscriber exclusive or another post this weekend, but I am hopeful that I will be getting something ready for next weekend. I have to say that I have been impressed that I have been blogging more consistently than I have since I started my Wordpress blog back in 2017.
What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing
All quiet on the Western Front, as they would say. Updating some of the old posts I imported from Wordpress to Substack and Wordpress itself are at a standstill, but I’m hoping to restart that soon. Part of the problem is that I’m trying to get grading done for the end of the year and more than a few students have late assignments.
What I’ve Been Reading/General Recommendations
I’ve mentioned them before but the
is a great group of writers here in this state doing a fantastic job of letting their subscribers know what's going on in Iowa. Their weekly roundups are a must-read.
I might have also mentioned this place somewhere, but The Library will probably be one of my first contacts once my new book is out. I’m always loving to see new resources for writers out there.
Writing Quote(s) of the Week
I referred to it last week, so here’s Stevie King’s Rule #1 and #2 of writing.
If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.
Stephen King
But, there’s this quote to consider if you ever think that you’ve learned everything there is to know about writing.
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
W. Somerset Maugham
Final Thoughts
It’s been great to see that I’ve been slowly gaining some subscribers, and I hope you have been getting something from my newsletter. If there is something you want to see more of, or you are liking something that I put out here, please let me know. I’m trying to see how I can be of the best possible benefit for my readers.
That’s it for now - take care.
-30-
I really am writing this at the last minute, so I’m hoping I get it out by noon today [EDIT: Nope lol].
South toward the Equator, that is. Moving to New Zealand or southern Argentina doesn’t sound like a bad idea.
Yes, there is a definite reason I decided to write a dramatic book series based in the world of football.