The Writing Life, 7 June 2025
It's cover reveal day for The Yank Striker's Journey ... and we'll talk about everything else writing related for me.
Hey, everyone out there in the online world and other places, it’s good to get in touch with you again. There’s big news and updates regarding my upcoming book, The Yank Striker’s Journey, and some more news about my writing projects, what’s upcoming for me, and a lot more.
Let’s talk writing.
What I’ve Been Writing
The Yank Striker’s Journey (Previously referred to as The Yank Striker 2): the sequel to my book The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning. The Yank Striker series follows the exploits of Daniel John “DJ” Ryan, a prospective American soccer player who leaves his family behind to try his fortune with an English Premier League team in the East End of London. The Yank Striker’s Journey focuses on what DJ has to face now he is trying to establish himself as a footballer in England, both as an American in a strange land and someone whose sexual orientation brings extra scrutiny.
The Yank Striker: A Footballer's Beginning
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What would an American soccer superstar look like? Not just someone who was a good player, but an actual legendary, world-class player, someone on the level of a Lionel Messi, a Diego Maradona, a Pele? Where would he come from? What would he be like as a person? And what would his path to soccer superstardom look like?
A Brief History of Donford Football Club
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Worldbuilding, as I have mentioned previously here, is never an easy process. It’s not likely that you have the entire world your fiction will reside totally sketched out before you begin writing. It’s usually in the revision part of your writing process - or, if you are writing a series, maybe not until you get the first one or few books under your belt before you start seeing the entire iceberg rather than just what’s visible above the waves.
So, thanks to my editor, good friend, fellow writer (and eastern Iowa resident) Misty Urban, I’ve now sent the revised manuscript of Journey to my publishers, Biblio Publishing. (By the way, if you are interested in historical romances (or romances in general), I think Misty can hook you up with some good stories. And if someone’s looking for some writing services, she’ll have you covered, too.
I’m hoping to get a publisher’s proof of the book next week and then expedite its publication in mid to late June. Honestly, one of the reasons I decided to release this during Pride Month (as I wound up doing for The Yank Striker) is because I thought it was appropriate given the LGBTQ themes it and the series explores. Although I try not to make this page excessively political, I consider myself to be an LGBTQ ally. They are my family, friends, and sometimes my students.My Writing and LGBTQ issues
·I didn’t intend to release a book with an LGBTQ main character just in time for Pride Month 2023. It just ended up being that way.
Official Cover Reveal (Drumroll)…
I’ve been waiting so long to reveal the new cover … hope you like it. Cover art and design by Joe Boardman. Also, as you can see above, I’ve shipped the new cover art for Journey to my publishers as well. This was the first time I used an outside artist, Joe Boardman of the Des Moines-based Boardman Group, for one of my books. The results went beyond my expectations, and I’m very interested in working with him again on future projects.
(If you’re interested in his design work, and I highly recommend it to you, go ahead and email him at JoeTheAdGuy@Gmail.com.)I have already gotten approval from my publishers to move forward on the next book in The Yank Striker Series (to be referred to for now as The Yank Striker 3). I have an excellent idea of where the story will go and how it will develop over the course of another season in the life of DJ Ryan as his football journey continues.
I think I might take a quick break from putting together a rough draft, but I want to get started on this by the start of July. If I had this ready to go for this same time next year, that would be the fastest turnaround for any project I’ve yet done. I didn’t get my last draft for Journey done exactly when I wanted it to, so I’m going to try and temper my expectations. However, if I’m not trying to shoot for the moon, what the heck am I doing with my time?Last month, I talked about wondering what the protagonist of my first novel, Samuel “Sonny” Turner, the old Chicago-based newspaper columnist turned new era blogger, might think of the current news scene. In my first novel, the journalistic thriller The Holy Fool, we saw Sonny helping the fictional Chicago Journal from being sold by its unscrupulous owner and breaking a major story on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars during the 2008 presidential election and the beginning of the Great Recession. We last saw Turner in 2009, celebrating the founding of his nonprofit news site, The Fool, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Well, I now have more than 5,500 words of a rough draft beginning on Election Night, November 2024, so I think we can officially call this The Fool Part 2 no longer just an idea but a new writing project. Right now, I am not anticipating this to be as large of a book as the first one (somewhere under 100,000 words when it was originally around 150,000. I was super wordy when I started writing.The Holy Fool
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Debut novels are tricky things. While I’ve not asked this question specifically of some of my fellow writers, the general impression I get is most writers consider their debut novels both with pride at their accomplishment and ruefulness at missed opportunities for improvement. And I’m no different.
My guess is I finish this book sometime next year. Somehow I’m thinking this book is going to be as quick and abrupt as a right cross. If it goes over 75,000 words, I’ll be surprised. I get the feeling I’ll be surprised regardless, lol.
Kayfabe Stories (Previously The Untitled Pro Wrestling Fiction Project): This is a story about a family of pro wrestlers from Texas and a young man’s determination to understand what it all means. I’ve been obsessed with the idea of this story for at least a year and a half, and by story I mean this is going to become a trilogy at least1. Currently, I’m at more than 51,000 words on the project, which is more than 14,000 words in two months.
I’ve started to think I might want to write all three books before releasing them. At the moment, I’m not sure what format I’m going to release them in, so this might be a way to give me some more time to think about
The Heart Project: This is the name of the speculative/fantasy/soft sci-fi story I have in mind informed by our troubled times involving four one-time friends, a high school reunion, and a microcosm of a larger sense of chaos.
No progress on this. I need to start putting together some more notes and planning on this project now my current round of revisions on the Yank Striker’s Journey is finished.No new poetry except the handful of examples I put out for Poetry Night at the end of the month and one or two unpublished pieces. Right now trying to submit poetry to publications is totally foreign to me, and not a high priority. However, I do want to get back to it.
The Home Front
I’ll keep this quick.
This week has been the start of my summer vacation from teaching, and it couldn’t come soon enough. Teaching even during the best times is comparable to running a triathlon with your brain, and in May you are running on fumes.
We managed to get some improvements done to some of the buildings on our property, so that’s a good thing. We have this out building which the previous owner used as a auto-repair garage but which I think we will use as storage and an outdoor hangout. My wife was so desperate to have an outdoor place to hang out in, you all have no idea.
As for me, I’m looking forward to a summer of mental relaxation, writing, and travel around Iowa and nearby areas.
What I’m Doing Having to do With Writing
I’ve just managed to add some new events to my personal appearances schedule, and I’m hoping to add several more before we’re done. Let’s talk about them.
I will be at the 10th anniversary celebration of the Indie Author Book Expo from 12 to 5 p.m. Saturday, June 21, at the Valley Junction Activity Center, 217 Fifth St., West Des Moines. I did this show a couple of times these past few years and it didn’t run last year, but I’ll be back at it this year.
I will be part of the grand opening beginning at 11:30 a.m. and lasting most of the afternoon of July 5, of a lovely new independent book store, Page, Print, & Pint, to be located at 401 Main St., Suite 1, Keokuk, Iowa. I plan to be doing a reading and appearance along with other area authors in celebration of this great new local business. You can check them out on Facebook.
From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., I’ll be returning to Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St., Suite 3, Burlington, IA, for an appearance and book signing. Owner Christopher Murphy has been a great supporter in recent years, and I am excited to be returning to one of the best and longest running indie bookstores in southeastern Iowa. This will be going on at the same time as the city’s well-known Snake Ally Film Festival, so maybe I’ll be seeing some film enthusiasts that day.
I am hoping for quite a few more appearances this year, including hopefully the Iowa City Book Festival in October of this year. Watch this space for new events. 🙂
If any podcasters or bloggers are interested in new fiction, if you are interested in stories based in the world of soccer, or if you are interested in featuring writers from Iowa or the Midwest, I would absolutely be open for a feature or interview. Get in touch here or at jasonliegois@liegois.media.
Writing Quote of the Week:
George Orwell wrote more than a century before Chat GPT but right in the midst of 20th century totalitarianism. This quote seems applicable to both circumstances.
If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.
George Orwell
When I Post
Check out this post for when and what I post on a regular basis.
How to support me😊.
As always, go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile on mobile. There’s where you can find out about my first book, the journalism thriller The Holy Fool: A Journalist’s Revolt, as well as the first book in my The Yank Striker series, The Yank Striker: a Footballer’s Beginning.
If you go follow the links above, you will be able to buy both the paperback and ebook versions of my books on Amazon. If you just put “Jason Liegois” in Google you’ll find them on the first page of search results.
If you happen to visit these fine independent book stores in Iowa, you can find my books there:
Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St. Fort Madison.
Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
Green Point Mercantile, 214 Chestnut St., Muscatine (Although they will be moving to a new location, 217 E. 2nd St. in Muscatine starting June 17.)
Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines.
Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.
My poetry book The Flow and the Journey is available at Bent Oak, Green Point and Burlington By the Book, but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook on my Wordpress site, Liegois Media. If you want to get a physical copy, go ahead and click on the button below.
As far as this site goes, it’s fantastic if you are signed up for my free subscription, but I would love it if you signed up for a paid one. The monthly rate is the lowest I can put it ($5 per month) but my yearly rate of $35 is a steal at less than three/fifths the monthly rate.
If you want to support me but can’t quite afford a full subscription, I am now on Venmo. You can just send whatever you can afford. Just click the button below; anything you can provide helps me keep things going.
Final Thoughts
Hey, I’m running a contest for those of you reading today’s post in honor of The Yank Striker’s Journey’s cover reveal. The first commenter on today’s post will receive a signed copy of The Yank Striker’s Journey when it gets published.
Second and third commentators get a choice between a sneak peek chapter of The Yank Striker, The Fool, or the Kayfabe Stories series, a custom-written poem for them, or the opportunity for me to beta read one of your own writing projects.
Message me below for details.
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Literally today, however, I got the idea for at least one more book set in the Kayfabe Stories world just today. There might be opportunities for others.