Small Town: A Friend

Writing a book is a lot of work.

I don’t normally feel as if the actual writing is work. That’s all left-side brain stuff. It just flows freely, and I’ve really learned how to do it. I often think of an interview I read with Rod Stewart back in the 80’s. He was releasing a great album every year then.

“I know how to do it,” he said. “It’s kind of easy.”

I’m kind of at that point now. I feel like I can write a book every three months if I wanted to. Just write a little every day and keep the plot moving forward. The ideas are fresh.

It’s a great release for a guy with my personality. It’s kind of the reason why I like golf so much...

...’cause the playing of the game is fun and because I know I can always get better at it, and never fully arrive.

But, here’s the rub.

Preparing the book for release is where the work comes in.

I wrote “Small Town” in the early months of 2019 after reading Grisham’s collection of short stories from Ford County.

“I’d like to try that.”

Yet, in a collection of stories there’s a need to change the Point of View...numerous times. Not an easy feat. I’d need to go from first person to third, take on the voice of a wife, a conservative gun-lover, a golden age couple, a tired middle-aged man (that was easy enough).

I tried an old trick:

“Don’t think about it. Just go.”

I really felt the first story:

“So Pretty.”

It’s about a girl who is confused by the attention she gets because she’s beautiful. She doesn’t feel pretty. She allows herself to be used. She’s hurting inside.

I told it from a POV of a guy who loves her, but feels her pain, and has to fight his own selfish thoughts to bring her real love.

It hurt my heart when I read it...

...still does now that I’ve read it 80-freaking-times. I am proud of it, and it’s a great opener to a book of stories that falls deeply into some dark areas.

A Small Town.

Where pain is often hidden away. Where love is often right in your face, where everyone is familiar and secrets remain untold.

These are real characters.

The loving mayor, the three old friends, the town bum, the village idiot, and the ticking time bomb.

It’s not my town...

...but it’s kind of every town.

The layout of the book in the email is an exciting moment. The cover showing up and being an exact depiction of the story I want to tell is thrilling.

I am working with a real artist.

C reads the book and then he designs the cover. He has yet to miss it. He captures the dark, allows in just enough light, and hammers my reader with the exact right shot.

Not easy.

And when the galleys come through there’s another edit.

By then at least ten people have had their eyes on it.

“Read it once more,” comes the instruction.

And then there is absolute disdain for all of it.

There’s a story about Springsteen finally finishing “Born to Run.”

They put it on the turntable and Bruce took the needle off of it, and flipped the disc out the window.

He hated it!

I feel that.

But, there’s one more aspect of it all.

It has to reach the reader to complete the cycle.

That’s the cool part.

I think about someone holding the book, and getting it as they need to feel it. Not as I felt when I wrote it, but how they feel when it hits their heart.

I’m a writer for one reason.

It’s not the money involved and it certainly isn’t for any attention.

It’s because I have always loved to read a good book. Books have been friends to me through all the days of my life. I feel like it’s my job to introduce my readers to a friend that they can carry with them for a little while.

Small Town will be a friend to you.

Was to me.