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Here’s the thing about having a stack of unfinished manuscripts. At some point, each one needs to have its ass kicked out of the nest.
Big Shield gets its big shove today.
The pre-orders were surprisingly solid. I have no idea whether anyone will like it. I’m too close to it to know whether it’s any good. I’ve read it at least twenty times. Refined it. Added to it. Subtracted from it. It’s ultimately a word-by-word exercise in reading and re-reading and re-re-reading with no clear ending point other than deciding one day that it has to end.
On the Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend, the first thing I thought when I woke up (other than, “I need to piss”) was that it’s time for Big Shield to leave the logjam. It has officially exited, joining Father of Mine, Son of Mine, and On Our Way Home.
You can get the Big Shield ebook for only 99 cents. It’s stupid, I know, to sell it for so little. I don’t care about the money. (I really don’t.) PFT pays the bills. I like having a creative outlet to balance out the endless stream of (as Simms calls it) copy/paste/snarky comment about football.
Big Shield is the first one about football. Pro football (but for legal reasons not the NFL). Football, gambling, the mob. The goal is to tell a good story, with circumstances that seem realistic and dialogue that rings true. Conflict. Tension. Twists. Turns. An ending that is surprising but, in hindsight, inevitable.
Big Shield has all of that. I hope you’ll give it a try. I hope you’ll like it. If you do, I hope you’ll check out one of the other three. I hope you’ll anticipate the next one. And the next one. And the next one.
Currently, there are six others stuck in the hopper, and a seventh one is under construction. (There’s also a short story that scared the shit out of me as I was writing it; I’m still figuring out what to do with that one.) The goal is 20 novels. If I get to 20, I’ll probably go for 30.
At some point over the past five years, writing became part of the routine, the same as doing PFT Live every weekday morning and then looking for things to write about here until I unplug from the real world around nine o’clock and spend a couple of hours in the strange realm of make believe.
I never have writer’s block. I start typing, and the words roll out. When it gets going, there’s a trance that’s as potent as any liquor or drug. And probably as addictive.
I’ll keep writing because it’s fun. Hopefully, it’s fun for you to read what I’ve written. I hope you will. I enjoy hearing from people who found themselves whisked away to a different time, different place. Wanting to know what happens next. Caring about characters who don’t exist but who seem very real.
If you haven’t read anything I’ve written (other than the stuff you read here), Big Shield is the perfect place to start. Especially since, at 99 cents, I’m basically giving it away.
Or, more accurately, I’m kicking its ass out of the nest.