The Ones That Got Away is Launched!

Thank you to everyone who purchased The Ones That Got Away, my new novel. Because of your purchases, The Ones That Got Away moved into the top 50,000 books on Amazon yesterday (6/1/20). That may not seem impressive, but for a book like mine without a top publisher and big marketing budget behind it, it’s not bad. It was also in:

• Top 1000 in historical literary fiction (Kindle)
• Top 6000 in historical fiction (Kindle)
• Top 6000 in literary fiction (Kindle and print)
• Top 7000 in historical fiction (print)

These are not best seller numbers, but they’re better than I expected. They’ve already started to go down, but for a brief, shining moment, they looked pretty good.

Thank you for purchasing the book. I hope you enjoy it.

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The Ones That Got Away: What If You Had a Second Chance?

Have you ever thought about what your life could be like if you had the chance to do it over? What mistakes would you correct? What regrets would you re-do? What would you do if you could do it all over again?

That’s what Scott Thompson wonders. Scott is the protagonist in my new novel, The Ones That Got Away. He’s just gone to bed in the guest bedroom after another fight with his wife, Kathy. He’s lying in the dark and thinks how much better his marriage and his life would be if he had married any one of the three women he seriously dated before meeting Kathy.

Melanie was his college sweetheart. She was smart, sexy, and adventurous. She could also be a handful when she drank; loving and amorous one night, volatile and angry the next. But when things were good with Melanie, they were very good.

He met Holly when he was in law school in Chicago. Holly was driven and in control. She had a plan for her life and she wanted Scott to join her on the journey.

Liz came into his life when he was first practicing law. She was a sweet and upbeat woman who was full of life. She loved her job as a teacher, and had plans to move into administration. The thing about dating Liz was, they never fought. Scott had never been with a woman he got along with so well.

He’s thinking about these three women as he drifts off to sleep. When he wakes up the next morning, he finds himself back in his college apartment. And lying next to him is a naked Melanie.

This is the start of Scott living his life over and over again. What changes will he make? Who will he build a relationship with? How will he try to change his life…and the world?

The Ones That Got Away comes out on June 1. It’s available as an ebook or in paperback from Amazon or your favorite bookstore.

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Book Cover Reveal

We are only a couple of weeks away from the publication of my newest novel, The Ones That Got Away. Writing this book was a long, difficult slog. Even so, I’m happy with the way it turned out, and I’m excited for the publication date (June 1, 2020) to arrive.

Today, I want to introduce the cover for the new book.  Here is the cover for the ebook version of the book.

I would share the print version cover, but it’s in a format that this site doesn’t like. Oh well… How do you like the ebook version?

The last couple of weeks before a book is published are exciting and nerve-racking.  I’ll share more news with you as we get closer to June 1.

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The Latest on “The Ones That Got Away”

For a change, I have some good news concerning my next book. I finally finished it!

The book went off to the editor (again) a couple of weeks ago. He made quick work of the manuscript, sent it back to me, and I made the necessary changes.

Recently, the manuscript was sent off for final proof reading, and copies of the book have been sent to beta readers. The next step is to get a book cover. That should happen in the next two or three weeks.

As we get closer to the publication date (6/1/20) I’ll have more news for you, including a synopsis of the story and a cover reveal. Things are starting to get exciting!

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The Latest on “The Ones That Got Away”

The book I’m currently working on, The Ones That Got Away, has been the most difficult thing I’ve ever written. Since beginning the novel, I have electronically lost the manuscript twice (once my fault, once not), I’ve moved, gotten sick, had a death in the family, and suffered from a streak of laziness that has gone on for months. All told, the writing of this book has taken more than four years so far. The good news is, I think it’s finally nearing an end.

The Ones That Got Away asks the question, how would you live your life if you were given a second chance. What would change? What would stay the same? What I’m finding is that the answers are much more complicated than I first imagined.

I’m in the home stretch of writing the book. It’s gone to the editor once, I’ve made a bunch of changes, and I continue to make changes. My plan is to have the book finished and ready for publication by June 1, 2020. As I write that date, I realize how soon it will be here. There’s still lots of work to be done, so I’d better get busy.

I’ll post more info about The Ones That Got Away as we get closer to the publication date.

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A New Cover for Driven: A Novel

My book, Driven: A Novel was published in November 2017. The story takes place in Miami in the early 1980’s, just as the drug trade in South Florida was really taking off, and becoming much more dangerous. The main character, Alex Booth, dreams of becoming a professional race car driver, but he lacks the financial wherewithal to make a go of it. That is, until he’s offered the opportunity to fund his racing by smuggling drugs.

When I originally published the novel, I wanted a cover that represented the Miami lifestyle in the early 80’s with palm trees, lot’s of neon, “Miami Vice” fonts, and, of course, a race car. The book cover choices I was given weren’t the greatest, so I went with this one:

Even early on, I wasn’t crazy about the cover, but it came closest to checking all of the boxes I wanted. Since then, I have grown more and more unhappy with the cover. So, I’ve finally done something about it. I commissioned a new cover that isn’t nearly as gaudy as the first, but still let’s the reader know a little bit about the story. I think the new cover is more subtle and understated than the original, and does a better job of representing the story the reader can expect.

And without further ado, here’s the new cover:

So, how do you like it?

Over the next week or so, I’ll be replacing the old cover with the new one on social media, as well as on both the print and ebook versions of the book. Also, in a day or two, keep an eye out for an update on my latest work in progress. And, as always, thanks for following along.

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My First Flash Fiction Story Has Been Published

I’ve been toying with writing short-short stories. This kind of writing is commonly called flash fiction and it’s usually a thousand words or fewer per story. The length varies depending on the publishing outlet. Some places restrict the word count to 100 or less, while others go as high as 1500 words.

In any case, the general length is shorter than a full-fledged short story, which presents challenges to the writer. Every word has to carry its own weight. There’s no room for superfluous language or red herring plot lines. With flash fiction, the story has to be direct and to-the-point, but the characters still have to be well developed and the plot has to be complete and logical.

I’m happy to report that my first attempt at a flash fiction story has been published. The story is “Kissing Gigi.” It was published by Flash Fiction Magazine. You can find it here.

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Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Writing this book has been a lesson in patience, frustration, anger, and disappointment. It has also shown me that sometimes, good things can come from bad situations.

The book I’m talking about is The Ones That Got Away. It’s my latest novel, and I’ve been working on it, in its various iterations, for five years or more. It’s about a man who’s part of a bad marriage. After having an argument with his wife, he goes to bed in the guest room, and wakes up in his college apartment, just twenty-two years old, and ready to live his life over. All of his memories are intact. All he needs to do is decided who he’s going to share his life with in his second (and third, and fourth) chances at life.

A while back, I wrote another blog post detailing my frustration with writing the book. In a nutshell, I had written about 40% of the book before I lost it all due to a computer malfunction. The good news in that post was that the second version of that 40% I lost was better than the first. So, although it was frustrating and infuriating, at that point, things had worked out. Since then, things have just gotten more frustrating.

After writing the previous post, I’ve dealt with even more snafus. At one point, I lost two full chapters due to my own inability to save my work. Then, I lost four chapters of edits. Recreating the edits wasn’t difficult, but it was annoying to have to do it again.

In August, the manuscript was finally done, and I sent it to Sean, my editor. I was feeling good about the book until I got it back from Sean. He had cut over 17,000 words, and suggested that I add several more chapters. Man, was I disappointed. I had wanted to have the book available by October 1 (after initially missing the March 1 deadline). Now, it looks like the book won’t be available until after the new year. UGH!!!

Okay, deep breath.

Sean and I talked about the changes he suggested, and I agreed with about 90% of them. Sean suggested edits are going to make the book better. It’s going to tell a fuller story. And the writing is going to be better. So, despite my frustrations, the results are going to be worth the headaches.

As things stand now, I’m still working on Sean’s edits. I’d like to say that the book will be ready January 1, 2020, but with the holidays just around the corner, I’m setting a new publication goal date of March 1, 2020. That’s one full year after I had intended on publishing the book, but I’m convinced it’s better to delay putting out a great book than it is to quickly publish a mediocre one.

Okay, back to work.

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Happy Publication Day to On the Road

Sixty-two years ago today, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road was published. All these years later, it is one of the best loved and most popular American novels ever written, and it remains the seminal piece of literature produced during and about the Beat Generation.

My novella, “Back on the Road,” which can be found in the novella collection Road Stories, was heavily influenced by Kerouac’s work. In the novella, a group of friends, all recent college graduates, set out on a road trip to follow Kerouac’s protagonist’s, Sal’s, route across America. On the way, through adventures and mishaps, they learn about the country, each other, and themselves.

Happy Publication Day to On the Road. If you’ve never read it, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. And while you’re at it, check out Road Stories to read “Back on the Road.”

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Don’t Sell Me a Car. Tell Me a Story.

I hate being sold anything. I like buying things, but I hate being sold things. That’s why I like the following two ads from Audi. Rather than telling me (and everyone else) what we should buy, Audi is telling us a story. They’re not beating us over the head with reasons their car is better than others or giving us other reasons to buy an Audi. Instead, they’re speaking to our emotions, telling us a compelling story about people we don’t know, but who we start caring about almost as soon as the story begins.

Stories are powerful. They express truths that can’t be conveyed with more direct language or sales techniques. They speak to our hearts, something that sales talk or logic can’t do. They give us reason to buy, even when our defenses are up making sure we aren’t being sold anything.

This first video ran during the Super Bowl a few years ago. The car Audi would like to sell us is at the center of the video, but not the center of the story. The story is about a man, disillusioned in his old age. The car, and Audi R8, is the vehicle (pun intended) that pulls him out of that disillusionment. If an Audi R8 can do that for him, imagine what it can do for you.

In this commercial for the Audi RS6 Avant, they go a step further. They’re selling a car, and the story is about a young man growing into an adult. But Audi goes the extra step by making us care about a station wagon. I just read an article indicating that station wagons are a dying breed, but after I watched this extended commercial, I started thinking that maybe I need a station wagon. That’s quite a feat because I do not like station wagons. So, if the commercial affected me this way, it’s having the same effect on others.

Well done, Audi. Keep the stories coming.

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