Have you ever wanted something so bad that you’d do just about anything to get it? That’s the question I had in the back of my mind as I was writing my new novel, Driven.

In the book, Alex Booth is a twenty-four year old living in South Florida who has a burning desire to drive race cars professionally. He has a little experience in low horsepower cars, but he wants to step up to the big, expensive, high horsepower cars, the ones at the front of the grid. And he wants to get paid for his efforts.

When he loses the opportunity to drive a powerful Porsche 935K, Alex is forced to pay to race a low horsepower car as a way to further prove himself. Problem is, he doesn’t have any money. He’s been barely scraping by, often relying on his brother, Jimmy, to help pay the bills. What’s a wannabe race car driver to do? Well, in 1982 in Miami, if you need to make a quick buck, you can always smuggle drugs. Jimmy thinks that’s a great idea. Alex isn’t so sure, but since he doesn’t have any better options, drug smuggling it is.

Thus begins Alex’s journey into the world of fast boats, faster women, and big-time drug running. Alex doesn’t view himself as part of the drug culture—he’s generally a straight-laced, by-the-book kind of guy—but when your dream is as big and expensive as Alex’s, you sometimes have to do things you normally wouldn’t do. And the deeper in you go, the harder it is to get out.

Driven is all about Alex’s hesitant entry into the world of marijuana and cocaine smuggling, and how that world can lead to big money and big trouble. But Alex isn’t the only one with dreams. Gina, Alex’s girlfriend, dreams of living a normal life with a normal guy, complete with a 9-5 job, a mortgage, and two-and-a-half kids. And even though her dream may not seem as big or as bold as Alex’s, she is just as determined to get what she wants.

Jimmy, Alex’s brother, dreams of owning the coolest, most popular nightclubs in South Florida. His rise from manager of a beachfront bar to owner of Rum Runners, Miami’s newest and trendiest nightclub, is a sight to behold, exceeded only by his sudden and spectacular fall.

Cristina comes from a famous, wealthy family. She loves her lifestyle, but hates having to rely on her family for everything she has. She wants to make her own way in the world. By all means, she wants to continuing to live a life known only to the wealthy, but she wants to be able to pay for it herself. What will she be willing to do to realize her dream?

Most everyone is a nice, normal person until they’re presented with an opportunity to do or have that one thing they have desired their whole life. Driven is about how people act in that moment. What are they willing to do or say, and how far will they push things, to get what they want? You might be surprised.

Driven: A Novel is available beginning Friday, December 8, in both ebook and paperback formats, at Amazon and fine book stores everywhere.

I love passion. I’m not talking about romantic passion (Although I like that, too). I’m talking about the enthusiasm and drive and single-minded focus that people exhibit when they pursue a goal or cause that is near and dear to them. Passion doesn’t exist when you like something (i.e. I like chocolate, dogs, and the beach). Passion only becomes involved when you love something, you can’t live without it, and you can’t think about anything else.

Over the years, I have shared stories of my friends who have followed their passion, and who are pursuing it with all their might, devoting their time, money, and energy to creating or accomplishing something that they feel compelled to do.

For instance, my buddy Randy Pobst has devoted his life to driving race cars, and now writing about races and race cars. His pursuits keep him on the move constantly. During the week, Randy can be found testing cars or creating videos for Motor Trend magazine. On weekends, this former professional race car driver can be found at one or another race track competing in amateur races. He doesn’t get paid to race anymore, but he still shows up because he loves racing so much. Randy spends twenty-five to thirty nights on the road each month. It’s a crazy lifestyle, but I don’t think he would (or could) live his life any other way. He absolutely loves what he does. He has a passion for it.

Grant Peele is another guy who is living his life based on his passion. Grant tried a lot of ways to earn a living. He owned rental properties, ran a used car lot, had storage units, even owned coin-operated games that he placed in bars and restaurants. He was chasing money. Today, Grant is a filmmaker, having worked on Emmy-nominated shorts as well as full-length documentaries. He tried to deny his passion, holding it at bay while he tried some other things to pay the bills, but he finally gave in. His passion for telling stories on film has taken him all over the globe, and he has shared his stories with millions of people. Becoming a filmmaker wasn’t easy. And maintaining the filmmaker’s lifestyle, traveling away from home all of the time, still takes its toll. But telling stories is what Grant was born to do. He has a passion for it, and feels compelled to do it, no matter the costs.

When I was writing Driven: A Novel, I was thinking about people like Randy and Grant and others who have devoted their lives to their passion. I wanted my main character, Alex Booth, to be the same kind of guy. Alex has a passion for auto racing. He eats, sleeps, and breathes the sport. What he doesn’t have is the money he needs to pursue his dream. So he makes the decision to smuggle drugs to get the money. It’s not the choice most (or many) people would make, but such is the power of Alex’s passion. He’s a generally well-behaved guy who always colors inside the lines, but his desperation to feed his passion leads him to make some decisions that allow him to pursue his dream. He  gets wealthy in the process, but his decision leads to some bad consequences he doesn’t anticipate.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk a little bit more about Driven. In the book, Alex isn’t the only one who has a dream. How each character reacts when their dream is threatened or when an opportunity to realize their dream presents itself is what really interests me about this story and these characters. More on that tomorrow.

Just two more days until Driven: A Novel is published. Things are getting exciting.

Here is the cover for my new book, Driven: A Novel. The book is the product of a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.* Tomorrow, I’ll tell you a little about the book. For now, I just wanted to introduce the cover.

The book will be available in just a few days, so don’t buy those stocking stuffers just yet. Driven is on its way.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I did not bleed or shed any tears as a result of writing this book. I may have sweated, but it was inadvertent and probably unrelated to the act of writing. Even so, I worked really hard on the book. That was the point I was trying to make by using an overworked but ultimately inaccurate cliché.

This past week has been an exciting one for me. Last weekend, I finally finished revising my new novel, Driven. The book takes place in Miami in the early 1980’s, and is about a young man determined to become a professional race car driver. When money stands between him and his dream, he turns to drug smuggling as a way to make the money he needs. In the process, he wins races, falls in love (a couple of times), and becomes wealthier than he could have ever imagined. But not everyone wants to see him succeed, including his fellow competitors and the cops.

For some reason, this book was difficult to write. I had planned on it being finished several months ago, but as happens so often, life got in the way. I never gave up on the project, but I did have to attend to other matters from time to time. Despite the difficulties, I’m really happy with the book that resulted.

On Sunday, I sent Driven off to the editor, who promises to make it even better. He’s working on it now and should have it back to me in a few weeks. While I’m waiting, I’m having a book cover designed, and I’ve already started on my next book, a time travel novel. Once I get Driven back from the editor, I’ll need to make final revisions, finalize the book cover, send it to the proofreader, and get it ready to publish. I hope to have all of this completed by the end of October.

Finally, late this past week, I started the process of creating an audiobook for my novella collection, Road Stories. Right now, I don’t have a feel for how long the recording process will take—it’s more involved than I initially thought—but I hope to have it completed in the next couple of months. Once that’s done, I’ll start the process of recording the audiobook version of Driven.

I’m excited to complete these projects and send them out into the world. It really is a joy to create novels and audiobooks. The only thing better is to have you read them, listen to them, and enjoy them.

Happy reading (and listening)!

Wow! It’s been more than three months since I last posted on the blog. I hate to go that long between posts. Sorry for the long absence.

The good news is that I have been very busy on my next book, Driven, during the last few months. In fact, I completed the first draft of the novel a couple of weeks ago, and I am currently hard at work on revisions. At the moment, things are going very well.

To get you up to speed, let me tell you a little bit about the book. It takes place in the early 1980’s, primarily in Miami. The main character, Alex Booth, is an aspiring race car driver who is long on talent, but short on money. Alex reluctantly turns to drug smuggling to fund his racing dreams. In the process, he makes a lot of money, a few enemies, builds a racing career, but makes a mess of his life.  Is realizing his dreams worth the headaches and potential prison time?

In the next few weeks, I should be able to share the book cover design with you. In the meantime, I’ll be working on revisions and trying to make Driven as good as it can be

Talk to you soon.

Bret Anthony Johnston is one of my favorite writers. He is a former competitive skateboarder from Corpus Christi, Texas who went on to become the director of the creative writing program at Harvard. The reason I’m so attracted to his writing is because it tends to be sparse while still being detailed and evocative. Normally, that would be a contradiction, but in Bret’s writing, it’s not.

A couple of years ago, I studied with Bret as part of the Summer Writing Festival at the University of Iowa. One of the things I liked about him was his no nonsense approach to writing. A lot of writers—especially literary writers—treat writing like it’s something beyond our comprehension. It’s part imagination, part magic, part inspiration, and it’s all controlled by the muse. Bret pretty much blew that approach out of the water. His philosophy was that good writing had much more to do with hard work and time in the chair than it did with magic and inspiration. I tend to agree.

I wanted to share three of Bret’s short stories with you. The first is “Dixon.” There are two reasons that this story resonates with me. First, it shows a glimpse into Bret’s creative mind. He takes something relatively mundane (kid’s meals toys from Dairy Queen) and builds a complicated, yet easily understood, story out of seemingly nothing. I like that because I think that’s what our lives are like, mundane moments that, when taken together, become something much more. The old saw, “the sum of the whole is greater than its parts” definitely applies here.

I also like the way Bret uses place in the story. In fact, place is always important to me, and Bret does a great job of using his former south Texas home as a background character in the story. Much of Bret’s writing takes place in south Texas, and it’s obvious that he knows the place like a family member.

The second story is “To a Good Home.” Bret usually doesn’t get too political in his stories, and this one isn’t purely political, but it will make you question your preconceptions. I know it did for me. I’m not sure how I feel about the ending. I wanted more. More information? More resolution? Something. But maybe that desire for more is what a good ending does. If Bret was writing a mystery, this ending wouldn’t work well at all. But for literary fiction, maybe it does.

Finally, my favorite Bret Anthony Johnston short story is “Republican.” This was the very first story from Bret I ever read, and it remains my favorite. There’s a sense of humor in this story that I really connect to. It’s not a humorous story, but there’s humor in it. I just really like it.

Enjoy these stories and let me know what you think.

If you didn’t catch the links to the stories above, here they are again:

• Dixon
• To a Good Home
• Republican

Ann Patchett is a terrific writer who has won both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. She also is co-owner of Parnassus Books in Nashville, a fantastic bookstore that is at the forefront of making independent bookstores not only successful, but indispensable. In 2012, Time magazine named Patchett one of the 100 most influential people in the world. High praise indeed.

So when Patchett wrote in a recent blog post that 2016 was a knockout year for books, I took notice. Her claim surprised me a little because I had just been thinking that it had been a long time since I had read a really good book. The kind of book I’m talking about contains excellent writing; a terrific, interesting plot; and characters that I care about, and who change (for better or for worse) during the course of the book. I didn’t read many of those kinds of books during 2016

As I read Ann’s blog post and took note of the books she read during the year, I was envious. I hadn’t read one book that she referred to in her list of the year’s best books. Thinking about the books I had read over the past year, I realized that I read fewer books than I have in past years, and many of the books I read were being consumed for research purposes, not for pleasure.

Even so, when I listed out the books that I did enjoy and would recommend, I still came up with an eclectic list of ten books. Not all (or even most) were written during the past year. I just consumed them during 2016.

Here they are:

10. Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff by Pappy Pariah (Available only on audio) – This is probably the weirdest book I have ever read. In fact, everything surrounding the book is weird. No one knows for sure who the author, Pappy Pariah, is. Actor Sean Penn has been making the rounds of talk shows promoting the book, but he swears he is not Pappy Pariah. He says his only connection to the book is that he signed on to read the audio book. The book is about a strange man named Bob Honey, a septic tank specialist by trade, who works for foreign governments by going around to retirement communities and dispatching the elderly with a firm thump to their heads with a wooden mallet. But that’s really not what the book is about. That’s the story that flows through the novel, but the book is also a political commentary of sorts. It’s smart, funny, well-written, and endlessly weird. If you’re looking for strange, this just might be the book for you.

9. Axis of Aaron by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant– Authors Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant are prodigious writers who churn out commercial fiction (mostly sci-fi and horror) most of time, but each year they set aside the time to produce one literary fiction novel. The duo admits that despite their literary fiction being their least profitable venture, it is also the favorite (and some would say “best”) writing they do all year. Axis of Aaron is Platt and Truant’s literary effort for 2016. The novel is a mind-bender that follows the protagonist, Ebon Shale, back to his childhood home on Aaron Island following the death of his wife. But things on Aaron don’t match his memory. In fact, Aaron isn’t even the same from day-to-day. Neither Ebon nor the reader are ever sure what is real and what is fantasy.

8.  The Man from Primrose Lane by James Renner – This is one of those books that turned out to be quite different from what I expected. It was recommended to me by a friend, but he wouldn’t tell me much about it, other than to say that it was good and he thought I’d like it. I thought I was going to be reading a crime novel, and the first half of the book was exactly as I expected. But without warning, the book turned into a time travel adventure. To be honest, the change kind of irritated me, but I had already invested myself in the characters, so I kept reading. Normally, I don’t like books (or movies) with a split personality. I want the author (or director) to know what they want their story to be. In my experience, when you try to cater to too many different tastes, you end up disappointing everyone. Even so, I have to say that I enjoyed The Man from Primrose Lane despite my initial irritation. Renner’s characters are a bit stock, and his ending is a little schlocky (not to my taste), but the overall experience was still a good one.

7.  Nobody Move by Denis Johnson – This is the worst book I have read by author Denis Johnson. Train Dreams, Jesus’ Son, Tree of Smoke, and The Laughing Monsters were all better. Even so, it still makes my top ten list for 2016. This should give you an indication of what a great writer Johnson really is. As I said, this is not his strongest work, yet it’s still very good. It reminds me a little of Elmore Leonard’s work, but with Johnson’s unique perspective of life on the street. In Nobody Move, Jimmy Luntz is a two-bit hustler who owes some bad people money. When he decides to fight back rather than pay his debts to a local crime boss, Luntz has to go on the run. As in all of Johnson’s books, his characters are terribly flawed and often in trouble. While his attempt at true crime noir falls a little flat, Nobody Move is still a satisfying read.

6. The Paperboy by Pete Dexter – Many years ago, I picked up a book called Deadwood by an author I was unfamiliar with named Pete Dexter. It turned out to be a revelation of sorts. I fell in love with the book, and I vowed to read more of Dexter’s writing. It took me several years, but I finally picked up another Pete Dexter book. The Paperboy was first published in 1996 (better late than never), and was made into a forgettable movie starring Nicole Kidman, Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron, and John Cusack in 2013. It tells the story of an investigative newspaper reporter in South Florida in the 1960’s who sets out to prove that a backwoods swamp dweller didn’t commit the murder he was convicted of. I can’t speak for the movie (I never saw it), but the book is terrific. I’m making the commitment to read more Pete Dexter. He really is a sensational writer.

5. Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari – This is one of two nonfiction books that made the 2016 list. A friend recommended Modern Romance to me when I was going through a divorce. The book is Ansari’s take on dating in the Internet age. I was not particularly excited to read it. I didn’t feel I needed dating advice from Ansari–a comedian I thought was just okay–but it came so highly recommended, I felt I had to take a look. I’m glad I did. Modern Romance is a very entertaining book that talks about presnt day dating without stooping to giving dating advice. Ansari’s writing is humorous, but he never goes into one of his stand-up bits, something I feared when I bought the book. Whether you are out on the front lines of the dating scene or comfortably ensconced in a relationship, Modern Romance is a fun, entertaining, educational read.

4. Pirate Hunters by Robert Kurson – To me, Pirate Hunters is exactly what a nonfiction book should be. It tells a terrific, compelling story without inundating the reader with the “inside baseball” minutiae that many nonfiction books get lost in. That’s not to say that Pirate Hunters isn’t detailed. It is, but the small details are revealed as part of the story, not as a history lesson. And it’s the story that is the strength of this book. Pirate Hunters tells the story of two men who risk their finances and reputation to find the Golden Fleece, the ship of the infamous Joseph Bannister, a former British naval officer turned pirate. It isn’t for riches that these treasure hunters seek Bannister’s ship, but for history, which somehow makes the story all the more compelling. A terrific, suspenseful, endlessly interesting read.

3. Eleanor by Jason Gurley – There’s a rather famous story about the publication of this book. The author, Jason Gurley had made a living designing book covers, but he wanted to write fiction. The problem was that he was a really in-demand cover designer, and he never had enough time to write. So he began scaling back his design business–losing money in the process–and wrote his first novel, Eleanor. When he was finished, he self-published the book to great success. In fact, his success caught the eye of an agent, and the agent eventually sold the book to Crown Publishing, an imprint of Penguin Random House. In some ways, Eleanor reminds me of Axis of Aaron (see above) in the sense that it is a mind-bender where reality is fungible. The story could have easily gone off the rails, but Gurley does a good job of making the unreality real for the reader. It’s weird, but it never gets so weird that it loses its audience.

2. Ready Player One by Ernest Grimes – The year is 2044 and the world is not a very nice place. Society has largely broken down, and people spend their days in high-rise single-wide trailers called “stacks,” which often collapse, killing the residents. The one constant form of entertainment and distraction is an online virtual utopia called OASIS. When the creator of OASIS—the wealthiest man in the world—suddenly dies, his estate holds a contest in the OASIS world involving the creator’s pet obsession: 1980’s pop culture. The winner takes over OASIS and will become instantly wealthy. The protagonist, teenager Wade Watts, is up against powerful corporate interests and a rag tag group of other OASIS players. To win the contest, and perhaps save the world, Wade must overcome his dysfunctional family and the corporate minions determined to stop him. Ready Player One is an incredibly entertaining novel that combines a post-apocalyptic world with 1980’s video game culture. I enjoyed this book much more than I expected.

1. The First Fifteen Live of Harry August by Claire North – I enjoy novels that play around with time. Time travel interests me, but many of the novels I’ve read involving time travel concentrate too much on the time travel and not enough on the characters and the plot. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August gets everything right. The writing is great, the characters are complex and engaging, and the plot is solid, intricate, and well-engineered. I like the final paragraph of the book blurb on Amazon. In describing the book, it says, “This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.” Sound interesting? Trust me, it is. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is not a perfect book, but it’s very good. And it was the best book I read in 2016.

Sean Ironman (not a made-up name) is a talented writer and cartoonist. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Central Florida, and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Missouri. Sean writes mostly nonfiction, and he sometimes combines his writing with his talent for drawing comics. I’m not sure if the proper descriptor for this type of writing is graphic essay or comic memoir or nonfiction comic or something else. Whatever you call it, Sean is good at it.

One of Sean’s comics was recently published in Vanderbilt University’s literary magazine, Nashville Review. You can read it here. As you read, keep your eyes peeled for a familiar face. I make a cameo appearance to give Sean some potentially bad news (although in real life, it was just a joke).

If you’d like to read one of Sean’s essays, take a look at Superstition Review for “Hank Canine Ironman” (Sean loves dogs).

If you’ve read the novella Lake of the Falls (and if you haven’t, what possible excuse could you have?), you know that the falls at Lake of the Falls County Park in Mercer, Wisconsin play an important role in the story. In the book, Kevin and his father, and later, Kevin and Annie, spend time at the falls where they find clarity to the issues they are struggling with in their lives (I hope that wasn’t too much of a spoiler).

In September, I had the opportunity to go up to Mercer to explore one of my favorite places in the world, and spend some time at the falls. It didn’t disappoint.

The day I visited was a little overcast as I turned off Highway 51 onto County FF toward the park. I drove past Crystal Lake where Kevin grew up, and down the twisty, turning road lined with tall, thin pines. The park was quiet, and I was the only person at the falls. I walked along the bank and took a few photos. The leaves had not changed colors as much as I had hoped. I was told they were a couple of weeks behind schedule due to a bit of a drought over the preceding few months. Even so, the place was spectacular.

I went up on the snowmobile bridge and stood looking over the falls and downstream at the Turtle River, just as Kevin did in the book. The mixture of the crisp fall air, the smell of nature, and the sound of the falls was a feast for the senses. Being there transported me back to when I was a kid, when we used to hang out at the park. It was a much different place then, much more rustic. But the feelings were the same. As I stood near the falling water, I felt a sense of peace and contentment, even as my soul was energized. The falls are a very special place.

While I was in town, I learned that the cabin on Crystal Lake I based Kevin’s cabin on in the book is for sale. If you’d like to start a GoFund me campaign to raise the funds needed to buy the cabin for me, I will not stand in your way. In return, I will spend my summers in the cabin, and will thoroughly enjoy my time at the lake. If you could raise about $250,000, that should be enough to buy the cabin and pay closing costs. Thanks in advance. 😉