Today I Did Nothing

I have a hard time when things are slow, work-wise. I get antsy. I roam around the room. I smoke way way too much. 

It's never with my writing my books; I do fine there. I've been blessed by God to have never suffered from writer's block. Okay, okay...don't get mad at me for saying that. It's just true.

Some days are slow. Maybe a paragraph. But I never go a day without writing, even if it's only one terrible paragraph I know I'll be deleting tomorrow, or ever later in the day.

It's the work I do for a living. Unlike most authors I know, I don't teach. I taught for four years at a community college back in the mid-2000s, but that was 090, 100, and 101 classes, with some GED and Literacy classes thrown in to fill out the day. 

It wasn't mind-numbing like people say, not for me, anyways; probably because I strayed off the curriculum, would take a day I intended to be about the actual use for the semi-colon and instead talk about Stephen King's daily writing habits. I did that. I did.

Later - from about 2019 to 2023 - I taught online in a Master's of Fine Arts degree program. It was COVID time and those jobs were easier to land. 

But the remote work was never a living. It was extra money and generally took up more of my time than I had anticipated. 

Point is, I'm working now as the sports director of a media tv and broadcast company. Sports are big here in Kentucky, and so during basketball season and football season there's plenty to do. But baseball, softball, volleyball, and other "off-season" seasons can become a dry time for coverage.

And here I sit trying to think of feature stories to keep content flowing. Some recent segments have been about a statistics keeper, a score keeper, who has been doing this for one school for 47 years. Another was about a young man who is the tenth ranked archer in the state but has never been bow hunting, an odd sort of detail for someone that good with a bow and arrow. The one I'm trying to nail down now is a feature on a sort of "small town, big pride" kind of thing. Think the movie Hoosiers and you'll get the idea.

It's all slow. I've drank five cups of coffee (it's 1:02 p.m. here at the job). I've smoked six or seven cigarettes since getting to work. I've left my desk more than a dozen times and walked outside and stared at the sky, felt some cool breezes, and returned to my desk. I've talked five or so times with my reporter, trying to job loose some ideas. 

It's slow, and I'm not used to that. Most of my life I've made a living as a news reporter, and news is rarely very slow. There are dry periods, but nothing lasting as long as an entire high school baseball season.

It's how I ended up here, writing at Bent Country this afternoon. And so now it's time to get back to pacing the floor and smoking and drinking coffee.

My injured heart hates me. 

The 1985 Chicago Bears

Here I am watching the Bears / Packers wild card game thinking, "Why can't we get a good quarterback?" That's foolish of me to think; Caleb Williams is as good a quarterback as we'll likely see for another fifty years. 

(Now we're down two scores, which means, well...we're screwed already, several minutes before halftime, even.)

I've been a fan since 1985 - the Super Bowl Shuffle Bears with Walter Payton, Mike Singletary, Ditka at coach, Fridge Perry with the goal line TD, all those guys. It was the last time we won a Super Bowl. I was nine-years-old. I got a Payton football kids uniform from the Sears catalogue for Christmas that year, complete with helmet and pads.

(Green Bay Peckers just scored another touchdown, by the way).

Really trying to keep going with this blogpost, but I'm feeling pretty down with a full six minutes left before halftime. And don't tell me Williams is the comeback kid; if you're good in a playoff game that means you know enough to pile up points before the half. If you're constantly having to come back only to win by only a few points. It's too stressful for a newly old man.

I'm out. I'll see ya'll again soon. My apologies.

Exciting Publication Announcement

I've written here several updates on upcoming books I'm working on or may soon have published, but following up on one from a month or so ago, I have some new news.

A new short story collection of mine called Fallujah Boy was slated for publication with Cowboy Jamboree Press in May, but after talking with Adam Van Winkle, CJ's ultra-talented top dawg, yesterday and today, that has now changed in a wonderful flip.

Shortly after I submitted Fallujah Boy, I then sent Adam a manuscript of a novel I had just finished called The Old Invisible, which I've talked about here before at various stages. I wanted to know what he thought, and asked only one thing: is it any good?

The book came quick, which is unusual for me, and I felt unsure in some ways; I genuinely needed Adam's eyes on it to give me the insight he's so often provided time and again over the past decade.

I was ecstatic yesterday when he emailed saying the novel was great, even saying then and there he'd like to publish it. 

So we chatted a bit about this and decided on a different publishing schedule that includes both the novel and the collection. Instead of releasing the collection in May, Adam is going to publish the The Old Invisible in May. The collection, Fallujah Boy, will then be released sometime in 2027.

Let me tell you, my relationship with Adam and Cowboy Jamboree Press began in 2016 with the publication of my second novel, Dysphoria: An Appalachian Gothic, and things have only improved since. I know folks may get tired of me touting Adam and his press, but, honestly, I've not done so nearly as much as both deserve.

Just know this: if you have the good fortune of landing a book with Adam at CJ then you have a guy in your corner with a towel on his shoulder, a bottle of water in hand, and more than willing to step in the ring in your place at the drop of a dime.

Autumn Years: A Prose Poem

Fifty in April and haven't taken great care of myself over the past three decades. This quickly adds up to losing a step, wrinkles crawling their way across my face, skin hanging from my neck, pictures from last year are time capsules opened 20 years later just today.

A Complete Unknown and Highway 61 Revisited and others

Tried to keep it up with this novel-in-progress...Can't manage it. I like writing novels and all but I miss writing my lyrical, purple prose, prose poetry. I found out I'm happiest writing when I'm hunkering down and writing at a sentence level. It feels like I'm better at that. Either way, the happy outweighs whatever else I might be able to do with a novel. I've written five of them now and that's five more than I thought I'd write. I do kind of dislike that I've written 90 pages on this last one, but, who knows, there may be sections I can revisit and pull from for other work?

Just watched A Complete Unknown and thinking now I should actually listen to some of Dylan's songs - at least Highway 61 Revisited. The final scene in the biopic might have been conjecture, creative license, and it might have been overdoing it some, but I liked it. Maybe it happened; I can't know, I'm pretty sure. TC is becoming one of my favorite actors, especially since he knighted (The King reference) Joaquin Phoenix as the Strange GOAT. Or something like that - strange or crazy. I think strange. For the record, he said Denzel was the GOAT GOAT. I'd mostly agree, except Denzel has kind of a John Wayne acting method going...no matter what movie he's in he's sort of just playing himself.

Ordered a bunch of books with my bunch of Amazon gift cards. It's that time of year. On that note, they're all hard copies. I've spent the last three years buying only Kindle, and it's been nice with the instant gratification and all that, but I miss holding a new book in my hands. So there you go. Important updates all around.

Alright, let's go write something and then read something and then go to bed.

Bent Country's Top Ten Books of 2025

I've let go of preamble here in my fifth decade wandering here on the earth. Here are the ten books that hit me the hardest over the past year, in particular order /

1. 

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Other Stories by Carson McCullers

Had wanted to read this one for a long time, and it didn't disappoint. The characters are vivid and unforgettable. Best of all, it's set in the South but doesn't rely on it; it's not one of those books in the South where people say after reading it, "The setting was just like a character." It doesn't have to be in order to be a wicked good setting. This book proves that.

2. 

Red Pyramid by Vladimir Sorokin

Discovered Sorokin by doing nothing more than scrolling through "You Might Like These" type of thing on Amazon. I can't remember which book where this was listed like that, but I'm glad I came across it. Sorokin is fearless, but he's not for everyone; if you're easily offended, or possibly not easily offended, just normally offended, then do not read this book. Ever.

3. 

At the Bottom of the River by Jamaica Kincaid

If I hadn't read Sad Cafe and Sorokin this year this would be the one. I guess the order of these alone says that, but I wanted to restate it. How did Kincaid manage to write really short short stories and only a handful, at that, and manage to write a book that would be a career-maker for anyone who would have written it? Just a perfect book.

4.

American Kings by Seth Wickersham

First football nonfiction book I've read and I immediately corrected that by starting Wickersham's other football book Better to Be Feared. This book will not appeal to folks who ain't sports fans, but if you are, then it's a MUST read.

5.

Becoming Dr. Seuss by Brian Jay Jones

I worshipped this man's books while growing up. They are by far and away the best children's books ever written. He might have had a dud I'm not aware of, but I didn't read about it in this book. And, yep, it touches on the badness the man became infamous for later on. All of it interesting.

6.

Streets of Laredo by Larry McMurtry

Read this to finish up the Lonesome Dove set. Loved it. Plain and simple. Oh, also, you'll like it even if you don't like reading westerns.

7.

Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin

My introduction to Sorokin. My jaw legitimately dropped several times within the first quarter of this book. How did this guy write such shocking material and pull this off, write this amazing novel? I generally can't stand fiction that has large political platforms, but Sorokin approaches that so brazenly and bravely and with such a straight punch, messy and insane and with a knee in a what some would consider the gutter but is anything but.

8.

Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurtry

Just really dig Larry. His writing is pure and without irony or all those other little social motives that turns my stomach after enough of it. Sometimes you just want to sit around a campfire, have a couple hotdogs, and listen to a guy who can tell it straight and true and, well, perfectly.

9.

Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes 

I honestly thought, at around page 50 of this novel of all novels, that I had become lost in a new universe, and not in the lost-in-the-fictive-dream sort of way. I listened to it on Audible and there would be long periods while driving that I drifted away, staring at passing billboards or thinking about the last time I ate. Then, at around the halfway point, it all started to happen, whatever that IT was. I know this: what came together for me right then has never came together so solidly for me while reading any other novel. By the time I finished, I knew I'd read the first novel ever written. It was like waking up inside the Great Pyramid of Giza. Can't put it anywhere but here in the list, though, because realizing you've just read the first novel ever written doesn't mean it was as enjoyable as some others.

10.

The Life of Rocks by Rick Bass

If I were to pitch an Obvious Shirt for Rick Bass it would be this: Rick Bass Crushes Short Stories. Some writers just know pacing, the elegant rise to the the climax, how to add a brushstroke or two to a character's heart perfect enough to break yours, setting, and all the rest. They put their arm on the table, tap a vein, and what comes out are stories like "Pagans." 

Three Studies of Love / Green Mother

I once again changed the title of my novel-in-progress. It's now called Three Studies of Love, but that may change before long, too. I'm having more trouble titling work than I used to.

Also, I've taken a break from writing it. It's too painful to work on for large stretches the way I have my last few books. It's painful, hard to write so truthfully about such difficult things. 

Love is the most significant subject we can give our attention. And I'm writing three intertwined sections for the novel that can be best summed up like this: 

Love Lost

Love Destroyed 

The Absence of Love for Lust

It's just too hard to work on right now. I started it the first of September and wrote just under 150 pages and then cut t to 90 pages during a single two-hour work session and then set both those drafts aside as what I've started calling "pull drafts" and started over. I'm 20 pages in now and I'm just exhausted. And sad and grieving and guilt-shattered and overwhelmed and dragging my confidence along like a broken toy. 

But I always keep a couple novels or collections going for times like this, because a lot of my writing is dark and stormy. I picked up one back up I'd started last year called Green Mother. It's a folk horror novel set in eastern Kentucky. And, best of all, I don't find myself crying uncontrollably while writing it.

/

“We’ll never survive!”

“Nonsense. You’re only saying that because no one ever has.”

— William Goldman, The Princess Bride