A Different Dragon Entirely

A friend sent me a blog post last week written by a novelist of middlin’ success. The blogger is a professor by day, so he doesn’t support himself as a novelist. His big question was ‘Why do we keep writing novels that so few people will read?’  This from a guy who is far higher on the ladder to novelist fame than me. He’s halfway up to the top rung of the ‘annointed ones,’ while I’m still looking at the bottom step.  He claims that over his career he has made enough in book royalties to buy three cars. Hmph.  I’ve made enough in royalties over six years to buy three tanks of gas. Well, maybe a little more, but you get it.

His big point was that writing is hard work. I love the quote, “Easy reading is hard writing.” Oh, so true.  I can’t really remember what the guy wrote as to why he keeps writing. Obviously, he must enjoy the process, challenging, frustrating, and mentally strenuous as it is. He must also feel some level of gratification with his published books and his status among his friends and in his professional circle as a novelist. I ditto all those reasons.

 

For me, writing goes beyond enjoyment. It’s a compulsion. I’ve been a chronicler of my life experiences since my brother and I started regularly exchanging hand-written letters back in the early ‘70’s.  I still keep records of all sorts of odd things, like all the vehicles I’ve ever owned—motorcycles,  cars, trucks, vans, and SUV’s, color and cost included.

When I was taking part in tabletop wargame tournaments, I recorded the details of every single game I played. (I wasn’t a very good tabletop general.) When I became a Civil War reenactor, I began an ongoing color-coded table of every reenactment I attended, weather included. And I wrote eighty articles about reenacting for the hobby’s national magazine, The Camp Chase Gazette.

I still write annual Christmas letters to enclose with the Christmas cards we mail. (Yes, we still buy cards and stamps).  And now, I blog and write novels that not very many people read.

Why?  Because I can’t stop myself. I’m addicted to words. Not so much the spoken word, but the written word.  I’m not real outgoing at social gatherings. In fact, I’m a classic wallflower who enjoys being on the edge of a group watching and listening to the others. That said, I’ve done my share of being a ‘sage on the stage’ during my career as a high school principal and teacher-trainer, so I know I can do such things, I just prefer not to. But leave me alone—with a legal pad in the ‘70’s, a typewriter in the ‘80’s and a laptop computer since the’90’s ‘—and  I start spewing words.

Isaac Asimov once was asked what he would do if he was told he had only eight minutes to live. His answer, “Write faster.”

 

So, there it is. I’ll write J you when I decide not to write anymore.

Meanwhile, here is my newest novel: A Different Dragon Entirely.  

I’d describe the book as historical fiction about the great Comanche Indian Raid of 1840 and the subsequent Battle of Plum Creek, except that one of the two main characters is a mutant giant flying horny toad dragon.  Honestly, it’s more of a girl-meets-dragon bromance.  The whole thing is just for fun, although I did stay true to the recorded first person accounts of the Indian raid and the battle. I borrowed the title and some characters from my novel about the Texas Rangers of 1855, A Different Country Entirely.

But the horny toad dragon is my Texas-esque creation, vaguely inspired by Naomi Novik’s series of novels about the wonderful dragon Temeraire during the Napoleonic wars.

   

The Kindle version is available on Amazon right now, and the paperback version will soon be, if not already. Those folks at Amazon are nothing if not efficient. Good thing, since they just about own the economy now.

Anyway, I hope you will take a look on Amazon, and maybe buy an ebook or a paperback. Just click on the cover image of the book over there to the right.