Old Corporal’s novel: It’s a-comin’!

“You better start trying to get that book published, Wayne. You know, you’re not getting any younger!”

Yeah, thanks a bunch, friends. Don’t remind me.

I don’t even remember how long ago it was that I started writing this novel about an older guy in a smaller Midwestern town who suddenly saw his entire life turned upside down. Don’t even remember how I happened to get the first “light bulb over my head” telling me that maybe this flash in my brain pan could be converted into some income I wasn’t getting right then — and maybe some more recognition than I had gotten in 40 years of being a jack-of-all-trades reporter at The Madison Courier.

Anyway, I also don’t remember how I got the original idea for this novel. Wishing it would happen to me, possibly. Well, the good things, anyway. Or maybe I wanted to somehow “get back” at people from my own life who I felt had looked down on me, acted as if they were better than me because their parents were better off financially than mine. Or … or … hell, I don’t know.

But I wrote the book — gradually, a little bit at a time. No hurry. Worked on it when I had a free evening with nothing else to do, or I’d had a bright idea for a new twist in the story — or to go back and change something I’d already written. I sure never claimed to be able to get everything right the first time around.

So when the book was finished, I let a few close friends read the manuscript, to get their takes on it. Mostly, it was favorable. A good friend from my childhood, who has had books of poetry published himself, wrote a very nice summation of my novel, which I plan to display on the page just after the title page.

Another friend pointed out to me that halfway through the story, I had inadvertently started referring to one of the characters by a different name than I had given her in the first half! Sure glad my friend caught THAT!

Well, with the book, or the manuscript for the book, completed, I just more or less put it away, other than showing it to a few good friends as I said above. Lot of other things going on in my life, and I just kind of let the novel slip from my consciousness — unless I happened to come across one of the copies of the manuscript, and scolded myself: “When the hell are you going to do something about this?”

OK: When another friend told me, “Wayne, you ought to try to get that published! You’d get some more recognition around the country if you do,” that was what decided me. I searched the Internet, found a self-publishing company out in Colorado, and we’re now in the process of getting my novel published! Don’t have a title for it yet, but we’ll come up with one. I’ll let ya know when it hits the market, on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and others. Hope all you folks who have read my essays, short stories, etc., on this website for the past 10 years, will buy it and enjoy it! Don’t worry; price will be reasonable.