From the Forge…
I know one person from my high school graduating class who was a writer and I didn’t know it until I saw advertising for her novels on Facebook. I don’t know if she even still writes, but she was self-publishing novels on Amazon before e-readers and Kindle Unlimited. More so, she wrote romance. Not only was she the one person in town who called themselves a fiction writer, but I’m sure she’d be winning at #BookTok today.
Fifty years before that, my grandmother had a classmate who moved to California and became a science fiction author (probably not in that order). If my grandma read science fiction, it was an accident, but this classmate’s novel sat on her bookshelf my entire life. It wasn’t until I was older that I noticed this book was published by Berkley Putnam, now a division of Penguin Random House. Maybe it was youthful optimism, but I was unaware of how huge and uncommon this achievement was.
Rural Indiana can be a dream killer. Our primary exports are corn, soybeans, and plastic. Our contribution to the region is air pollution. Our largest employers are factories, warehouses, and an oil refinery. You can imagine the bustling art scene in my community and good luck finding that person who has been successful or is willing to even call themselves “a writer”.
In this desert, the internet is the mirage in the distance, offering opportunity not readily available. Networking, finding community, and building an author brand are visible, but kinda hazy and the last things I’ll get around to. I refuse to get back on Twitter, I don’t have Instagram, I rarely use Facebook, BlueSky doesn’t feel like it’s reached a saturation point yet, and Discord feels noisy. Substack may be the only comfy place I’ve found for community-building, but I still don’t know if it’s the best platform for just straight fiction (which is one of the other reasons I shifted this publication toward “the journey” and not “the output”).
But in the past month of hardly writing, I’ve committed more time to building out this publication and reading/liking/commenting on the ‘stacks that land in my inbox week-to-week. I’m not sure where I read it, but the moral of the article was “if you’re not writing everyday, do something writing adjacent”. So during these slow times, I’m committing to community building. Just not on Twitter. Or Instagram. Probably not Facebook either. We’ll see how it goes.
Scraps…
I’ve been typing this transition for the last two weeks, then I gave up and started scribbling on a legal pad, then I went back to typing. I need to move my protagonist along to the next plot point, but also needed a prelude to an important character arriving in Act II. So here we are—my protagonist is meeting with Russ, a surrogate uncle and veteran police officer, who has been around most of his life. They’re engaging in the most small-town, mid-western rite of passage…dining at the local Mexican restaurant, while discussing a dealer who was recently arrested.
“So in 72 hours, you’ve managed to have a fistfight with the Chief Deputy of the Sheriff’s Department, alienate the Prosecutor, and corner the market on defending the indefensible.”
“Clearly, Judge wants to make sure even the worst in town have representation.”
Russ took a big sip from a fishbowl of margarita.
“Your dad would be proud, you looking on the bright side and all.”
I crunched a chip at him. We had our choice of three Mexican restaurants, but only one that was Russ’ favorite. Renata’s was too close to downtown and frequented by the courthouse crowd. Guadalajara Grill was where families went for birthdays with food that had more in common with Chipotle. But El Vaquero was known for its “heavy pour” when Russ ordered Margaritas. Him and Dad brought me here when I was 21 for my first legal shot of tequila, which turned out to be Mezcal from an unmarked bottle Rafael kept stashed behind the bar. That night I learned all Mezcal is Tequila, but not all Tequila is Mezcal. It was like drinking campfire embers. My face turned red and eyes watered as three grown men doubled over laughing. Rafael’s wife, Carmen, came out of the kitchen and took to cussing him in Spanish, which made us all laugh even harder.
“And the class reunion? You got a positive spin for that?”
“Ave invited me out. It would’ve been rude to say no.”
“Woulda been smart.”
He swigged the margarita like it was a beer.
“This is why I told you to take the money and run. Nobody wants to live here, some of us just do ‘cause we like to bitch,” he said.
“You were serious?”
I sipped my margarita in the awkward silence.
“You show up for moral support today or just to gloat?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.
“Neither. I was there for the Walker kid.”
“Were you as confused as the rest of us?”
“Not really. I wanted to see if it happened again.”
I scrunched my face.
“The city’s arrested him a couple times. Once for something similar, shacking up with a girl over at the Briars. Using it as a stash house. Then letting her take the fall. Other time we grabbed him outside city limits with a van full of fentanyl. Both times we were told he was cooperating with the Drug Task Force. No charges filed.”
“Not uncommon around here,” I said. The task force had been using anhydrous thieves and pseudo-ephedrine smurfs since its formation.
“Except they’re not. What the hell are locals gonna do with somebody using crystal meth and twenty dollar bills to insulate the walls of his girlfriend’s house?”
He had a point. That kid didn’t find all that weight on this side of the border.
“What about the Feds?” I asked.
“Not even on their radar.”
Rafael brought two fresh margs and took the empties away.
“Kid a local?” I asked.
“Born and bred. Dad was a real piece of shit. Back when you had to cook dope like a real American, he got us to #3 in the State for meth lab seizures.”
“Holy shit–one guy?”
“One guy.” Russ took a big drink from the frozen marg, then massaged his forehead. “Ugh–Fuckin’ brainfreeze.”
He kept going as he squeezed between his eyes. I chuckled as I thought about Dad trusting this man with our well-being.
“Back then, not every lab seizure equaled an arrest. We’d find ‘em in old farm houses, barns, trailers, hell…there’d be shotgun houses in city limits burning down every other month.”