Several weeks ago I received a letter from Bear Creek, Wisconsin.  I don’t know anyone in Bear Creek, Wisconsin.  I don’t even know where Bear Creek, Wisconsin is located in our fair state.  I opened the envelope and a check for $20.00 dropped to the floor.  The check had been wrapped in one of the forms I used for people to order books while I was at the Oshkosh Irish Fest in May.

There was a note in the bottom right hand corner of the form:

“Rex, I hope your offer is still good.  I just found the form in my jacket pocket.” (July 23, 2015).

I laughed out loud.  Who would expect a person to find the form months later and still want to buy my books (she wanted in on the Two Books for Twenty Bucks deal.

I remember talking with the young woman and her husband.  She had a desire to write and wanted to know how I had gotten started.  I shared my story and was impressed that her husband was extremely supportive of her dreams.  In addition I learned that her husband is a skilled carpenter and cabinet maker, skills I may need to hire soon.

This is an example of a connection writers can make with readers only by looking them in the eye.  I know the common wisdom is to rely on social media to market and sell books and I do some of that.  Yet, nothing, nothing can replace talking directly with readers, looking them in the eye, exchanging viewpoints and experiences.

For me, one of the best aspects of the writing life are connections.  Without writing I never would have met this young family.  I hope I offered enough encouragement for this young woman to follow her dream.  I’d like to buy her book some day.    

An author friend, Valerie Biel Johnson, stated a book club in a pub in Columbus, Wisconsin several months ago.  The idea was to support local authors by having the author sell books in the pub and at the monthly meetings the author would talk with readers.  Valerie called the club Books and Beers.

I was the third author to speak to the book club on Thursday, August 6th.  When Lynette and I entered the pub it was packed, people were standing four deep at the bar.  When we visited in July there were only four folks having dinner and they left once the book club meeting started.  About 15 attended the book club meeting.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to talk over the noise of the patrons and began to worry that the book club meeting and my presentation would be canceled.  I searched for Valerie and couldn’t find her.  About 6:45 Valerie arrived and we searched for the pub owner, Sandye to ask for a place for the club to meet.  Sandye told us that earlier in the day she and her husband, Aaron, decided to close the pub – TONIGHT!

Word of their closing spun around town and well wishers were there for their last beer and a bit of pub grub.  Sandye suggested the group meet in a room upstairs.  The upstairs office was hot and musty smelling as if it hadn’t been cleaned in the last century.  Our small group of seven persevered for an hour and I autographed books.

We all returned to the pub after the meeting.  A couple introduced themselves to me, they had been waiting in the pub, and no one told them our group had moved upstairs.  I had a nice conversation and autographed their books.  The party went on to closing.

The next morning I received an e-mail from other Sun Prairie friends who had arrived late the previous night and also weren’t told the book club had moved upstairs.  It happens.

I still sold more books in a single month that I have ever sold at an independent bookstore in a year and a half.  Entrepreneurs always struggle and working as an independent author I empathize with their challenge and obstacles to success.  Thank you Sandye and Aaron will miss the Hydro Street Brewing Company.

That evening Valerie began the search for another location for the foundling book club to meet.  She is an ambitious and creative indie author and I’m confident that in September the book club will have a new location. 

   

  

I am fortunate to have a small following of fans.  For me a fan is a person who has read both Murphy’s Troubles and Out of Darkness.  I even have a few fans that don’t want to purchase my books on Amazon but purchase them directly from me because it’s more personal and of course I always write something in the cover and sign it.  Please understand, I don’t have many that fall into this restricted definition of a fan.  Of those that are fans, I listen to them when they comment on each book.

Two of my fans have made the exact same, surprising comment.  They feel that Out of Darkness concentrates too much on Ian’s love life.  One fan thought that Ian was too amorous and that Irish men don’t behave that way (this fan is 100% Irish male).  Another fan said there was just too much sex in the book.

Really?  Too much sex?  Trust me; this book is not 50 Shades of Grey. 

I did want to show how a middle age man can fall deeply in love with a woman of the same age and how their life experiences mold the unique love they develop.  Certainly one aspect of a love relationship is physical intimacy and I didn’t want to avoid that in my book.  To be honest, I don’t like writing sex scenes.  I once took a class at UW Madison Continuing Education on how to write a sex scene in a novel.  It’s not about body parts; it’s about intimacy, sharing, innocence, vulnerability, laughter, joy, etc. etc.

I also wanted to demonstrate in Out of Darkness that having an honest, open, empathetic love relationship was healing and helps Ian fight his depression.  Love brings balance and a new perspective into Ian’s life.

 It’s not about the sex but good sex is a part of any healthy, balanced, loving, relationship.  What is most curious to me is that these comments came from men.  Who would have guessed?           

An author friend of mine, Valerie Biel, recently started a book club called Books with Beers in a Columbus.  Her idea was to support both local business and local authors.  The book club is held at the Hydro Street Brewing Company on a Thursday evening of each month.  Each month a local author is invited to make a presentation and sign books.  The pub owners agree to sell books and give the entire proceeds to the author.  That’s right – the pub owners don’t take a consignment cut.  Pub owners, Aaron and Sandye appreciate the business on a Thursday night and don’t feel the need to take a cut from book sales. 

Valerie presented at the first event in May, which is right, because she is the marketing genius behind the whole idea.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend because of a theater commitment.  I attended the event in June with author Silvia Acevedo.  There were 15 attending, larger than any book store presentation I’ve made.  The discussion was lively and it was an entertaining evening.

I was invited to leave books for sale in July prior to my presentation on August 6th.   As I was putting together the display following Silvia’s event a woman at the bar bought both Murphy’s Troubles and Out of Darkness.  When I asked her name in order to autograph the books she explained they weren’t for her but a friend who likes Irish history.  This is a pub in Columbus, Wisconsin.

This past weekend I received an e-mail from Valerie, they sold out of books and needed more.  I rushed another allotment of books to the pub on Monday.  I have now sold more books at the Hydro Street Brewing Company than the total number of books I have on consignment at three independent book stores.

Ya gotta love Wisconsin.  Please support my friends:  www.valeriebiel.com and www.hydrostreetbrew.com.

Attending the 2015 Oshkosh Irish Fest was a learning experience, a challenge and a smashing success for book sales.  The fair grounds are small and estimated attendance for the four day event was about 2500 but was hampered by rain for two of the four days.

Friday night attendance was surprisingly light.  I was to speak at 7:00 p.m. and just as the first words were leaving my lips the premier band for the night started playing – a full 30 minutes early.  It takes a lot to unnerve me, but the blast of sound almost knocked me off my chair.  My tiny audience hung in with me and I got through my 30 minute spiel, they applauded – for endurance, not content.  We sold two books that evening to an older woman who didn’t understand how debit cards worked; she thought she had a credit card.  I gave her my address and just asked her to send a check.

Saturday afternoon it poured rain which drove the attendees into the cultural tent where we sold books.  I had a table to myself and put up two huge posters of both books.  As folks strolled by I watched their eyes and if they rested on either book poster I would ask:  “How would you like to read a great Irish story?”  We sold out of books that afternoon and took orders for ten more books that I promptly mailed out Monday afternoon.  I’ve never sold out before.  NEVER.  What a thrill.  My presentation was at 5:00 p.m. and I only had four in the audience.  Later that night Lynette pointed out that half the audience purchased books after my presentation (she’s a pro at seeing the silver lining).

Sunday we didn’t have any books to sell, we could only take orders.  My presentation was at noon.  For the second day in a row the lady from Green Bay spoke to long and robbed 10 minutes from me.  The MC actually went on stage, took the mic from her and introduced me.  She still didn’t leave the stage.  I walked up to her, placed my hand gently on her back and told her she had to leave.  Finally, she left.  In the back row and large family was having their own discussion as I was talking.  Their rudeness made me very angry.  I told them they were being rude and asked them to take it outside the tent.  Lynette wasn’t happy with me.  I was people tired and my tolerance for their inconsideration burst.  It happens.

I hope to receive an invitation to the 2016 Oshkosh Irish Fest; I learned a great deal about connecting with people in that setting and sold a record number of books.  From my viewpoint, the presentations are problematic but probably necessary.     

Today is my official, public coming out.  I am revealing that I was born on April 1st and my Mom was 39 years old when I was born.  The day I was born my brother was 16 and my sister was 13.  That makes me the “whoops” baby.  Later in life I joked with both my brother and sister that effectively I was an only child.  By the time I was old enough to remember them they were both in college.

When I tell people I was born on April 1st they ask – Really?  I generally respond – You think I’d make that up?

I grew up in a small town neighborhood on Lincoln Street.  Hard to get more middle glass than that.  My next door neighbor’s Dad was a butcher, across the street was a salesman and an electric line worker.  My best friend’s Dad worked for the city and farmed part time with his brothers.  All of the Mom’s in our neighborhood stayed at home to run the family, my Mom did too.

My parents enjoyed giving me birthday parties for both friends and family.  I have some great pictures of wearing a cowboy outfit, my first bike and other best in the whole world birthday presents.

All of my life I’ve had the disadvantage of being gullible and overly trusting.  Every year my friends pulled April fool’s jokes on me.  I never once figured it out before they pulled off the prank successfully.  It was all good fun and we all had a big laugh, even though inside I felt it was at my expense.

Later in life I researched how the day became known as April Fool’s Day.  It’s all about the calendar.  The original ancient calendar was the Julian calendar which celebrated New Year’s Day on April 1.  Pope Gregory for reasons unknown changed the date of New Year’s to January 1.  The Holy See degreed in 1582 that the world would use Pope Gregory’s calendar which we now call the Gregorian calendar.  Word traveled slowly in 1582.  Those who either refused to adopt the new calendar or didn’t know about the change were given fool’s errands on that day.

Gotch ya! Happy April Fool’s Day!  The whole calendar story is a hoax.  But I really was born on April 1st.

        

I used several methods to choose the names for the characters in Murphy’s Troubles.  I didn’t want to make Dublin the setting of the novel because it was too common for an Irish story.  The main setting is Cork which is a very international city surrounded both by hills and a port.  County Cork was the home of Michael Collins and the county has a reputation for being rebellious.  I researched the most common surname in County Cork and it was Murphy, so the protagonist is Ian Padraic Murphy.

My son’s best friend is John Doyle so I chose ‘Doyle’ as the surname for Ian’s best friend growing up in Cork.  I read a story about Ray Bradbury when he spent a summer in Ireland working on the screen story for the movie Moby Dick.  He was given a driver, Timolty.  Timolty was such a unique Irish name I thought it was perfect so Timolty Doyle became Ian’s best friend.

For all the other characters I researched Irish male and female first names and surnames.  Many names in Ireland have been Anglicized but I wanted the characters of my book to have original Irish names.  In my travels I’ve learned that names are common to their country of origin and it made the novel more authentic.  I didn’t use the English version of a name.

However, I mixed the spelling of names between Irish and English.  The Irish spelling of ‘Ian’ is ‘Ion’ or ‘Eion’.  I worried that readers wouldn’t understand and settled on using the English spelling.  For some of the minor characters, especially when their setting was in rural Ireland, I used the strictly Irish name with the Irish spelling, again to make the novel more authentic.

I believe names are important and one hint about a character’s traits is found in their name.  For example, “Murphy” means warrior and in his own way Ian Padraic Murphy is a warrior during The Troubles.

After high school my son, Tim, and his best friend John Doyle (called just ‘Doyle’ ) saved enough money for a trip to Europe.   Doyle had relatives living in Ireland and their plan was to make their farm home base and make excursions from there.

The plan worked for about two months, they tried to get green cards to get odd jobs and extend their stay.  The world was in the midst of an economic depression and Ireland didn’t feel the need to have two Americans wandering their island taking the odd job.  As a result they ran out of money.  Once day I received a call from Tim, he needed $500 to get a flight home.  I wired him the money and within a week he and Doyle were back in Wisconsin looking for a job.

As part of his thank you for bailing him out of Ireland, Tim brought me a stack of Irish newspapers.  He thought I would enjoy reading papers from Ireland.  I’ve never understood what gave him that notion but it caused a euphoric moment for me.  In 1997 Ireland was still a year away from approving the Good Friday Agreement that ended The Troubles.  The papers carried stories of civil violence and atrocities.

One story in particular caught my attention.  A ten year old girl was maimed in a ‘peace zone’ in Belfast.  The government had created areas between the walls that separate Catholics and Protestants that were neutral zones where no violence was to take place.  Neither the Protestants nor the Catholics accepted the peace zones because they were imposed on them from the British government.

From that story I began to imagine what it would feel like for a family to have their daughter injured while just playing outside – being in the wrong place and the wrong time.  That became the major incident that I built the story of Murphy’s Troubles around.

In the front cover of Murphy’s Troubles in the Appreciation Section I thank Tim for bringing me those newspapers.

          

I have been attending the Tuesday Morning Book Talk, lead by Dr. Emily Auerbach and Marshall Cook for more years than I can remember.  We meet each fall and spring and take a break in the summer.  Usually, Dr. Auerbach chooses two themes for each session and we read three books on each theme.  For example, this fall one theme was Nobel Literature prize winning authors.

At the end of our session in the spring of 2013 she asked for suggestions from our group on books to read in the fall 2014 session.  In a bold, audacious moment I suggested the group discuss my debut novel, Murphy’s Troubles.

I didn’t want Dr. Auerbach to accept my suggestion without the opportunity to read my book so I gave her a copy.  I also asked my friend/mentor/editor Marshall Cook if he would be willing to lead the discussion if my book was accepted.

I waited all summer and never had a response from Dr. Auerbach.  In August, I heard from my friend Marshall that by book was scheduled for discussion in the fall 2014 session but he didn’t have a date.  It didn’t seem real.  Later that month the schedule of books to be read came out and there it was

October 28, 2014 – Murphy’s Troubles by Rex Owens, lead by Marshall Cook.  I’ve framed that schedule and hung it on my writing room wall.  No one in the class said anything to be about my book on the schedule.  Finally, last week several folks asked me if I had copies or where it was available locally because they didn’t want to buy it on Amazon.  One local independent bookstore, Mystery to Me, does carry a few copies and I recommended them, expect our group has about 25.  There was a possibility that our University Bookstore carried by book.  I called the University Bookstore and was never able to connect with someone to give me a definitive answer.

Monday night I didn’t sleep well.  I tossed and turned and slept in a spare bedroom to not disturb Lynette.  Tuesday morning I kept asking myself why I ever got myself into this position.  I talked with Marshall before class and he announced that I wanted honesty and that they way for me to grow as a writer was to get constructive comments and viewpoints.  I also agreed to ask whatever questions they wanted to pose.

The discussion began slowly, everyone was tenuous.  With  a few thoughtful questions from Marshall the discussion gained momentum, I answered questions and all was going well until . . .  I person was sure that I had not portrayed the correct age for one of the characters, she insisted the character must be older than 12 as I had written.  I responded with events in the novel that supported an age of 12 and many of us thought the questioner was confusing mother/daughter characters.  The questioner was relentless.  Finally, I responded by saying that I hadn’t completed a specific timeline for these characters and that was a mistake I’d not make in my next novel. 

Overall, the discussion was animated, we laughed, read some scenes out loud and one member said she was distraught reading the last chapter because she was sure that the protagonist, Ian Murphy, would be killed – she cared!  Her comment was the highlight of the discussion for me.  Marshall said, Rex you’ve done it – readers care about your characters.  Eliciting this response from readers is the writer’s Holy Grail.

To close the class I was asked when my next book would be published and what it was about.  I told them novel number two will be out in 2015 and Ian Murphy’s story continues as he searches for redemption.  The entire class broke out in spontaneous applause.  I blushed.  My sole thought after this experience:  now, I’m a writer. 

This month I will complete the rough draft of my second novel and I am a full month ahead of my original schedule to complete this draft.   After publishing Murphy’s Troubles in November 2013 there was no question that I would continue writing novels.  However, the exuberance of publishing that first novel, having to hold in your hands and having launch parties at our local coffee shop and public library was distracting.

In January I decided it was time to get serious and begin thinking about what I wanted to write about next.  I had seen a PBS program about the Fenian movement in America and its leader John Devoy.  Devoy is a fascinating character who reinvented himself in New York City after being expelled from Ireland for his Fenian activities.  I spent months researching his history, in particular, an audacious mission he financed to rescue six Irish Fenians from a prison in Australia.  After researching for several months I tried for months to write the story and each attempt failed.  Something was missing and I didn’t know what.

One night I had a dream and the protagonist in Murphy’s Troubles, Ian Padraic Murphy let me know that his story wasn’t finished.  The entire plot for my second novel came to me at one time.  I sat down and began to write.

It wasn’t easy.  I struggle with point of view.  I came up with the brilliant idea of writing a fictional memoir.  I was proud of my inventiveness at creating a new genre.  I floated the idea past my friend and mentor, Marshall Cook and he was moderately encouraging but warned that my path was fraught with numerous obstacles.

I distracted myself with researching how to write a memoir.  The year was slipping by and in early May I didn’t have ten pages done one my second novel.  Panic set in.  I was frustrated with how to write a fictional memoir and what I originally thought would be clever and unique was proving to be a horrendous waste of time.

Then, out of nowhere I reviewed the last scene of Murphy’s Troubles and imagined what would happen next.  I solved the problem of point of view – to use the standard first person.  My writing was unleashed.  Finally, I had the plot and point of view but then fear crept into my psyche and I stalled.  I have always been self-motivated and most comfortable when I have a goal to work toward.  I decided that the second novel should be about the same length as the first, about 84,000 words.  Next I decided to finish the first draft by the end of November.  Finally, I determined how many words a week I needed to write to meet that goal.

The last step, and the key, was to bury the internal editor in me and force myself not to edit my writing.  Eureka!  I found my path.  The writing flowed and every week I exceeded my word count target and I’m a month ahead of schedule.

I should be elated, but I’m not.  Instead I find myself feeling sad.  The time when I can write without abandon is almost over.  In November, editing begins the crafting.  The days of freewill writing are over.