How NOT to Write a Novel PART 1: Not my first rodeo--NOVEL. I mean novel.

Why is it taking so long to write your book?

I am asked this question so often that I’m dedicating a whole series to the answer. And the answer, quite literally, could fill a book.

Let me begin by saying I’ve always written books, I just didn’t tell anyone.

I wrote my first novel in middle school when I moved to a new town, and it was—unsurprisingly—a story about a blended family, including a young girl my age with a hot stepbrother (who knew, even then, that the seeds for modern romance were sprouting when I was a preteen), who moves across the country into a haunted house inspired by my childhood obsession with the Poltergeist movies. I finished the first draft in a red notebook, and I loved the characters so much, I decided to make it a full series.

Later I borrowed twenty bucks from my dad, bought an electric typewriter at a garage sale, and taught myself how to type. We didn’t own a computer until I was in high school (seriously dating myself here) and it was such a novelty I had to fight for screen time with my sister who wanted to watch Encarta and my folks itching to play solitaire. I spent my summers in Milwaukee holed up in my grandparent’s office writing, under the watchful eye of the black bear mounted above the computer, teeth barred and ready to pounce.

…Maybe that’s what I need for my new office—the recreated upper body of a wild animal that will sink its teeth into me if I don’t hit a respectable word count…

Eh, anyway, I am a writer. I haven’t left home without a notebook or my laptop in years. Writing books is all I’ve ever wanted to do.

In college I wrote a YA (Young Adult) drama about a seventeen-year-old Southern girl whose mom goes to jail for robbing a liquor store (art imitating life?) and is reunited with her long-lost father, a truck driver, played in my adoring mind by the legendary Jack Nicholson. For years I honestly believed Southern Nights would be my breakout novel.

Piles of notebooks, flash drives, and re-evaluated dreams later, I tumbled into an idea.

Two brothers. A dying father. A pile of money. And the girl that gets wrapped up in it all.

In late 2015, early 2016, The Old Man Played Three was born.