Tag: novelist

Another Sandwich.

All the same, I’m pulling back the curtain, to a rare degree, for you this morning. I’d be lying if I said it was a comfortable thing for me to do.

There’re a host of reasons a man writes fiction, after all. So, let’s get to it, before I lose my nerve.

Hello reader, and welcome.

As ever, I’m honored by your attention, and pleased to share the latest news from the controlled chaos of my home office here at bucolic Pajama Flats.

Which, I will admit, often serves as little more than added reason to further question the writer’s claim to sanity. And how’s that for irony at arm’s length?

Today’s piece, however, reveals that one of us is perhaps farther along the road to the nut house than anything so far published here. As usual, when making your pick of which is which, you get three guesses, and the first two don’t count.

In case you’re wondering, my money is on the guy punching the keys.

C’est la vie, and away we go.

Friends, as foretold by the curse, we live through interesting times.

To describe, I could bore you with a rant about how idiots are bringing back deadly diseases because they’re ignorant and hate science. Or rail on about the rise of stupid and its cohorts bigotry and racism.

I might point out the siloed minds of various online mobs running amok in the streets. A few of which result from the drive for profit that turned social media into a home for the hostile. From there, of course, it was a short slide down a steep slope into the culture canceling, division driving menace now enjoyed worldwide.

Even worse, I could mention that all are because of the same lowered school standards imposed by the people’s elected governments doing their bidding. Because, you know, the people always get what they want.

Most times, good and hard, too, as a fellow once claimed.

But, you know, circus, monkeys, etc., etc., save it for the eulogy.

So, instead, I’m going to share a short story about having success, but only after a long struggle, with you today. It’s a real one, too. With any luck, it might even inspire some new thoughts, for both of us, about all that old stuff.

Not only that, but I’m dusting off the personal history books for this one, too. How’s that for a surprise? Though, as ever, I won’t be naming any names.

All the same, I’m pulling back the curtain, to a rare degree, for you this morning. I’d be lying if I said it was a comfortable thing for me to do.

There’re a host of reasons a man writes fiction, after all. So, let’s get to it, before I lose my nerve.

I love movies. They rank third, after books and music, on my list of arts passions.

As a younger man, I dreamed of making my own films. Though once a camera buff who took a few interesting pictures, life led me to other places. Now, decades later, it brought me back to stand behind a camera.

Though progress means I now need someone else to operate the damned thing.

So, for me, my new short film, Another Sandwich, is a kind of love affair. While for you, it’s a chance to see what the words look like when made real by their author. In each case, we’ll learn something about each other.

I know, too, reader, how there’s a good chance you won’t be interested in following me down yet another professional rabbit hole. Not only that, but you can also rest, assured, that I’m not changing careers.

Truth is, I’m now more focused on getting my work done than ever.

Though, and likewise, I’m also more committed to the details of my writing process, too. Thus, as a writer, I’m in the best place one could imagine these days.

See, the first draft of my next novel is done. It awaits rewriting. After a couple of more drafts, and the usual lengthy months of editing, I’m betting it’s the best one yet.

Still, as frequent readers know, my process demands I take a month’s long break between rewrites.

And, just as my dad long ago told me, a man needs something to do. While those with a known urge to chase mischief are best kept busier than others.

Did I yet mention how I write novels one at a time? Or that I prefer to finish one before starting another? Well, despite the growing collection of detailed novel outlines saved to various discs and drives around here, that’s how I do it.

Maybe that’s why, over the last couple of years, instead of making music in a studio with Harwill and the band, me and The Film Project team made short films.

Now, wait a minute before swiping.

Because, after all these years, I know the people who read my books aren’t the same as those who once listened to my music. Not only that, but I expect to need yet another audience to watch my films.

So, while Harwill earned his own website long ago, I’ll host The Film Project here until it finds an audience big enough to pay for one.

Besides, to me, the essence of filmmaking is writing. That is; the whole thing depends on a screenplay. Which is another way to say it needs a story.

For the record, as a writer, beyond the need to know, I enjoy the challenge of working in different mediums. That’s why I once wrote a weekly fitness column for a local newspaper. It also explains a few years spent writing a monthly feature in a national magazine, too.

Those gigs are extra to the countless other types of writing for hire, including business, technical, and web dev, on which I honed my skills before turning to novels.

Of course, I feel much the same about music, with songwriting its foundation.

As many are now aware, in days gone by, my love of making music was enough to overcome an intense dislike of the spotlight for quite a long while. Though no longer able or willing to tour, my love for music lives on in recordings made and released since I retired from the stage.

Once again, I offer no apologies for the extremes of my good luck, either. Though I know too well how extraordinary is this crazy business which composes my life.

For I am, without doubt, a cantankerous and particular fellow. At most times, too, but always more so when working at my craft. Though often hidden behind the veil of a grin, my temper while at work is quick, and the demands precise.

Because, you see, I love my work with an intensity that exceeds all else. Where once focused on study and learning, nowadays I devote my life to its completion. So, it’s not for nothing that I spend so much of my time alone.

This work is hard. I’m not ashamed to say showing how it was tires me out. And I love my family and friends. So much so that I would spare them dealing with the even more arrogant prick I become when doing my thing.

Well, lucky for me, in these parts, writing is a solo gig.

But filmmaking, even more than music, is a team effort.

And working with me means taking a hard ride down a fresh-cut trail, most times. That’s because when you’re coming from behind, or working for yourself, there’s little time left over for niceties.

So, I don’t deny the many sometimes-hurtful choices made to support my work over the long years of doing it. Nor am I sorry for the ego bruising that now and then came with playing in that show, either.

That’s because, by routine, I demand the best of myself, and accept only that from those working with me.

Anyway, all that stuff is the natural result of a long run, of either failure or success, in any business. And, as ever, I let the work speak for itself.

Same goes for the colleagues who’ve stuck with me. Because, if you check the credits, or the liner notes, you’ll see the same names showing up, again and again, year after year.

There, hiding in plain sight, is another type of love story.

But, and once again, I digress.

The Film Project team, to date, remains a small one. As usual, my brother from another mother is riding shotgun, and doing his best to keep me from leading us too far into the weeds. A couple of our favorite Edmonton actors and writers fill out the guerilla production unit.

Likewise, we’ve again started with short films, too, as that’s where we left off. Back in nineteen-eighty-nine, that is.

Yes, indeed. A mere ten years after my early poems appeared in print, I wrote my first script, and acted in the finished short.

We used a camera rented for us by a long-gone true believer. My lifelong creative partner shot and edited ‘GST’ on video tape. Another of our best friends directed and starred in the seven-minute epic.

And, though produced for festival submission, the sole copy of the finished short went missing in a move. Sadly, it remains unseen, with its whereabouts unknown.

Over the years, I got my film fix by appearing in a few shorts, and even did some time as an extra on a couple of features. For business reasons, the credits went to Tim Harwill instead of me, and his profile lives on IMDB, not mine.

Ain’t it funny how I do all the work and that sonofabitch Harwill gets the accolades? If you’re wondering, that’s an irony I could live without just as well.

Anyway, it’s time to finish what we had once begun.

Before the clock runs out, you know?

If you’d like to find out more, see The Film Project page here on the website. You can also find Another Sandwich, and me, online at FilmFreeway. When there’s news, such as festival or online screenings, I’ll share it here.

How’s that for a brief story about beating the odds? Does it ask or answer? Well, as usual reader, that’s for you to decide.

Because for now, the story must pause awhile before it starts. And how it ends? Well, once again, only time can tell that tale.

Here, though, ends the latest rumination.

Now, before I sign off, a reminder.

With the warm weather at last here, many of us are looking for something to read. Well, guess what? As the luck runs in these parts, my latest novel, A Whippoorwill Called, is earning complimentary reviews. Set in a sweltering prairie summer, it’s a thunderstorm of love and lust meant for afternoons in the sunshine.

Click the URL below here to order a copy and see for yourself. Thanks again for your support.

Until next time, thanks for being here, and for sharing this with anyone who might like to read it.

TFP

July 5, 2025

Long shots.

That makes two things inevitable. One; accepting you can’t know what you don’t. And two: not making things up to compensate for your shortcomings.

Whether what’s leftover aligns with either popular or personal tastes isn’t up to the writer.

Hello and welcome, reader.

As ever, it’s my pleasure to have you join me here.

Though I must tell you that, because the server doesn’t track it, I can’t tell if anyone ever visits the website. Or, like my books, even reads these damned things.

I mean, because of recent spam attacks, I’ve now had to turn off comments, here. Which, though rare, I also much appreciated.

If only to confirm that the website is, in fact, up and running.

Likewise, while nowadays living and working according to a series of strict and careful plans, I still prefer the winds of chance decide the fate of me and my work.

And if that’s not irony, then I don’t get it.

Truth is, I had a friend who claimed Harwill was most adept at avoiding success. Well, I didn’t deny it to him or anyone else. There’s only so much of that shit a man can stand before it makes a mess of him, after all.

In no time, he’s either a practicing addict or a fat man in a tailored suit.

Either way, he devotes himself to bending the world to his will. While destroying anything and everyone that gets close to him.

And yes, that’s again the voice of experience talking.

It’s always worth recalling, too, how I speak only for myself, and limit myself to experience, besides. You should beware, as well, that I didn’t get into this racket to make either friends or money.

See, I’ve always known everything is most okay if few other than me likes what I do. That’s because I’m not doing it for approval. I’m doing this because I can’t not do it.

From any other perspective, it makes little objective sense. I know that, too.

I have, after all, spent most years of this life doing my thing for an audience. From my early days in the ring through all the decades of touring as Harwill, the roar of a crowd fuelled the pursuit of my dreams.

For some, that becomes an addiction. Well, to me, it’s always been more of a nightmare made necessary by survival.

Because chasing the dream of authoring even a single great novel is a literal pursuit. It’s not some romantic notion. Such a writer must move himself despite the world’s desire to hold him close. No matter the comforts found only in either private or popular embrace.

Disco inferno. I learn by suffering. So, burn baby, burn. That also means if you’re seeking comfort and wealth, you’ve found the wrong line.

A good friend long ago taught me how those things are byproducts. While work of lasting value is that which honours the people with whom one lived.

To me, that’s always what a writer must seek. After survival, that is. To endure, after all, is the writer’s first chore.

Likewise, though a man trains for its own sake, it’s only the ever-present threat of posterity which adds tension to a writer’s practice.

No matter the subject to which his muse might lead.

If that’s not the case, you’re jacking off. And, despite recent social media claims, that’s best kept private.

The great concern, of course, is that one day, someone might read the work.

Thus, a man needs be a harsh judge with himself. While, likewise, a writer must demand not only the truth, but a readable picture of it, from himself.

That makes two things inevitable. One; accepting you can’t know what you don’t. And two: not making things up to compensate for your shortcomings.

Whether what’s leftover aligns with either popular or personal tastes isn’t up to the writer.

Anyway, I’m sharing yet another funny story with you this time. Even if, as often turns out, I’m one of a precious few that thinks it so.

Well, lucky for both of us, it’s a short one.

See, last month, while dealing with early fallout caused by my latest flop, I realized the entire affair was taking place without much of an audience.

That’s despite a crippling bout of angst, before it published, too, by the way.

Talk about putting a cart before the horse’s arse! Poor little rich boy? What? Again? How’s that for a story?

Anyway, despite a strong start, A Whippoorwill Called has yet to make the leap from hot new release to national bestseller.

And did I tell you the one about keeping results at arm’s length?

Well, rest assured, I care about such things. I do. Far more than you might imagine. Too bad if knowing that shatters your illusions.

So, don’t let the lackadaisical marketing of my novels fool you. That’s a result of limited resource, not desire. Because I wouldn’t publish a word if I didn’t want it read by the whole damned world.

I sure don’t publish them to protest placing the demands of profit above the writer, either. As few know better, the terrible price of business failure.

My respect for the world’s few remaining publishers is therefore immense.

Anyway, despite the fiscal limits faced by every small shop, the underdog role has always appealed to me. Which is lucky, for one born on the wrong side of the tracks.

Besides, the truth is long shots come in all the time. Likewise, luck is a thing which happens when preparation meets opportunity. That, my friends, is why we play the games.

It’s also why most things are always within reach of all people. Both experience and books taught me that. In the same order, too, as near as I can tell.

That’s what I tell the owners of Solitary Press when explaining the failure of a novel to make the leap to the bestseller’s list. You know, while begging for a little more time to finish the next manuscript and take another shot.

For as usual, in these parts, we endeavour most to persevere.

So, until my luck shows up, I’m sticking with hard work and dedication.

Maybe that’s why I owe my greatest debt as a writer to Raymond Chandler, too. That’s how I see things, anyway.

Because I grounded what some call my matter-of-fact prose style in the hard-boiled detective novels he wrote in the thirties and forties. I first read them while still a boy.

School introduced me to many other novel writing giants, of course. In my day, we studied works by Conrad, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Steinbeck, among others. In time, I came to admire and appreciate their genius, too.

Years later, I read many of those same writers again, for pleasure, while living on the road. But I also reread many of Chandler’s detective novels. To my surprise, I enjoyed reading all of them as much again, if not more, than I had when doing it the first time.

For they had reassured me.

I understood something else, at last, too. What I had sought was to reflect the people and the times in which I lived. In a style both readable and unique to myself. Nothing else had ever mattered more to me than that.

For there live the immortals.

In their own way, each of those writers had done it. So too, then, must I.

The years of misery and privation were in pursuit of little more than one confounding, but simple goal. Despite a search of imposing length, as yet I haven’t found a better why to explain all this.

So, blame me for the literary aspirations. Likewise, blame the attempt to reflect our times using a minimalist and episodic vibe on me, too. I wanted most to combine the simple with the complex and make something just as good no matter how you came at it.

After all, there’s always more between the lines than meets the eye. You know, c’est la vie. Its theme is more often found in an oblique reference or a recurring motif than revealed by a direct statement.

Not only that, but books don’t come with instructions. Though all of them must make pictures appear in a reader’s head using nothing but words on a page.

While also delivering a message from an unknown to the anonymous.

The best of them somehow take you somewhere, too. No matter how many times you might read them. Most times, it’s to places you couldn’t have gone, while doing things you wouldn’t ever be able to do.

And, far more often than that, you’d rather imagine such things than live through them.

Well, that’s what I call magic. I found it there, between the pages of a book, when just a boy, living in a wilderness. Not much later, I made a deal with myself to devote my life to making more of it.

Since then, I’ve done my best to keep that promise.

For me, that’s enough.

Because I found my way, thanks to novels written by writers who died before I was born. And though we won’t ever meet, I hope to return their favour by doing the same for a writer I’ll never know.

To see how it’s going, click the cover embedded below here and enjoy a free sample.

So ends the latest rumination.

Before wrapping this one up, though, I must send a serious message. It’s for everyone who has ever bought one of my novels. Thank you. Your continued support makes it possible for me to keep writing. And that means more to me than most anything else, outside of family.

So, here, as well as there, I practice hoping to get better, so you can look forward to reading the next one. While I work at authoring more stories about forgotten people in obscure places who struggled for survival, and sometimes toward some dream of salvation, in our times.

I’m forever honoured to share these stories.

Until we meet again, thanks for being here, and for sharing this with anyone who might like to read it.

TFP

May 31, 2025