Turns out, it was a good thing I put the new blog website on the Facebook page. My ever curious relative, who does not like to be identified in this blog, went to the website page and found a blank “this ain’t here” message. Fortunately, the message also had a link to the blog, so he could get to read my brilliant and possibly insane ramblings. But he pointed out the glitch to me.
Turns out I forgot to push the all-important “publish” button on the home page. I believe I took care of the problem this morning. I’m sure I’ll hear about it if I didn’t.
I would plead age for my error–I’m 64–but the relative who pointed out the problem is older than I am. Of course, that relative is far more computer savvy than I. Which is a good thing. I would otherwise have not discovered that revoltin’ development and would go on blithely posting blogs that most people would not be able to read.
So here we are. 2021. How you like it so far? I will not explore politics here because, frankly, we are inundated with politics these days. But I started the year with a new client yesterday, which gave me half of what I need to pull in for the month. So I’m liking the new girl on the block lots and lots.
Also, Sunday I finally finished the rough draft on “Minerva James and the God of War.” I think you’ll like the book. The novel gave me room to deepen the characters, explore the issues of racial inequality circa 1962, and talk about how officers never see enlisted men as equals because they’re taught to disdain such persons. I enlisted in the US Air Force in 1974 and have first hand knowledge.
I’d like to say, though, that I redeemed the somewhat obnoxious officer character at the end. You’ll have to read the book to see what I mean.
Ah, yes, reading the book. The next step is to create a synopsis (which is the most tedious and difficult part of getting a book to proposal stage) and then to draft an agent letter to attract someone who will work to get Minerva out there.
In the agent letters, writers are encouraged to make comparisons to cultural icons. So in the case of Minerva, I will be forced (forced, I tells ya) to say something silly like “It’s Perry Mason meets Wonder Woman.”
Except, it sort of is Perry Mason meets Wonder Woman. As you who have read the story in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, remember from the Black Orchid Novella Award story, “Minerva James and the Goddess of Justice,” Minerva James is a woman attorney in 1962 Sacramento known as “the witch of L Street” because of her remarkable ability to win criminal cases. In truth, she has the mind of Sherlock Holmes and the mystique of a Roman goddess. The narrator, Private Investigator Carson Robinson, says in one story “I wasn’t in love with her but I did worship her.”
So yeah, Perry Mason meets Wonder Woman fits.
Of course, the novel will need to be revised a bit before it’s fit to see the light of day. But I will work on that while I try to get an agent interested.
Last year, as I told you in another blog, I wrote 4 book-length manuscripts. It wasn’t because I was stuck at home due to the Covid. In fact, my law practice continued to be busy enough to keep me in the office most days. The remarkable output was due merely to getting four different book-length ideas to want to develop. I think three of them are publishable. The fourth, a comic political mystery in which a president is found dead in front of his desk with his pants around his knees, leaving the vice-president to run the country and solve the mystery (when asked how the dead president was found, he solemnly tells reporters “He was doing the People’s business,”) but the main character is a sort of more tolerable version of the last president we had. He’s loud, he’s blunt, he likes to make jokes. I figure this is not the time for this book.
The other three, though, have potential. I am leading with Minerva because she’s the girl who brought me to the dance. Seven Minerva stories have been accepted for publication. I think that’s a pretty good track record.
So, dear reader (and I use the singular because, so far as I know, there’s only one person reading this blog), we begin the second part of the adventure. Let’s see where it leads.
Mark Bruce, Writer 