Tag Archives: writing

09.30.25
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Writers

Who is a writer? 

What is a writer? 

How does a writer come to be?

Does a writer spring full-bodied from the brow of Zeus, like Athena? Does a writer rise painfully from the sawdust of the arena floor, like Eric Hoffer? 

Are writers born, or made?

These things have been on my mind lately, perhaps because the Fall Conference of the Wisconsin Writers Association is about to convene in Stevens Point. I am on the program, offering a workshop modestly titled “A Bulletproof Beginning: Five Ways to Anchor Your Story in Urgency from Page One.”  I sure hope I know what I’m talking about.

But who are these people I’ll be meeting with? Folks a lot like me, only as different as different can be. You see, we all have our separate concerns and urgencies. 

I write about Norwegians, Greg Renz writes about firefighters, Bob Allen writes about fish, and Deb Farris writes about the promptings of the Spirit in the workings of her life.

So you see, we are all the same.

All I know is, writers write. 

Louisa May Alcott, the real-life model for Jo March. Public Domain.

We are those who write because we cannot not write.

Some, like Jo March and John-Boy Walton, scribble in notebooks from early childhood and sell their first work as teenagers. Others rumble quietly like dormant volcanoes, then erupt without warning in middle age. 

John-Boy with pen in hand. Public Domain.

My friend Greg Renz waited till retirement to novelize the experiences he had been processing over twenty-eight years as a Milwaukee firefighter. In those years, he told some of his stories informally on more than one occasion. 

I doubt anybody becomes a writer without a prelude of some kind. What warming-up exercises did Homer go through before composing twenty-seven thousand lines of dactyllic hexameter known as the Iliad and the Odyssey?

A Writer’s Odyssey

I, Your New Favorite Writer, set off on the yellow brick road of Literary Lionhood at age seventy. Notions long marinated in quaint bottles on the dusty shelves of my psyche spilled forth in written words, abruptly made manifest to all the world.

Like Jo, John-Boy, Homer, and Greg, I did not come to this calling completely cold. There was a detective story at the age of eight; a comic strip starring me as a cowboy, complete with sidekick, fighting bad guys; a seventh-grade essay on traffic safety, which won me a $25 savings bond—the first time I was paid for writing; plus news stories and feature articles for my high school paper.

In college, I became a radio thing. In the Air Force, I listened in on Chairman Mao’s flyboys and wrote down what they said—sometimes, even, wrote down what they meant to say.

Back in civilian life, after years of muddled career launches, I managed to burrow into the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs. This is the agency that oversees the state’s National Guard and its Emergency Management division. There, I served the adjutant general as a photographer, writer, and editor. 

When it came time to retire—and I was all for retirement—I still wanted to write. Some guys settle down to a life of golf or fishing or public service. I settled down to a last desperate effort to say what was on my mind.

I realized the truths I wanted to tell could best be told by fiction. Some say truth is stranger than fiction, but I think truth is the subject matter of fiction. There is no point in making up a story if it does not express what’s at the heart of the human experience. 

I found out it’s not all that easy. I’m still working on it. 

I’ve been working on it full time for almost ten years now. In that time, what have I learned?

  • I have learned you are more likely to be struck by lightning than to make any real money as a novelist. John Steinbeck said, “The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.” This seems a considerable understatement.
  • I have learned the Protagonist must protag.
  • I have learned that no matter what it is you ought to be writing, what you will write is what you are damned well determined to write, and that’s all there is to it.

Along the way, I have assembled enough words in a sufficiently plausible order to get two novels published—with the backing of actual, professional publishers—and am well along on the initial assemblage of words for a third. 

These marvels of modern literary science to not fly off the shelves and into the cash register of their own accord. Oh, no, Dear Reader: Each copy must be individually sold by the author in the flesh, at a bookstore or an arts and crafts fair. A few people might purchase them on the Internet, but those people are exceptions.

Go on, be an exception: Buy my books. 

But whether you buy them or not, rest assured I will go on writing them. 

I just can’t help myself.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

07.22.25
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Summum Discursum

William Bendix, left, canonized the line, “What a revoltin’ development this is!” on the 1950s sitcom The Life of Riley. Nervously clutching the banjo is Sterling Holloway. Publicity photo. Public Domain.

What a revoltin’ development this is!

Your New Favorite Writer’s thrills and chills of the past week have shaken loose a flurry of new notions–things I must share with you or burst–yet those same impacts, centering on major surgery in my lower spine, have left me wounded on the field, writhing in pain, unable to lift the flimsiest quill to set forth any manifestos.

Woe is me! Woe unto all in my estate: Popping with ideas and lacking any train of thought, any line of persistent expression, across which to festoon them.

I am reduced to hunting and pecking, upward from below, on a cell phone to string a concatenation of letters, one by one, hoping they will arrange themselves into words, and the words into thoughts and sentences, and it will all mean something while I lie spraddled on an ice pack.

Is it time for my next pill? Yes, please.

Next week, Dear Reader.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

02.18.25
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Huzzah!

I may have mentioned before now, Dear Reader, that the writer’s life is a lonely one.

Oh, sure, we are celebrated among our friends . . . if we have friends who are kind enough to celebrate us.

Gerrit Dou, Scholar Sharpening a Quill Pen. Public Domain.

We also confer among ourselves at writers’ conferences. We sit at the feet of masters and learn, if we can, a kind of self-mastery. We even may tip a tumbler or two, on such occasions. 

We have the usual allotment of spouses and children and dogs. 

So writers, as a group, are not existentially lonely. Most of us are not, at any rate.

But when it comes to writing—when we need to plot and craft and draft and re-plot and re-craft and re-draft a novel or any large work of fiction—that we do all by ourselves, in mental if not physical isolation. We may share a work in progress with colleagues: give glimpses, get feedback, gain perspective. But the actual doing of the thing is a solo gig. It’s just you and your keyboard in a room somewhere.

Thus, any victory merits a celebration. 

So it is with pride and joy I announce: Your New Favorite Writer has reached Mid-point on his current WIP (work in progress). Sorry to burden you with technical jargon, but nonetheless—HUZZAH! Please feel free to huzzah along with me.

What’s the Big Deal?

Thanks, I thought you’d never ask.

Aristotle. Public Domain.

Mid-point in a work of fiction is not merely halfway. It does not mean fifty percent of the work has been done. Perhaps the second half of the book will be much easier to write, or much harder, than the first half. 

Syd Field. Photo by thedemonhog, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Rather, the Mid-point, which always falls very near halfway through the pages, is where Something Momentous Happens. There is a major plot turn, visible or invisible, that makes the whole thing deeper and more important. The story shifts, the way a batch of fudge changes color in the pan just before it sets up into a new, delicious thing. 

This is not my imagination, Gentle Reader. You could look it up. Any number of gurus have told us about it, from Aristotle onwards. Pick up a copy of Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, by Syd Field (1935-2013). Mr. Field was one of the first to put the how-to of screenwriting into a book, so that anybody could do it. 

Charles Dickens. Public Domain.

Well, not just anybody. You have to also be a certifiable lunatic.

Actor-director Roberto Benigni, creator of Life Is Beautiful. Photo by Harald Krichel, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

But I digress. The point is, there is a fundamental dramatic structure that almost all good stories have. A beginning, a middle, and an end. Sometimes we call them Acts I, II, and III. There are vivid plot points that kick off the action (Inciting Incident), shift it into gear (Break into Act II), change the whole picture (Mid-point), set up the final confrontation (Break into Act III), and resolve the story (Climax). There are numerous lesser turns as well.

The all-important Mid-point signals a shift in tone, emphasis, and import of the story. That shift can be quite stark, as in the Italian film Life is Beautiful (1997), or more subtle, as in Charles Dickens’s novella A Christmas Carol (1843). But it has to be there, or the story resembles an uncooked fish, several days old.

Therefore I celebrate the conquest of the Mid-point.

So What?

Your New Favorite Writer has written two novels that are currently in print, The Price of Passage and Izzy Strikes Gold! Both were very hard to write. I have been at work for some time on my third—a twentieth century historical novel that goes by the working title Brother’s Blood. It’s about two brothers who find themselves at odds but have no opportunity to fully reconcile before the Second World War sends them off in different directions. 

This one is hard to write, too. But writing the first two, as well as several unproduced screenplays, taught me a few things. Especially how important the first act is. Famed writer-director Billy Wilder said, “If you have a problem in the third act, your problem is in the first act.” What he meant is that you need to set the stage fully and exquisitely in the first one-quarter of the work (Act I), so that all kinds of situations and relationships established at the start can then pay off in satisfying ways as the rest of the story (Acts II and III) unfolds. 

Writers often talk about a character coming to life and taking the story off in an unexpected direction. It is delightful when this happens. But in a way, it’s even more satisfying when the underlying logic of the story—the line of development that flows from all the details you have packed into Act I—forces an unavoidable realignment of meaning at the Mid-point, and the rest of the story snowballs to an irresistible end from that point. 

I’ve been laboring mightily over Act I: Writing, re-writing, changing, re-adjusting to get a number of rather ordinary yet secretly powerful ingredients into the story. And I’ve launched into the wilds of Act II, grinding away at just marshaling the facts of the characters’ lives, when ALL OF A SUDDEN, SHAZAM! A major plot event, one which I did not see coming, elbows its way into the story. Right at the halfway point. It’s an event I’m not at all happy with—and you Dear Reader, may not like it either—but it shoves the invisible river of narrative into a swifter and deeper channel. There is no help for it. We must go there. 

I can’t wait to write the rest of the book.

Note: It would be very helpful at this point, no doubt, to give you a more specific idea of what happens in the book. I can’t do that. Major SPOILERS would be involved. All I can say is: look for it in a year or two, possibly by a different title, wherever fine books are sold. 

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

07.16.24
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Keep Writing

Dear Reader: My second novel—a coming-of-age story set in the 1950s, called Izzy Strikes Gold!—will be released on Wednesday, July 24. Publishing a book requires many preparations on the part of publisher and author, who ideally work together hand in hand. Fortunately, I have an excellent publisher, Kira Henschel of Three Towers Press.

Be that as it may, the demands of publishing and selling a book do not exempt an author from Step 2 of my widely-heralded “Six Simple Steps to Literary Lionhood,” namely: WRITE.

The simplest, most accurate definition of a writer is “one who writes.” 

Publicizing is not writing, even though it involves some sales-oriented writing. Selling is not writing, even though trhe product you are selling is what you have written.

Two or three months ago I was purring along like a literary machine, cranking out pages and chapters of first draft on my work-in-progress, a World War II novel. But as Izzy’s publication date drew near, the detailed plans for getting this already-written book into print and onto buyers’ bookshelves began to suck up all my time and attention.

It was a relief to take time out last week for coffee with my friend Mary Behan—the wonderful author of Abbey Girls, A Measured Thread, and Finding Isobel. (Rush right out and buy them, or put them on hold at your favorite lending library. You’ll be glad you did!) 

Mary reminded me that we are, first of all, writers. She mentioned a writers’ book called What About the Baby—Some Thoughts on Fiction, by Alice McDermott, a National Book Award Winner. So I rushed right out and got it. So far I’m about two-thirds of the way through.

Alice McDermott says thoughtful, even profound, things about the art of writing fiction. Her main message is that you have to get deeply and passionately into writing down those words of which your story is made. You may do other wonderful things—research, editing, or just thinking—but writing is what gets you where you want to go. It brings to life the wonder and delight of a story well told—a story you didn’t even know you had in you.

That’s really why we write, after all. For that thrill.

I was so inspired I picked up my laptop keyboard and rapped out a new chapter of my WWII novel, which I have duly sent to the members of my two writing critique groups, who will give me feedback this week. 

It’s good to be back in the saddle again, pardner.

By the way—if you cannot attend the fabulous Launch Party for the book Izzy Strikes Gold!, may I cordially invite you to follow along on the livestream via Crowdcast, at this link. If you find you can attend, there may still be a ticket or two left.

See you there.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

03.05.24
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Holy Ground

In the Old Testament Book of Exodus, God revealed himself to a man named Moses in the semblance of a burning bush. Moses thought it odd that although the bush was aflame, it was not consumed by the fire. So he decided to take a closer look.

Landscape with Moses and the Burning Bush (1610–16) by Domenichino (Italian, 1581-1641). Public Domain.

When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” 

And he said, “Here I am.” 

Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

—Exodus 3:4-5, New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition 

One must not go shod, you see, on holy ground.

Writing a Sermon

Dear Reader, you already know Your New Favorite Writer is . . . a writer.

I’ve written many things: Utilitarian items like training manuals, instructions, official reports, news releases, magazine articles, photo captions, even the occasional speech. Literary products like poems, screenplays, short stories, and novels. Desultory or occasional outbursts like this blog.

You may be unaware that I also write sermons. I don’t mean sermons in a figurative sense, like “Did you see Larry’s rant about civil public discourse last Tuesday? It was a regular sermon!” 

No, I mean actual sermons. I sometimes preach on a Sunday morning, because I am a lay preacher in the Congregational tradition. Some denominations only allow ordained clergy to preach, but in our chuches, official credentials are not necessarily required. It’s more about being called to preach the Gospel.

A local church may be deprived of its regular preacher for a time. My name is on a list of people who may be called to fill in. This week I am readying a sermon to be preached in a small town a couple of Sundays from now. 

Sermon writing is not like any other kind of writing. It’s not just that it must be from the heart; all good writing should come from one’s heart. It’s not even, exactly, that it’s informed by the Spirit of God; I like to think the Holy Spirit is there somehow in everything I do. 

But mainly, this is writing produced on commission for a Very Special Customer. When writing a sermon, and when delivering it, one stands in the presence of God. One ought to go barefoot.

The Homiletic Tradition

Some preachers, taking a cue from Exodus 3, go so far as to stand barefoot, or stockingfooted, in the pulpit when preaching on Sunday morning. (They do! You could look it up.)

Some preachers don’t even write their sermons down—convinced, as a theological tenet, that when preaching, they must simply be a spontaneous instrument, tuned in to God’s frequency. The Almighty will put words in their mouths at the right time. And He always does. Almost all of those whose preaching is completely spontaneous also spend a great deal of time reading Scripture. When God gives them a message on the spur of the moment, Bible verses are automatically embedded in it.

George Whitefield. Engraved by J. Cochran, 1877. Public Domain.
Jonathan Edwards, mezzotint print from Welsh Portrait Collection. Public Domain.

Methodist evangelist George Whitefield (1714-1770) made up his sermons on the spot. Congregationalist cleric Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) mostly wrote his out in advance.

I, like Edwards, write my sermons. I write what I want to say, so that when it comes time to say it, I will remember what it was I wanted to say. A revelation is neither more nor less divine for having been written on paper before it is spoken.

Authenticity

“All well and good, O New Favorite Writer,” I hear you cry—“but how do you get the divine part in, in the first place? How do you know that you are preaching what God wants people to hear? Or are you merely an unshod charlatan, after all?” 

I am glad you asked, Gentle Reader. 

I think my sermons have some spiritual validity because I start from the Bible. When preachers write sermons, there are generally two different ways of “starting from the Bible”:

1. Refer to the lectionary. The lectionary is a table that associates a set of scripture passages with each Sunday of the year. It was worked out, many years ago, by clergy who wanted a systematic way for a congregation to work through large parts of the Bible over a three-year period. So the lectionary repeats itself every three years. And its pattern is complicated. But it’s all written down, so on any given Sunday, you can easily find out what the readings are. In some chuches, use of the lectionary is law; in others, it’s a respected tradition. Still others disregard the lectionary entirely.

2. Use some other method. You simply choose a Bible verse to preach about. You may pray to God for a passage of Scripture to be sent to you. You may reflect on something important the congregation ought to hear, and your reflections may put you in mind of something from the Bible. You may don a blindfold, open the Bible to a random page, put your finger down on the page, take off the blindfold, and see what you’re going to preach on. Any of these methods, or others, can work; any of them can be useful if you are preaching in a church that does not use the lectionary but prefers to leave the choice of text to the preacher.

Which method do I use? Sometimes one, sometimes the other. Mostly it depends on the local custom of the church I’m addressing. If they love the lectionary, far be it from me to disturb their idyll; I’ll simply preach on the lectionary text. If they are lectionary-independent, I will find a verse on my own.

Writing a sermon. Photo by Matt Botsford on Unsplash.

More important than the specific verse chosen is the approach and attitude of the preacher. This brings us back to the burning bush, and the sandals. When preaching a sermon, one stands quite consciously in the presence of God. It is presumptuous to speak a word purporting to be God’s word, when in the actual presence of God. The only approopriate attitude is humility, whether one shucks one’s oxfords or not.

So when starting to write, before I open the Book to the verse chosen, I first pray to God that a new understanding of the verse may be sent through the Holy Spirit. That’s a good approach. If you pray thus, and pray sincerely, something interesting and useful will pop off the page and into  your consciousness. Then it’s just a matter of writing it down.

Chutzpah

What gives one the sheer, gosh-awful audacity to write messages on behalf of God, for delivery to God’s people? 

While God was speaking to Moses from the burning bush, he commissioned Moses to go to the pharaoh of Egypt and liberate the Children of Israel held in thrall there. And Moses said, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” And God said, “I will be with you.” 

But Moses continued to demur. His Impostor Syndrome prompted this plea: “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” And God replied, “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.” (Exodus 4:10-12, New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition.) 

There are many more examples of people wholly unqualified to speak for God, who have been commissioned by God to do so anyway. 

The Bottom Line

I have received the gift of writing. I believe in the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and someone has to speak to his people on Sunday mornings. So here I am, Lord: Send me.

After all, nobody’s perfect.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

04.04.23
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Woman River

Last fall, I attended the Wisconsin Writers Association’s annual conference, which was held in Superior. 

Doug Lewandowski, a Duluth writer, introduced himself and told me about his book—a collection of related short stories about people and events in a small Minnesota town called Woman River. He was rather low-key and matter-of-fact about the book. He gave me a copy, free of charge. I promised I would take it home and read it.

Time went by. 

You have no idea, Dear Reader, how many books I feel compelled to read—not only for my own enjoyment, but also in pursuit of my literary career. Woman River went to the bottom of my pile. Finally last week—about six months after Doug gave me the book—it reached the top of my pile.

POW! Take that, O smug, self-satisfied one-book wonder who brashly claims to be “Your New Favorite Writer”! 

I was, as the Brits would say, gobsmacked.

Let me belatedly assure you Gentle Reader: Doug Lewandowski is the real McCoy. Woman River is a great book. I wish I could write like that.

So I’m passing this recommendation along to all my friends. Get hold of a copy of Doug Lewandowski’s Woman River and read it. You won’t be disappointed.

Here’s the review I posted on Goodreads.com a day or two after finishing the book:

The town of Woman River is filled with flawed people. They mostly smoke Luckies and drink Hamm’s beer—but it’s 1959, so that’s pretty normal. None of them sought to be flawed, but all of them want love. And—in a small but difficult miracle arranged by author Doug Lewandowski—we the reader get to see their love bulging from every wound and pressure point. 

The book is a great affirmation of life with all its worries. One comes away feeling this is what writing is for. 

Woman River is a novella built of short stories, each related to all the others as the varied residents are bound to one another by ties of affection, loyalty, and eternity. 

A young farmer recoiling from a failed marriage pits his stern father against his lifegiving lover. The innkeeping couple face a dread illness with stoic devotion. The local pariah and the capable police chief share an affliction of combat stress. The town’s ethos revolves around its church, which comforts and challenges in equal measure. The priest clings to his precepts while falling under the spell of his gracious housekeeper, who must choose her own destiny. 

The text could use a bit of proofreading, but the narrative is sure, deep, and compelling. As Midwest regional literature, this book might be compared to Nickolas Butler’s Shotgun Lovesongs, Michael Perry’s Pop. 485, or the works of the late David Rhodes. But I almost feel it’s the book Steinbeck would have written, rather than Tortilla Flat or Cannery Row, had he grown up in Minnesota, not California.

You should read Woman River. Don’t miss out on great writing.

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I mean it. Read Woman River. You’ll be glad you did.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

Author of Price of Passage—A Tale of Immigration and Liberation.

Price of Passage 

Norwegian Farmers and Fugitive Slaves in Pre-Civil War Illinois 

FREE FOUR-CHAPTER PREVIEW!

(History is not what you thought.)

02.17.23
by

Writing a Historical Novel

Dear Reader: This is a Friday Reprise of material originally posted on 28 May 2019. It’s amusing to read it now, because when this was written, I thought the book was done. I had no idea! At any rate, hope you enjoy the retrospective.

Three and a half years ago, in January 2016, I retired from other pursuits so I could try to write fictional stories that other people would like to read. 

Coastal village in Norway. “Enligt AB Flygtrafik Bengtsfors: ‘Havstenssund’.” by G. AB Flygtrafik Bengtsfors / Bohusläns museum is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 

After a few small success with short stories, I got the idea to write a historical novel based on my ancestors Anders Gunstensen and Maria Nybro, who came to Illinois from Norway in the 1850s. We had scant information about their lives—a few dates,  places, and milestones—not much more. Not enough real knowledge to support a detailed, book-length factual account of their lives—even if I had wanted to write one. But what I actually wanted was to use the bare facts as a framework on which to hang a made-up story, through which we might discover the world in which they lived.

I spent more than six months on the trail of Anders and Maria. I struggled to imagine a plot around the known and unearthed events of their lives that would make a good fictional story, yet would not much distort the known facts. At last, early in 2017, I began to write text. 

Me writing.

The first draft of this novel, Freedom’s Purchase, took more than a year to write, at a steady rate of 1,500 to 2,000 words per week.This time also included research “on the fly” to support the detailed demands of particular scenes in the story.

My writing process is iterative. Contrary to what many great writers recommend, I invest a lot of time and effort, while laying down the first draft, in simultaneously revising passages already written. So by June 2018, when I finished the “first draft” of the novel, it was really anywhere between a fifth and a fifteenth draft, depending which part of the book you’re looking at. 

I loved my book so much that I started to query agents, seeking a traditional publication contract. After nine months, I felt a bit stymied. At the UW-Madison Writers’ Institute in April 2019, I asked Laurie Scheer about this. She said, “How many agents have you queried so far?” I said, “Thirty or forty.” She guffawed. “Try three hundred!” she said. 

Discouraged? On the contrary, I found myself reassured. The problem was not necessarily with my book; only that the literary market is tough to crack. However, that very reassurance gave me the freedom to consider the niggling little thought that if the manuscript itself were a bit better, that would make it easier for agents to see its merit. Perhaps a hundred fifty queries would be enough to do the trick!

My other friend in the UW Writers’ program, Christine DeSmet, read my first ten pages—the most important part of any book for making a first impression—and gave me very useful feedback. Her comments showed me how I could make the first chapter not a little better—rather, a whole lot better. So I did. But Christine also recommended dissecting the whole book scene by scene, then improving each scene as needed. I blanched at the thought. I decided to do it anyway.

Toward a Smashing Second Draft

I spent the whole next month just reading my book. I analyzed 159 separate scenes; I wrote down the overall purpose of each scene, its setting, its characters, their goals, their conflicts, the resolution of those conflicts, and the particular moments of dramatic change. This yielded an analytical document 54 pages long.

So now, I revisit each scene to fix the problems that have shown themselves through this process of analysis. A huge task. Yet, not enough.

After I work my way through a chapter of scenes, I do the next step, suggested by another friend, Tracey Gemmell, author of More or Less Annie, and other members of my Tuesday evening writers’ group. In Microsoft Word, I search for every “ly” in the chapter (many of these turn out to be adverbs); for every “ing” (present progressives, present participles, gerunds); for every “and,” “or,” and “but” (conjunctions); for every “is,” “are,”  “was,” and “were” (verbs of being); for every “saw,” “heard,” “knew,” “felt,” “smelled,” and “tasted” (“filter” words). Then, I re-read the chapter in search of introductory time phrases or other introductory adverbial constructions. 

That step is a lot of work, too.

Not that there is anything wrong with adverbs, a progressive verbs, passive constructions, conjunctions, or introductory adverbial expressions. All those things have their places in effective prose. But they can become crutches that allow us to write gimpy narrative, when overused. By considering each occurrence in isolation, one often finds a more vivid and robust way—a less distanced, less stand-offish way—to say what one meant to say. If you change even a quarter of those expressions to more powerful constructions, it’s worth the effort. 

By the end of this process, I’ll have a book more worthy of readers’ time and attention. And, perhaps, a traditional publishing contract.

Stay tuned, dear readers.  

Larry F. Sommers, Your New Favorite Author

Author of Price of Passage—A Tale of Immigration and Liberation.

Price of Passage

Norwegian Farmers and Fugitive Slaves in Pre-Civil War Illinois

BUY NOW

(History is not what you thought!)

09.27.22
by

Mountain Climbing

I started to climb a mountain, but I did not know how high it was. 

Denali. National Park Service photo by Albert Herring. Public Domain.

I wrote a story when I was in third grade. I’ve always been good at words, at ease with grammar, fascinated by the process of converting thoughts into sentences.

When young I thought it would be swell to be a writer. I made a few attempts at writing novels and short stories, but do you know what? 

It was too hard. I moved on to something else.

Besides, there was life to be lived. There was a war. There was college. There was marriage. There was a child. There were dogs—an endless parade of dogs, down to the present day.

At length, I ran out of excuses.

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I began to look again at writing a novel. I’m a talented writer. How hard could it be?

At first it was great fun, tramping steadily uphill, writing page after page, chapter after chapter. 

Then, it was challenging—revising, rewriting, and refining those early drafts. 

I finished the book and rejoiced. That hadn’t been so hard after all. The mountain was only a hill. 

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But I wanted it published. I wanted a traditional, royalty-paying publication contract from a traditional, royalty-paying publisher. How hard could it be? 

I sent it to agents. I sent it to independent publishers.

No agents responded. One independent publisher offered a contract; but it was a poor contract, and the publisher’s emails put me off. I turned it down.

Two more publishers agreed to read my full manuscript. Both of them sent back polite rejections, each with two or three sentences of what was wrong with the book. Triangulating their comments, I achieved a sudden, shattering insight. 

My book was not good enough. 

The mountain was higher than I thought.

#

I could see a way the book might be improved to meet the objections of the two publishers who had given me comments. But it would require another year or more of work, because the story had to be completely rewritten, turned inside out, major sections added and formerly important material subtracted.

I was not sure I could do it. An angel (Christine DeSmet) whispered in my ear, “Yes, you can.”

A year later, Dan Willis of DX Varos Publishing bought a vastly improved book.

Finally, it was good enough.

The mountain had been higher than I thought.

#

Why do I tell you this?

Because I learned a lesson, and it is one you might take to heart, whatever personal challenge it is that you are facing. 

The work needs to be really good. You must reach down deep inside yourself and use all your resources. The mountain you must climb is higher, and more difficult, than you could have imagined when you started out.

But the thrill of achievement when you reach the summit is worth every bit of effort and courage that it took. 

Immediately, you are given another mountain to climb: A mountain of publicity and recognition. A mountain of public indifference that must be overcome. 

If the first mountain was worth the climb, so the second mountain will be also.

But higher. 

You will never get to the top if you don’t start.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

06.07.22
by

The Wellspring

Public Domain.

I have dragged myself out of bed after midnight on a good sleeping night—one of those rain-blessed nights when you hear the tap and drizzle of the storm just outside the window—because this musing has come to me. 

If I wait till morning, I’ll lose it.

It’s a message for you, Dear Reader, about creativity.

Maybe you have thought you would like to write something. Something true from your life and experience, be it written as fact or fiction. Something you might share with your children, your grandchildren, or the world. 

But you have answered yourself: “No. I’m no writer.” 

Or maybe: “No. I’d start and then not know where to go from there. I’d get writer’s block.” 

But before you give up on the idea, consider my case. I resolved six years ago to start the writing career I had always promised myself. I knew not what I would write, nor how. But there was something inside me that had to come out. Surely if I gave it a whirl, something would turn up.

So I plunged in.

Are you still with me, Gentle Reader? Just plunging in is not unheard-of. People do it. You could plunge in, too—if you so chose.

Early Scores

When I plunged in, I wanted to write about the past—the place where I spend most of my time. But the first thing that came to me—it came in a dream one night—was a brief, whimsical character study of Skeezie, our woebegone old Siberian husky. I sent it to Fetch! magazine—“For dogs and their humans”—and they bought it. 

What a morale booster! But it was an isolated victory, something of a fluke. I buckled down to my real aim of writing about the past. I wrote short stories about a young boy named Izzy Mahler, growing up in the ’Fifties. I submitted one to The Saturday Evening Post, and they published it in their online edition.

Wow, another fluke. 

Over the next couple of years, the Post bought a couple more Izzy Mahler stories (here and here).

Getting Serious

But I wanted something more.  I hankered to write a novel. My wife, Jo, had unearthed my Norwegian ancestors, and the framework of their lives, as shown by her research, suggested the beginnings of a plot.

Plunging in is fine, Cherished Reader, but I craved a surer sense of what I was about. What kind of Pandora’s box would I open if I embarked on a novel? So I signed up for the University of Wisconsin–Extension’s “Write By The Lake” conference in the summer of 2016. There, the inimitable Laurie Scheer encouraged me to go ahead and write my “immigrant novel.”

So I plunged in. Does this suggest any writing strategy to you, Dear Reader?

I wrote most of the novel on my laptop but part of it in longhand in a notebook I took with me to a church meeting in 2017. I recruited volunteer beta readers to read my work and give feedback.

Sensing I was in over my head, I joined Tuesdays With Story, a writers’ mutual critique group led by Jerry Peterson of Janesville, Wisconsin. Jerry is an author with plenty of publication credits, a master of great stories. When I showed my early chapters to the group, I had to swallow a lot of guff arising from amateurism in my writing. It was galling, Dear Reader—but I could not ignore the truth in the critiques. 

My writing started to get better.

We talked a lot in the group about “writer platforms,” about one’s “social media presence,” about “blogs” and “podcasts.” It seemed you had to do that stuff to be successful. My heart screamed, “No! No! No! Here I am trying to burrow into the past, and you’re trying to shove me into some godforsaken future. I won’t go!”

But at some point in those discussions, Jerry said, “Well, instead of thinking of a blog as something to promote your writing, you might look at a blog as being your writing—at least, part of it. If nothing else, it’s a chance to write something and get it in front of the public, on your own terms.”

To Blog, or Not to Blog: That Is the Question

It was an agonizing decision. For a blog to be worth doing, it ought to be posted regularly, maybe as often as once a week. I would have to spend a lot of my precious time composing and posting blog entries. 

I had heard somebody say, “It’s easy. Just rattle off something and post it. A few minutes a week.” But I could never do that. Why would I put something into the world under my name that was not carefully written? Pondered? Revised? Crafted? To do so would be the opposite of what I was trying to do. If I was going to start a blog, the entries needed to be high in quality.

That meant significant time spent each week, and that would cut into my novel writing time. Besides—where would I come up with all the material needed for a weekly blog post?

I’m hearing an echo now, Kind Reader, as you murmur, “What if I tried to write something? Where would I get the content?”

Well, I’ll tell you what Your New Favorite Writer did.

I plunged in. Here we go again. Do you see a pattern?

Since April 2019, I have posted 164 blog entries. What you are reading now will be Number 165. I have posted almost every week, usually on Tuesday morning. I have written about my grandmother’s postcard collection, the Springfield race riot of 1907, the losses of two of my uncles in World War II, General Grant, the onset of autumn in Wisconsin, the craziness of coping with COVID, how to use a chainsaw, the philosophical reflections of Milo Bung (a direct descendant of Æthelred the Unready and fourth cousin to Slats Grobnik) and more than a hundred other topics. I have even posted a few not-quite-ready-for-prime-time short stories. 

Where did all that content come from? 

All I can say is, there’s always something. I never run dry.

Wellspring of Creativity

That’s my message to you, Fair Reader: There’s always something. When you start to create, you reach down into some magical place, where there’s always more stuff ready to bubble forth. As soon as you take some out and write it down, more wells up to take its place. 

I think of it as a wellspring of creativity. I’ve spoken to other writers, and I’m assured the situation is the same in all other kinds of artistic endeavors: The more you produce, the more there is to draw from.

You can never run out. There’s a wellspring of creativity inside you.

I’m not talking about Creation. That would be presumptuous. In my theology, only God creates. The best we can do is recombine elements of that primordial Creation in new ways. That’s not Creation—but it is creativity. Somehow, when we do this kind of work, we participate in God’s creative work. 

Yes, Distinguished Reader. I’m saying it’s a Divine Calling.

Ignore it at your peril.

Despite the time and effort required for the weekly blog post, I have completed and sold an epic novel, due to be published August 23. I have a middle-grades novel for which I’ll soon be seeking a publisher. And there are other projects in the works, which I’m not ready to talk about yet.

The more you dip out, the more comes in to take its place. 

You might think about trying it, too, Dear Reader. 

Just plunge in. You have but to stretch forth your hand.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers, Your New Favorite Writer

Price of Passage

Norwegian Farmers and Fugitive Slaves in Pre-Civil War Illinois

BUY NOW

(History is not what you thought!)

02.15.22
by

Taking Stock

Maybe, Dear Reader, you’ve been wondering what Your New Favorite Writer’s quixotic quest for literary lionhood amounts to. 

Let’s take stock.

Just over six years ago, in January 2016, I undertook to be a full-time writer of fiction, after a lifetime of doing . . . well, other things. 

In that six years, what have I accomplished?

  • Wrote a character profile of my superannuated Siberian husky and got it published in Fetch! magazine.
  • Wrote three “Izzy Mahler” short stories published by the Saturday Evening Post. The first two were published online as part of the Post’s New Fiction Friday series (here and here); the third won Honorable Mention in the 2018 Great American Fiction Contest and was published in the e-book anthology for that year’s contest.
  • Joined a monthly writers’ mutual critique group, Tuesdays With Story, and became a regular contributor in its proceedings. This interaction with my writing colleagues, more than anything else, has helped me learn to write fiction.
  • Attended the 2018 and 2019 University of Wisconsin–Extension Writers’ Institutes, fabulous conferences where I learned a great deal about writing, the publishing world, and the writers’ tribe. I signed up for the 2020 Writers’ Institute as well, but then COVID hit, deep-sixing that very valuable annual event for 2020 and ever after. On the bright side, I plan to attend a similar conference in Chicago soon.
  • Wrote an 83,000-word historical novel, The Maelstrom, which is being considered for publication by two different independent publishers. I plan to continue querying and submitting this work until I find a publisher.
  • Wrote a 41,000-word middle-grades novel, The Mulberry Rocket Ship, on behalf of which I am about to begin querying agents and publishers. 
  • Have begun the first draft of a book-length personal memoir—tentative title: Reconnaissance: A Debriefing. I’ll keep you posted on that, Dear Reader, as it develops. 
  • Have written more than a dozen short stories, which I consider “not ready for prime time.”
  • And in April 2019 I created this blog to share my thoughts, aspirations, struggles, whimsies, and literary creations—all around the theme of “seeking fresh meanings in our commmon past.” I have usually posted once a week, with only a few misses. 

So, as you can see, I have been busy the past six years with my new writing career. And I have accomplished a great deal.

In case you’re wondering why there is not a published book, or more than one published book, to show for all these efforts, I must say: Have patience, Gentle Reader. We’ll get there. 

Rome was not built in a day, nor Parnassus climbed in a similar timespan. Six years is but the twinkling of an eye in the Lit Biz.

You may know people who have already published their novels. Chances are, most of them are self-published. That’s wonderful. It means you can read their work earlier. 

Self-publication is a great thing. It allows authors to get their work in print sooner by skipping the traditional publishing industry process.

Van Gogh

I have chosen a different path, because there are only so many years ahead, and I have a lot to say.

The task of learning to write well and getting some things into decent form is so all-consuming that I cannot take time off to become a publisher as well. 

I will just have to write the best I can and try to connect with a traditional publisher. 

Remember, Emily Dickinson’s poems were all published after her death. Vincent Van Gogh never sold a painting in his life. All of his critical and popular success were posthumous. If I should shuffle off this mortal coil before any book is published, at least I will have written as much, and as well, as I can. And I, for one, will still have both ears.

But fear not, Dear Reader. You may yet get a chance to purchase a deluxe edition of my works for yourself, not to mention extra copies for all your friends and family members. They will make excellent Christmas gifts.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers, Your New Favorite Writer

Author of Price of Passage—A Tale of Immigration and Liberation.

Price of Passage

Norwegian Farmers and Fugitive Slaves in Pre-Civil War Illinois

BUY NOW

(History is not what you thought!)