The Writer's Life 1/19 - 5 Cents

NFL: The weekend went as expected, all four home teams winning. New England seems healed, so I expect them to prevail next week in Denver, where Brady and Manning will square off for the 18th time. Brady has the overall lead by a wide margin, but they are 2-2 in the playoffs... The Arizona-Carolina matchup is fresh and unpredictable, which is good. I'm rooting for the Cards. Must be the red & white, which our players wore when I coached at my lama mater, Lafayette H.S.... Yesterday, Broncos' kicker Brandon McManus tied a league playoff record by hitting all five of his field goal attempts, despite a tricky crosswind. After the game he offered one of the all-time great sports quotes: "...aimed at the guy holding a beer in the top left corner."

Analysis by Alcoholic.org found that in the past decade 18% of the pedestrians killed by vehicles were drunk. I wonder what the percentage is among those staring at electronic devices, or old folks crossing just as a light is about to turn red.

The cold and stiff wind put the kibosh on the floating book shop today, and likely will do so again tomorrow. Fortunately, I will now have enough to do should a long stretch of harsh winter weather kick in. When the evil forces that hacked my computer somehow ruined my SanDisk backup device, I had all the essentials on it but one at other places. The file of my first novel, Five Cents, which I reworked several years ago, paring it more than half from its original 634 page hard copy manuscript, was lost. The other three of my as yet unpublished novels require only standard editing. I saved them at Google Docs. Why I didn't do that for Five Cents is beyond me, especially since I'd put so much work into the rewrite? Well, I began the process this afternoon, doing the first ten pages. I'll try to do ten pages each day the weather keeps me indoors, five on the days I sell books. I probably should do no reading during this period, but I just started a novel and I'm the type of guy who almost always finishes what he starts. The rewrite will not be boring. I was 25 when I first began the book, quietly full of myself, certain I understood life, and it shows. The novel is chock full of opinions and probably all demonstrate a liberal bias. I hope it will wind up straight down the middle, neutral. I want it to be about life, not politics. It will not be as explicit sexually as it was. I used to think being frank made it more real. I now believe a writer, unless he/she is specifically writing erotica, should leave sex to its best tool -- the imagination. Back then, it was also an outlet for my frustrations on the carnal front. Anyway, the novel is about a man's last day in Vietnam and his adjustment to civilian life. It will not be the Hollywood image of the Vietnam vet as a basket case ready to explode in an orgy of violence. I'm not a veteran, but the Vietnam War was arguably the second largest issue regarding people my age, since supplanted by the sexual revolution, which is ongoing. I'm toying with the idea of a subtitle: A Love Story, although I fear fans of romance might misinterpret it. I do hope the phrase would attract attention, but I wouldn't want to be lumped in a specific category. The title refers to how the couple met, but also is a play on words regarding the senses, which become diminished through time, sometimes prematurely through abuse or accident. Life being the wonder that it is, I spotted a shiny new nickel as I was setting up shop yesterday in Park Slope.

Vic's Short Works: http://tinyurl.com/jy55pzc

Vic's 5th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/okxkwh5Vic's 4th novel: tinyurl.com/bszwlxh

Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3

Vic's Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
Vic's Short Story Collection: http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tiny.cc/0iHLb Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kx3d3uf
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tinyurl.com/l84h63j

Website: http://vicfortezzaauthor.my-free.website/