THE SATURDAY EVENING POST: NOT QUITE AS I PLEASE

I haven't done a "Saturday Evening Post" in a good long while. To be frank, my schedule hasn't permitted me to put out two blogs a week in longer than I can remember. Such is the life of an independent author: you juggle the writing and the revising and the podcasts and unpaid speaking gigs and all the other things you want to do with all the rest of the things you have to do...like hold down a job. I know, I know: me and the rest of the world. Still, it does seem sometimes as if I'm rather like Frank Cotton at the end of Hellraiser...getting pulled into many directions at once. With hooks. On this Memorial Day weekend, however, I actually do have time to relax a little and enjoy life. I will put out a short Thank You to the fallen who allowed this through their sacrifices on Monday, but in the mean time I'll say a few words about reading and writing.

Firstly, and I know this is becoming a bit repetitious so it will be the last time I do this in 2024, I want to announce that my second CAGE LIFE novel, Knuckle Down is a Readers' Favorite Five Stars. Here is the review:

Author Miles Watson has a real talent for suspense, crafting a pulse-pounding journey into the gritty underworld of New York City, where danger lurks around every corner and redemption comes at a steep price. The vivid and visceral descriptions of this world pull no punches, and the realism of the action sequences is gut-wrenchingly compelling, to the point where readers will truly believe that every fight could be Mickey’s last. As our well-penned, complex hero grapples with his past and fights to protect those he loves, readers become fully immersed in the adrenaline-fueled action and suspenseful twists. I was also really impressed with the wider ensemble cast around Mickey, who were just as well developed with their own unique dialogue touches and attitudes that have been credibly shaped by their dark and difficult way of life. Overall, Knuckle Down is a gripping tale of redemption, revenge, and the power of love that fans of realistic and action-packed fiction are certain to enjoy from cover to cover.

Not too shabby. I have always had an especial fondness for this novel, which I hated like poison when I was writing it but now consider one of my better efforts. If you read these blogs regularly, you probably know that the third installment in this series is on its way: I plan a release before the end of the year.

More in the writing vein: at the end of this month I'll be attending In Your Write Mind, a three-day seminar-slash-writing conference in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, a few miles outside of Pittsburgh. Theoretically I am presenting one or more teaching modules there: "Writing Violence," "Writing Dialog" and "Building Better Worlds." Whether I actually teach anything is still up in the air, however, as I've seen the presentation schedule and as of now I am not on it. Whether I present or not, however, I will be doing a book signing there and meeting up with my editor, Michael Dell of One Nine Books, whose podcast, the LCS Hockey Radio Show, I just guested on again last night, and my mentor Pat Picciarelli, author of Hollywood Godfather, The Sixth Family, and Mala Femina, among others. Writing being a solitary profession by nature, it does a writer's heart some good to be around his own kind every now and again. (When I was working in Hollywood, I was constantly surrounded by people who, regardless of how they felt about me or I about them, understood the struggles inherent to the business generally.)

In regards to reading, I recently discovered this: The term, tsundoku (tsoon-doh-ko), means “the practice of buying a lot of books and keeping them in a pile because you intend to read them but have not done so yet; also used to refer to the pile itself” (Cambridge University Press, n.d.). The term is a play on words and originated in the late 19th century of Japan. Welp, that's me. A short list of the books now threatening to collapse both my nightstand and one of the shelves of my bookcase, which I want to read but haven't gotten to yet, are:

P.G. Wodehouse "The Inimitable Jeeves"
Evelyn Waugh "Brideshead Revisited"
W. Somerset Maughm "On A Chinese Screen"
John B. Gordon "Reminiscences of the Civil War"
Ernest Hemingway "The Dangerous Summer," "True at First Light," and "Selected Letters 1917 – 1961"
Mike Tyson "Undisputed"
David Grann "The Wager"
Derek Robinson "The Eldorado Network"
Rainn Wilson "Soul Boom"
John D. Billings "Hardtack and Coffee"
James Holland "Big Week"
Errol Flynn "Showdown"
Johnathan Bastable "Voices from Stalingrad"

Before I can get to any of this, however, I have to finish Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato a strange and surreal novel which is alternatively brilliant and bizarre. There are chapters in this book that take me so completely into Vietnam that I feel as if I'm there, and there are chapters in which I feel I've walked into someone else's mescaline-induced Hunter Thompson fever-dream. Which I suppose is the point. It's certainly an interesting read, but it's not a smooth read. In any event, 5 will get you 10 that I buy at least one more book before I finish the one I'm reading now, or crack any of the two dozen or more I've got waiting for me.

I mentioned podcasts. I am a regular guest on LCS Hockey, and have never, not once, discussed hockey. I have not even been asked about hockey. Among the things I have discussed there are writing, boxing, the UFC, Hollywood, TV shows, horror movies, and very bad movies generally. I am also a periodic guest on Comic Book Syndicate's "Flea Market Fantasy," which discusses Bronze Age comic books, and I have made one appearance each on The Hollywood Godfather Podcast (it was the highest-rated cast of the season, actually) and Burke Allen's Big Time Talker Podcast. Being an indie author, I have to take every possible opportunity to promote myself, but let's face it, if you put a microphone in front of my face and tell me to talk about basket weaving or sea sponge migrations, I'll do it.

And that about wraps me up on this lazy Saturday. I'm going to go hiking now despite the thunderstorm warning, and work out some of the plot problems I'm encountering while writing my third SINNER'S CROSS novel, South of Hell. A writer is, after all, a writer all the time -- even when he doesn't wish to be. As fates go, I'll take it.