The Journey Begins

For sometime I have been preparing for a journey. A journey that will not take me far from my home. I may never leave the front door of my abode for this journey but I will no doubt travel. I will travel back into my past. A past prior to my life on this big ball.

The preparation for this journey began many years before my actual birth. The journey began in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Ireland. From these places of origin they all converged on a small logging community in the Coast Range Mountains in Oregon. This journey will be my attempt to put the evolution of what I know and what I am on paper; a novel. This novel will essentially be a living letter to my children of who they are and how they came to be. The novel will be the telling of two families. Two families so different, yet destine to unite. Two families that would have a difficult time facing each other in one room, two families that would disagree on everything under the moon. Yet, they converge.

I have been working on this for a long time and have shared many aspects of it with the blog readers in many fashions. I have told of the type of people who made up the logging community that I grew up in. I have posted short stories of my relativs, my friends and the characters I have had the opportunity to know. Now I am attempting to put these characters in a novel.

I ask you to bear with me and be there when I least and most need it. I am also asking if anyone would be willing to act as an objective reviewer. I need more then one objective reviewer. I am not looking for a supporter but rather someone who has either traveled this journey themselves and can mentor me through the ups and downs. I am looking for objective assistance who can openly criticize the work but is subjective enough to realize I have no desire to conform to any strict rules of writing.

I currently have three people that already have helped me and one person who has been a friend for 40 years who recently said she would love to help. I have no formal plan or road map to follow and have no idea how this will work but I know it has to be done and I am not smart enough to do it on my own.

I have armed myself with several reference books and books on writing styles. I am re-reading two novels that will help me develop the voice, the pace and the flavor of each stage of the story. I have been reading a non-fiction book that clinically describes the places and the people I intend to draw my compositions from. But I am too new at this and need to have any guidance I can get.

So if you are willing to help in any way please leave a comment or email me.