As you may have noticed – I hope someone, preferably hundreds, has noticed, but I can’t prove it – my other blog site, montedutton.com, is down. It’s been down for about a week. Three or four times, I’ve tried to fix it, but I haven’t had the time or inclination yet to sit on hold for half a morning or afternoon, and get disconnected once or twice, and be told to try innumerable things I’ve already tried, and I’ve still got this one, so, for the time being, there’s no telling what I’ll post here.

I just have too much going on. Maybe I can find someone around here – I know of one possibility – who can fix it. Or maybe I’ll have to spend a bunch of useless time in the aforementioned manner.

I don’t know what happened. Corrupted data. Some unknown enemy being nasty. The Russians. A spam message I forgot to delete. Maybe my website will be released by Wikileaks. It’ll be back, as if by magic, when the election is over.

I don’t know. The problem, so far, is that I don’t care enough. I’ve got a novel to get published and another one to get written. I write about NASCAR, high school and college football, and, occasionally, important things, on the side. They get me by. Only fiction is going to make me a success again. I’ve got to write it.

I’ve got to read. Reading helps my writing. Reading helps anyone’s writing. Reading is fundamental.

This morning I finished a novel called The Shelf Life of Happiness by David Machado. It’s a translation of a novel that was originally written in Portuguese. It touched me deeply. I related to the hardships of Daniel, the main character, awash in comprehensive collapse, surrounded by friends, relatives and children every bit as affected as he.

For all its degradation, it is ultimately uplifting. It drags the reader through the bushes but leaves him clinging to hope.

As do I.

I’ve written four novels and a collection of short stories. I’ve also written a number of books about sports, mostly about NASCAR. You can find most of them here.

The Kindle versions of my books, where available, can be found above. Links below are to print editions.

I’ve written a crime novel about the corrosive effects of patronage and the rise and fall of a powerful politician and his dysfunctional family, Forgive Us Our Trespasses.

I’ve written about what happens to a football coach when he loses everything, Crazy of Natural Causes.

I’ve written a tale of the Sixties in the South, centered on school integration and a high school football team, The Intangibles.

I’ve written a rollicking yarn about the feds trying to track down and manipulate a national hero who just happens to be a pot-smoking songwriter, The Audacity of Dope.

I’ve written a collection of 11 short stories, all derived from songs I wrote, Longer Songs.

 

Follow me on Twitter @montedutton, @hmdutton (about writing), and/or @wastedpilgrim (more opinionated and irreverent). I’m on Facebook (Monte.Dutton), Instagram (TUG50), and Google-Plus (MonteDuttonWriter).