Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, February 23, 2017, 1:18 p.m.

I have tried to find a market for my fiction. I don’t have lots of money to pay for the search.

Five novels now. Six and seven in progress. Nothing makes me happier than the completion of a chapter, well, except, maybe, getting the whole yarn woven. Completions of the quilts are too few and far between, so the end of a chapter, is a regular moment to lean back in the chair and feel satisfied, warmed by the creation.

Insufficiently competent to sew a button back on a shirt, this is the metaphor I conjure.

It is but fleeting. I too know the mortification of discovering an error that slipped through the cracks. When the first box of books arrives on the doorstep, I get a knife, pull out a copy, evaluate the cover, and sit down to experience horror, and, if it miraculously looks clean, relief.

Horror was The Intangibles. Mistakes I corrected did not get made.

Cowboys Come Home was relief. The rest fall in between.

If you’d like me to mail you a signed copy of Cowboys Come Home, or any of my other novels, you can find my address and instructions at montedutton.com. (montedutton.com/blog/merchandise)

I’ve written five 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.

My new novel is a western, Cowboys Come Home. Two World War II heroes come home from the Pacific to Texas.

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. It’s a fable of life’s absurdity.

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).