Clinton, South Carolina, Sunday, September 17, 2017, 10:55 a.m. Every weekend has its ups and downs. This one isn’t over. NASCAR begins its playoffs today. Formula One’s Singapore Night Race was on when I got up this morning. The National “Buh-buh-buh-BUH!” Football League is on all day and night. The Red Sox are in St. …
A Long Trip Down a Rocky Road
Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, September 14, 2017, 1:32 p.m. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell* is going to be my most carefully composed, diligently examined, and thoroughly questioned novel to date. At the moment, I’m taking a break from the long slog of rewriting and reconsidering what will be my eighth novel. Twice I interrupted the process …
Winning Would Be Indescribably Delicious
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, September 10, 2017, 1:38 p.m. I can’t imagine a better place to watch a football game than Presbyterian College, that is, if you don’t mind it if the Blue Hose lose. It’s early yet. Yes, Presbyterian has been been outscored 99-13, but Wake Forest and The Citadel are stiff competition for …
Torn between Tales
Clinton, South Carolina, Friday, September 8, 2017, 12:03 p.m. I’ve shaved nearly 10,000 words out of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which has become an on-again, off-again, long-term project. At the beginning of the year, I mostly set it aside to write two related auto-racing novels, Lightning in a Bottle and Life Gets Complicated, a sequel. …
I’d Batten Down the Hatches if I Had Any
Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, September 7, 2017, 12:15 p.m. A week ago, a large chunk of Texas, which itself is a large chunk, caught the largest amount of rain ever recorded on the continent. Now the most powerful Atlantic hurricane ever is curving toward, eventually, here. How many “once-in-a-thousand-years storms” are going to have to …
It Is What It Is at the End of the Weekend
Clinton, South Carolina, Sunday, September 3, 2017, 3:34 p.m. I’ve drawn no conclusions from the past few days. They’ve been good experiences, I guess. Character building. Not altogether good. Not altogether bad. Clouds with silver linings still glistening. Greer clobbered Clinton, 41-0, in the local home opener. Chapman clobbered Laurens, 61-24, on its home field. …
Among What Is Small by Comparison
Somehow I spent most of two days working on a stock car racing story. Oh, I cut the grass the first day. Yesterday I shipped off some copies of my new racing novel, Life Gets Complicated. I wrote a regular column for a website. Okay, two stock car racing stories. And two stock car …
Clinton and Laurens … and Life
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, August 26, 2017, 10:58 a.m. There are those who believe I waste my talents tramping around small-town football stadiums writing about what I see. They are so wrong. Last night Laurens held off Clinton, 24-18. In a small tract of land known as Laurens County, named after a statesman from the …
Apparently the Eclipse Zapped Me
Clinton, South Carolina, Friday, August 25, 2017, 11:23 a.m. This week has been a strange one. I think I may have been zapped by the eclipse. My new novel – and first sequel – is out. I have a book signing in Spartanburg on September 2 at Hub City Bookshop (3 p.m.). The week has …
‘Life Gets Complicated’ for Fictional Stock Car Ace Barrie Jarman
Clinton, South Carolina, Wednesday, August 23, 2017, 8:53 p.m. The Clinton Chronicle was kind enough to run this today: Just five months after the release of Lightning in a Bottle, Barrie Jarman is back in a sequel. Life Gets Complicated takes Barrie into the top level of FASCAR. Monte Dutton’s seventh novel is the first …
Continue reading ‘Life Gets Complicated’ for Fictional Stock Car Ace Barrie Jarman
Nightrider's Lament 