The Return of the Blog

Sounds like a horror movie but it’s only social media. If you’ve found this, you know I’ve moved the blog to ronscherl.com and given it a new title: Act II, so that I can defy Fitzgerald’s dictum and launch my next career.

I’m now a writer, feels strange to identify myself that way, but it appears to be true. Most of the cameras are in the closet, and the one I most often carry also makes phone calls. Larry Walker’s been telling me to write a novel for the last 40 years. I finally listened. Thank you Larry. An agent is currently reading it and I really do have high hopes. I think it’s good. I would discount that opinion but there’s been positive feedback from early readers, all of them extraordinary intellects with impeccable taste, most of them very good friends.

We’ll see. I could self-publish but I’m intent on trying the traditional route first. I can’t help it, that’s just who I am. I know self-publishing has worked very well for some writers and I applaud them, and I also know that I can’t expect a traditional publisher to treat me like the second coming of Stephen King, which means that if I do find a publisher, I’m still going to have to work to sell some books. I think it’s a book worthy of publication and I’m proud of it.

It fits in the publishing category of popular fiction, “smart popular fiction” in Barbara’s words. It is somewhat autobiographical in the great tradition of first novels. It tells a fictional story about my time in Maury. Characters are based on people I know, sometimes they’re composites, sometimes the relationship is more direct. The plot is total fiction. There’s a portrait of the village, a bit of a mystery, and lots of stuff about food, wine, and photography.

And the next novel is just beginning to take shape in my brain. More on that in posts to come.

Notice how writer Ron is much more relaxed than photographer Ron:

The Writer ©2014 Jess Holmes
The Writer ©2014 Jess Holmes
The Photographer ©2009 Ron Scherl
The Photographer ©2009 Ron Scherl