I see no reason why every non-comatose Expresslandian can’t write a novel. It’s so easy that I’m going for number two. I’m inspired by the unsubstantiated cult status of my quintessential Adirondack thriller, “Belle of Blue Mountain (BoBM)” and the inaudible clambering for another tour de force from my capricious readership. Those who have yet to enjoy the sardonically irreverent BoBM may do so free of charge by perusing archived Express issues dating back to 2007. Quintessential thriller enthusiasts will revel in ferreting out virtuoso installments of the uncanny mindboggler. Clue: BoBM installments were curiously printed adjacent to AA meeting announcements. While thousands of talented authors dump their books on Amazon and library shelves, a finite number of cliquey dilettantes have their magnum opuses serialized in a widely dispersed, gratis weekly. Expresslandians are blessed.    

At this juncture in the creative process, I’ve narrowed my in vitro story lines to around two hundred. I know the yarn will play out inside the Blue Line, otherwise the finished project can’t be dubbed a quintessential Adirondack anything. I’m torn between creating another thriller, chick lit, erotica, children’s lit, dark fantasy, religious and inspirational, sci-fi, offbeat or quirky and/or business and finance. I’ve pretty much decided that by including elements from all of these genres I can dupe the widest potential readership.   

In the tradition of BoBM the story will teem with actual and fictional local characters.  Let’s face it; they’ll mostly be bona fide local characters since truth is stranger than fiction. You can’t make up book characters like Adirondack locals. That’s why I’m leaning towards quirky erotic dark fantasy at the moment. Many of the locals I mingle with remind me of creatures straight out of a Stephen King novella. Describing their characteristics is the definition of creative writing. Uncas Road is an ideal epicenter. If that road wasn’t overgrown with trees, it’d be overrun with crop circles, Neolithic henges and albino swordsmen. Whoa Nelly, the creative juices are flowing.

In 2010, the haughty Eagle Bay Book Club (EBBC) publicly criticized BoBM for two insignificant flaws. They claimed that the prose was amateurish and the story ending was contrived. I believe they took their eyes off the prize. In their rush to judgment, they lost sight of the fact that the quintessential Adirondack thriller is flawed by design.  Adirondackers don’t want no highfalutin’ Utica College PhD in Neoclassical Literature come’in to town and show’in off his store bought writ’in skills. UC academias should stick to what they know best, ice hockey. If a story’s gonna be Adirondack quintessential, is gotta be colloquial. The EBBC just didn’t get BoBM. Their favorite book is “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault. It took two grown men to write, “A told b, and b told c, I’ll meet you at the top of the coconut tree.”  Geez, preschoolers are so immature.     

I’m taking the EBBC’s scorn to heart. There’s no way I can overcome my inherent amateurism, but I’ll start my new novel from the end. Once I nail the ending any half baked plot will be Reese’s Pieces on the Blizzard. I’ll also prepare character sketches so I don’t bog down making them up as I go along. It took me a good ten minutes to fabricate Belle’s legendary chamber pot ensemble, The Magnificent Seven. I think we all agree that harpist Belle, loony violoncellist Gavia Immer, trumpeter Lotta Moxie, violinist Thai Mi Shu, piccoloist Alison Wonderland, bassoonist Ima Nottatellinya and classical banjoist Virginia Hamm are seared into our psyches along side Huck Finn, Frankenstein, Tarzan, Cinderella and Dushyanta.     

During the creation of BoBM I was preoccupied with editing the story as I wrote. When it comes to writing, I’m kinda like Iron Chef Bobby Flay. When asked what makes Irish chefs different Flay replied, “We clean up as we go along.” Bro, we’re conjoined twins. I believe it’s palpable that I expect perfection in each sentence before I move on to the next one. I pledge that henceforth I won’t clean up as I go along and I’ll allow my creative juices to flow unimpeded over my keyboard. Yuk, that can’t happen. My keyboard’s already laced with cat hair, bellybutton lint and TimTam crumbs. The addition of noxious creative juices will nudge it into EPA Brownfield status.    

Evidently many novelists have trouble finding inspiration.  That’s not a problem for me as long as there’s a bar within crawling distance. I’m a dedicated proponent of the dead Ukrainian pub writer’s society whose charter membership includes celebrated authors Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Behan and James Joyce. Who knew those dead guys were Ukrainian.  Some writers find their inspiration by standing naked in a snow bank, flogging themselves with cat o’nine tails and/or hand walking up a mountain. I’ll stick with my three beers and a paragraph method. It’s been uncertainly successful for me.  

As a means of building anticipation, I’m sharing the last sentence of my new, untitled quintessential Adirondack unspecified genre manuscript. Let’s call it a book trailer.  Inhale deeply, here we go.  

“As Jake hurled his erstwhile Navy duffle bag into freezing Buttermilk Falls, he swore he heard the plaintive meow of an unweaned kitten.”  

Wow, is that sick or what. I mean sick in a rad way, like when Utica College PhD’s call a spectacular Trax hockey goal, sick. When our cats, Bogey and Zoey read the sentence they became sick. That’s the visceral climax I was gunning for.   

Hey, don’t let anybody hoodwink you. Novel writing isn’t rocket surgery. Given a Dell Vostro 3750, sufficient fresh sashimi and a vile of ALZ-113, a 3-year-old chimp can write a novel in two days. As an ersatz novelist, I encourage Expresslandians to write their Great American Novel and send them to me in care of celebrity Express Editor-in-Chief, Marilynn Monroe. I’d enjoy plagiarizing the non-crappy parts and then burning them in a funeral pyre. There are already tens of thousands of novels in existence, so nobody’s gonna miss yours. On the other hand, I’ve an imaginary, marginally literate cult to sustain.