TWO AND A HALF YEARS

What does a retired man do for the last two and a half years? Many play golf, take long vacations, or do nothing at all. However, that isn't the way I think. Just because I am retired, I think life is far from over. I want to do something that people will remember me for.

Yesterday I completed the final changes on a novel. The second one I have written in the last two and a half years. There have been countless hours of writing, thinking, writing some more, deleting whole chapters because I didn't like where my story was going, finally finishing and sending the story to be proofread. Then I got the novels back from the proofreader and made hundreds of minor changes to make the story better.

Now there are two novels that I am trying to get published. My first novel is the story of a man that is in deep depression after his wife is killed in a car accident. God visits the man and sends him on a walking journey halfway across America. He had no idea where he was going or what he would find. He meets a woman that God also visited and was sent on the same type of walking journey. They meet on a park bench in Change, Kansas and an incredible love story develops between them. She dies years later of brain cancer but the man continues to think of her as the love of his life. The story continues through his third marriage and ends on his death at an old age.

So far I have received 42 rejections from agents in trying to get one to represent me on this novel. You would think after 42 rejections I would be depressed, but I am not. I look at as their mistake that they are passing up on a good story. I may finally end up self-publishing this story, but will continue to try to get an
agent first.

The second novel, that I just finished yesterday is the story of a man that went to war and was the only one to survive a battle in which eight of his fellow comrades were killed. The experience in the war affected him so badly that he walks away from his parents, society, and walks deep into the wilderness of Minnesota where he lives for years without contact with anyone. Finally two men on horseback see his cabin and become best friends with the man. They talk him into building another cabin and have people fly into the lake to fish. On one of those trips a young city woman spends two weeks in the wilderness with her parents. The man is a wilderness man and she is a city woman. An incredible romance blooms and they reach a compromise and get married. They have two great children through the years and eventually move near their son to enjoy their golden years.

Two entirely different love stories, but ones that I think my readers will enjoy. All I have to do is to get them in print. Why did I spend so much time on these two stories? Because I love to write and to tell stories. The first story is 60,194 words. The second story is 60,296 words. Two and a half years of writing have given me 120,490 words written from the heart.

Someday my friends, I hope you get to read these stories. What will I do in the meantime before they are published? I have another story that is playing in my brain right now. I imagine I will be putting that story into words very soon.


Copyright   Larry W. Fish   2014