The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.
The Boaz Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
Book Blurb
Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.
Walt returns to his hometown of Boaz, Alabama and renews his relationship with Regina Gillan, his high school sweetheart, who he had ditched right before graduation to marry the daughter of a prominent local businessman. Regina has recently moved back to Boaz after forty years in Chicago working at the Tribune. She is now editor of the Sand Mountain Reporter, a local newspaper.
Walt and Regina’s relationship transforms into a once in life love at the same time they are being immersed in a growing local and national divide between Democrats and traditional Republicans, and extremist Republicans (known as Kanites) who are becoming more dogmatic about the revolution that began during President Kanes campaign.
Walt accepts two part-time jobs. One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.
Walt later learns the owner of Rains & Associates is also one of five men who created the Constitution Foundation and is involved in a sinister plot to destroy President Kane, but is using an unorthodox method to achieve its objective. The Foundation is doing everything it can to prevent President Kane from being reelected in 2020, and is scheming to initiate a civil war that will hopefully restore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.
While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.
Will Walt discover a connection between the Foundation and the deaths of three U.S. Congressmen in time to save his relationship with Regina, prevent President Kane from being reelected as the defacto head of a Christian theocracy, and the eruption of a civil war that could destroy the Nation ?
Chapter 74
Christmas 2019 came and went, and I found myself in the deepest slough of my life. For all my thirty-five years working at the White House my life was a predictable routine, but I had always felt I was at the periphery of the main story. Now, I was knee deep in a plot where I felt like the main character. I suppose it was because I was so enthralled with writing The Coming Civil War, a book I was convinced represented the very heartbeat of America.
Over the holidays I had convinced Rains & Associates to approach the Administrative Office of Courts to consider whether it would allow a division of my duties with another court-reporter. It agreed if Judge Broadside did. It worked out, though not perfectly. Dana Teague, the woman who had filled in the two days I missed with Vann’s funeral, was Judge Broadside’s number one choice. He really liked her. I think it might have had something to do with their similar age and the fact both had lost their spouses in the prior couple of years. Dana finally agreed if I would be available to answer questions and review transcripts. During the week of January 6, 2020, my court reporter duties for Circuit Judge Broadside were limited to criminal case matters. Dana Teague took over everything else. This change gave me the time to concentrate on completing my book.
Although this change gave me an extra three, sometimes four, days per week, it wasn’t like I didn’t have anything but book-writing on my calendar. I continued to teach stenography at Snead State Monday and Thursday evenings. I also continued to write the Sand Mountain Reporter’s weekly Boaz Stenographer column. One afternoon during the second week of January it finally dawned on me that everything I was doing, including my life with Regina, had a vital connection to The Coming Civil War. It might have had something to do with what I had discovered on that second thumb drive I had stolen from Regina’s house. Other than the photos of the shooting site for the killer of Kip Brewer, the drive contained a file with photos from a lake, taken from the shore. An island with a like new, docked, Sea Born NX23 fishing boat, along with two men. One laying on his side; the other on his face. Both were bloody, no doubt dead. After looking at the photos of them, I finally concluded these photos were of the Kyle Turner murder in Tifton, Georgia. What unnerved me as much as anything were several photos of the trailer Regina and I had rented to haul the furniture from the home of Wilma and Carl Carrington. There were three photos of the inside of the trailer after the furniture had been loaded, wrapped, and secured. I was completely confused as to when Regina had made these pictures, thinking back to that afternoon when I thought she and I had taken every step together.
My book-writing activity in January was centered on distilling the main theme(s) of War, my internal reference for my great work in process. This thought harkened me back to college and the semester a literature professor made the class read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. The novel focused on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. The real credit belonged to Vann. He had the idea that the players or forces were the characters in our book. There were the right-wing Republicans, far right I should say, led by President Kane, and included the thinkers like Professor Romanov and Warren Tillman types. This force wanted a revolution that was not limited by tradition. If given a chance, this force would dismantle the U.S. Constitution and place President Kane at the head of a monarchy. The right wing also included the thoughtless, those like Frankie Olinger who acted on their anger. Many, but not all, of this group, were uneducated white men. They believed they had been dealt a losing hand by past presidents, mostly because of favoritism of blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities. The other side of the coming war was the left wing of the Democratic Party, more accurately, a section of the left wing. This force was a ‘behind-the-scenes’ secret force that would do anything to destroy the right wing, including murder.
During the second week of February I received a call from Todd Mason with Eagle Publishers in Denver, Colorado. I had never written a book before, but I knew writers, unknown writers, were never called and asked for permission to publish his or her book. After a cordial conversation getting to know each other and to discuss the general thrust of my book, I persuaded him to tell me how he had learned of me. It seems Micaden Tanner had spoken to Nate Baker, a journalist with the New York Times, whose best friend was Todd Mason. Until he called I had almost forgotten the Saturday morning time after Professor Romanov’s agreement and release where Micaden and I had met, ate breakfast at Grumpy’s Diner, and then retired to his office to discuss mine and Vann’s outline. Over the next ten days, I grew to respect Todd’s ability to understand War and his desire to publish it in record time. He agreed that it was imperative that every American have access to either the book itself or to its core message in plenty of time to carefully consider the importance of their November 2020 vote for the next President of the United States. On February 9, 2020, I signed an agreement with Eagle Publishers for a fifty percent share of all profits from the sale of War and a $25,000 signing bonus. Eagle agreed to have the book ready for distribution on June 1st if I delivered to Eagle’s editors a clean draft no later than April 15.
It seemed the first quarter of 2020 passed without any major interruptions. I was particularly happy that no one within my community was murdered. I kept my head down in my book, taught my two classes per week, and performed the stenographic duties of a court-reporter for over three months. The only other thing I did was stay on full alert with Regina. I concentrated on being as good an actor as the best in Hollywood. As everyday went by I knew more confidently than before that Regina had not told me the full truth. I had this sick feeling that the secrets she protected were the type no true and loving relationship could weather.
The dark pall of daylight after a midnight tornado began to break through when, two days after The Coming Civil War was published and available in fine bookstores everywhere, Freddie Olinger was arrested for the murder of Mel Abramson.
The Pencil-Driven Life 