Author: Jnana Hodson

In downsizing to a remote fishing village in Downeast Maine, this eclectic writer feels everything's coming together.

Is there another novel in the works?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

It’s a fair question, though for now, I’d rather be plunging into a reading orgy. My to-be-read stack is huge, both paper and digital books and periodicals. I’m feeling rather famished.

As for fiction, nothing since my mid-30s seems to suggest a hot story. Most novels, by the way, seems focused on life under age 30. Or at least rediscovering it. As for growing older, as in aging? No sex? Well, depends on the hook. For now, everything I’m seeing points toward nonfiction.

If I did another novel, I’d want to limit the number of named characters. Just two? Perhaps four or six or eight max? It’s obviously character-driven, not action. The volume itself would be thinner, too.

~*~

There are some other drafts I could clean up, but would any of them be worth the effort? The endeavors  to build readership can be quite exhausting.

I’ve never done this before

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

This may seem crazy, but for Smashword’s annual End-of-the-Year sale, I’ve decided to offer five of my novels to you FREE.

It’s your chance to pick up these ebooks at no risk. If you like the stories, perhaps you’ll leave a brief review and five stars at the website, just to encourage other readers who come along in the future.

The titles are Daffodil Uprising, when youth across the country went freaky; Pit-a-Pat High Jinks, with lovers and friends setting forth in premature adulthood; Subway Visions, with wild rides through the Underground; What’s Left, as a bereft daughter tries to make sense of her bohemian parents and close-knit Greek family; and Yoga Bootcamp, where Asian spirituality sizzles in a back-to-the-earth funky farm not far from the Big Apple.

Think of it as my Christmas present to you. I hope you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

The sale starts today and ends January first. Please don’t delay! Go to Smashwords.com for more.

Important people linked to the Gem City

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In this case, they weren’t necessary born in Dayton, but the city did play a role in their success.

  1. Wright Brothers, inventors of the airplane
  2. Charles F. Kettering, prolific inventor
  3. John Henry Patterson, founder of the National Cash Register Company
  4. Thomas Watson Jr., of IBM fame after being fired – twice – by Patterson
  5. James Cox, Democratic presidential nominee and newspaper publisher
  6. Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Black poet
  7. Scotty Reston, editor of the New York Times
  8. Frank Stanton, head of Columbia Broadcasting Company (CBS)
  9. Milton Caniff, master cartoonist
  10. Mike Peters, freewheeling cartoonist

I should also mention Larry Flint, pornographer, who established Hustler magazine, named after his bar.

 

Acid test novelist: Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Maybe I was intrigued by the title of the 1962 play, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” but when I finally got around to reading her, in the novel The Waves, it was epiphany. While I had heard of stream-of-thought writing, but what overwhelmed me was the utter beauty of the prose and its observations. What poured forth was a stream, period.

I do get caught up in style more than content. Perhaps that reflects much of my career as a copy editor having to clean up a news story on a tight deadline.

Still, returning to her is always refreshing.