Vince Wetzel
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9/24/2022 0 Comments

It's been a year... what have I been up to?

I just looked on this blog and I realized I hadn't posted since Sept. 21... 2021. Oops. Well, that's embarassing!

So what's been going on in the last year? Particularly on my follow up to Friends in Low Places
  • I'm finally making a profit with Friends in Low Places. I'm closing in on 500 copies sold, not bad for an indie novel. They say most first-time self-published novels sell less than 250 copies. It was an effort of dogged persistence, creativity and a growing network of friends that helped get me here. I thank everyone for their support.
  • Lose Yourself is an ensemble novel of six separate stories all interweaved over the course of the last  baseball game of the season:  
    • A star who is on a quest to hit .400 for a season while battling some inner demons.
    • A sideline reporter for the MLB Network, who is at a career crossroads while also dealing with a family crisis.
    • A lemonade hawker who needs a big score to fulfill a promise to his daughter.
    • A teenager with a crush who is attending the game with his future stepdad.
    • A longtime usher in his final game before he retires.
    • A mother and daughter saying goodbye to her dying father.
  • I'm working through the fourth draft and making the small edits needed to provide greater depth and nuance to each of the characters and their stories. Also working through my agent query list so I can begin shopping the novel in the beginning in 2023.
  • I've started the screenplay adaptation of Friends in Low Places. Did you know it's hard to adapt a 300 page book into a 120 page screenplay? Reading Screenplay by Syd Field and Save The Cat by Blake Snyder have been helpful. At the very least, going through this adaptation process has been helpful in "exercising a new muscle" in my novel writing. 
Check out more in the coming months, I promise!
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9/5/2021 0 Comments

Recent Read: Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts

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Buy on Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/a/23143/9780358410768
​The Blurb: A handsome stranger. A dead billionaire. A citywide treasure hunt. Tuesday Mooney's life is about to change . . . forevermore. Tuesday Mooney is a loner. She keeps to herself, begrudgingly socializes, and spends much of her time watching old Twin Peaks and X-Files DVDs. But when Vincent Pryce, Boston's most eccentric billionaire, dies--leaving behind an epic treasure hunt through the city, with clues inspired by his hero, Edgar Allan Poe--Tuesday's adventure finally begins.Puzzle-loving Tuesday searches for clue after clue, joined by a ragtag crew: a wisecracking friend, an adoring teen neighbor, and a handsome, cagey young heir. The hunt tests their mettle, and with other teams from around the city also vying for the promised prize--a share of Pryce's immense wealth--they must move quickly. Pryce's clues can't be cracked with sharp wit alone; the searchers must summon the courage to face painful ghosts from their pasts (some more vivid than others) and discover their most guarded desires and dreams.
Thoughts: I liked this book. It was part mystery, part treasure hunt, part paranormal, part family drama. I enjoyed the various characters and how they interacted with one another. I always love a good treasure hunt with seemingly undecipherable clues and how one seemingly benign reference pulls the threat that unspools the entire mystery. However, I do think there were areas where the book could have gone all in... the missing friend from childhood, the family drama between siblings, even the treasure hunt itself, but instead just plays to the surface on some of the subplots. Overall. Enjoyed.

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8/22/2021 0 Comments

Vacation reads and other stuff

Well, where does a month go! After a year of waiting, the family and I finally made it to Oahu for a much-need vacation. It was a great week in paradise, complete with snorkeling, surf lessons, mai tais, malasadas, and relaxing on the lanai and reading and writing.

Over the course of the week, I wrote 40 pages in my current work in progress (details will come eventually) and also read a fun Robert Ludlum spy novel. I also bought a couple of books that have interested me, The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari (by Robin Sharma), Anxious People (by Frederick Bachman), a book on meditation by the Dalai Lama and Ernest Hemingway on Writing.

During this month, I finished How Lucky (by Will Leitch), Black Buck (by Mateo Askaripour), and the previously mentioned Tristan Betrayal (By Robert Ludlum). 

How Lucky
Blurb:Daniel leads a rich life in the university town of Athens, Georgia. He's got a couple close friends, a steady paycheck working for a regional airline, and of course, for a few glorious days each Fall, college football tailgates. He considers himself to be a mostly lucky guy--despite the fact that he's suffered from a debilitating disease since he was a small child, one that has left him unable to speak or to move without a wheelchair. Largely confined to his home, Daniel spends the hours he's not online communicating with irate air travelers observing his neighborhood from his front porch. One young woman passes by so frequently that spotting her out the window has almost become part of his daily routine. Until the day he's almost sure he sees her being kidnapped...
Thoughts: I highly enjoyed this "Rear Window" take of a 20-something person with a disability having the key to a kidnapping. Told from the first-person perspective of Daniel, you get the real condescension and other slights a person with a disability endures and the struggles to be taken seriously by those who have no real knowledge of disability. I enjoyed how we see life of an independent person with a disability as they navigate independence. Dan's relationship with others, particularly with his caregiver and his best friend make this book a worthwhile read.


Black Buck
Blurb: For fans of Sorry to Bother You and The Wolf of Wall Street--a crackling, satirical debut novel about a young man given a shot at stardom as the lone Black salesman at a mysterious, cult-like, and wildly successful startup where nothing is as it seems.
There's nothing like a Black salesman on a mission.
An unambitious twenty-two-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother, who wants nothing more than to see him live up to his potential as the valedictorian of Bronx Science. But Darren is content working at Starbucks in the lobby of a Midtown office building, hanging out with his girlfriend, Soraya, and eating his mother's home-cooked meals. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, NYC's hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the thirty-sixth floor.
After enduring a "hell week" of training, Darren, the only Black person in the company, reimagines himself as "Buck," a ruthless salesman unrecognizable to his friends and family. But when things turn tragic at home and Buck feels he's hit rock bottom, he begins to hatch a plan to help young people of color infiltrate America's sales force, setting off a chain of events that forever changes the game.
Black Buck is a hilarious, razor-sharp skewering of America's workforce; it is a propulsive, crackling debut that explores ambition and race, and makes way for a necessary new vision of the American dream.
Thoughts: There were times I wanted to slam this book down and forever forget it. There were other times I was wondering why I was feeling that way. I also found myself rooting for Darren and others I'd hope he'd get his. I wasn't disappointed and by the time I finished, I was pleased with the rags-to-riches story. There are enough plot twists and turns to keep this book interesting, even through my growing frustration with the corporate culture.

Tristan Betrayal
Blurb: Description In the bestselling tradition of The Scarlatti Inheritance and The Rheineman Exchange, a compelling thriller in which one man's actions can change the course of history. In the fall of 1940, the Nazis are at the height of their power--France is occupied, Britain is enduring the Blitz and is under threat of invasion, America is neutral, and Russia is in an uneasy alliance with Germany. Stephen Metcalfe, the younger son of a prominent American family, is a well-known man about town in occupied Paris. He's also a minor asset in the U.S.'s secret intelligence forces in Europe. Through a wild twist of fate, it falls to Metcalfe to instigate a bold plan that may be the only hope for what remains of the free world. Now he must travel to wartime Moscow to find, and possibly betray, a former lover--a fiery ballerina whose own loyalties are in question--in a delicate dance that could destroy all he loves and honors.
Thoughts: I had a ratty paperback I borrowed from my father-in-law. It was beaten, half the cover torn, the binding cracked, but it was a good vacation read, complete with spycraft, betrayal, plot twists and more. Ludlum, like other great authors of his ilk, just pump out book after book. Still, this one surprises and it was fun to read in the middle of beaches and palm trees.

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7/22/2021 0 Comments

The Places of "Friends in Low Places" (Part 6)


For this edition of the Places of “Friends in Low Places,” we go to one of the islands in the middle of Huntington Lake. This spot plays a key role in the story. Personally, I’ve only been on this island twice, once a couple of years ago. 

Unfortunately, the other time was about 10 years ago in the midst of the tragedy. We watched the recovery of a man's body who had drowned and gone missing just a few days before. We toasted the man that evening, but those images of the Sheriff speeding by in his boat, throwing a tarp over a mass, then taking it away is forever imprinted in my brain. 
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7/19/2021 0 Comments

Other Stuff: The Places of Friends in Low Places (Part 5) Rancheria Falls

In this edition of the Places of "Friends in Low Places," we trek to Rancheria Falls. In the novel, the hungover crew walk through the mountain trails to get to this beautiful spot. This is the moment when they really begin to contemplate their futures as adults. Little did they know how much those expectations would change. Personally, I've made this hike a dozen times and each time marvel at the beauty tucked into the wilderness.
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7/17/2021 0 Comments

Other Stuff: The Places of "Friends in Low Places" (Part 4)

In today's editions of the Places of "Friends in Low Places," we actually head down the hill just a little bit. While most of the book takes place at Huntington Lake, some of the inspiration of stories take place down the hill at Shaver Lake. Some of the scenes: the campfire on a huge granite mountain edifice, the private shoreline, lounging in couches, the deck of two of the cabins, are all inspired by these settings. I don't know how many cups of coffee I've had on these decks, or marveled at the sunsets on that rock, or games of cornhole and bocce on these shores. Note: The one with my own father holds special meaning, even five years after he's left us.

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7/17/2021 0 Comments

Recent Reads: Die Trying (Jack Reacher)

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The Blurb: Jack Reacher is an innocent bystander when he witnesses a woman kidnapped off a Chicago street in broad daylight. In the wrong place at the wrong time, he's kidnapped with her. Chained together, locked in the back of a stifling van, and racing across America to an unknown destination for an unknown purpose, they're at the mercy of a group of men demanding an impossible ransom. Because this mysterious woman is worth more than Reacher ever suspected. Now he has to save them both--from the inside out--or die trying...

Thoughts: 
Oh I didn't want high brow fiction. I didn't want to think about life and my place in it. I had a long road trip ahead of me and wanted to take my mind off the lonely highway. Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels are the perfect driving companion. They know what they are and do it spectacularly. This is Lee Child's second in the Jack Reacher series so he's not on autopilot yet. The action is crisp, the plot twists carefully planned and the ending satisfying.
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7/13/2021 0 Comments

Other stuff: The Places of Friends in Low Places (Part 3)

Ah, the Lakeshore saloon. I don't know how many times I was in this place on our final night at Huntington Lake. I remember before I was 21 walking by and hearing the raucous sounds pumping out of this wood structure. The first time I actually went inside, the Mike Tyson-Peter McNeely fight was happening... And before we got a beer, it was over. 
There were the nights when my buddies would be looking to meet some women (I had a girlfriend, who later became my wife, so I was the ultimate wingman). We also had nights when we put two tables together and played liars dice all night long.
One time, I was into Long Island Iced Teas and after that night, I am no longer into those drinks. One of my buddies continues to drink White Russians only at this place. 
There are stories about the saddle in the rafters and the thin wall between the men's and women's restrooms, and the various fights we helped break up through pure charm. 
Currently, Lakeshore Resort, including its saloon, is closed. Some say because of Covid, some say the Creek Fire, others say it was sold and they are looking to refurbish. Others say it's unsafe. Who knows? I just hope that eventually it opens again. 
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7/5/2021 0 Comments

Other Stuff: The Places of Friends in Low Places (Part 2)

The sights of Friends in Low Places takes us to Rancheria Campground at Huntington Lake, CA. This is the campground where Jim, David, Rob, Paul and Jesse spent many of the years. Inspired by the trips I took with my friends. If you look at the campsite map, you can see Site Number 119. When I camped there, it was site 152. Friends in Low Places is available on all online retailers, including Amazon.
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7/5/2021 0 Comments

Other stuff: The Places of Friends in Low Places... (Part 1)

The sights of Friends in Low Places take us to many spots in CA. The first is Hank's Swank Par 3 Golf Course in Fresno. Great memories at the self-subscribed “Blue Collar Country Club.” This fun par 3 golf course near the Fresno airport is where the guys played an annual one-club tournament and began their annual trips.

On my own trips with friends, this was always the first stop. it was a meeting spot before we headed up the hill. It was here I'd greet my friends for the first time in a year,  then buy a round, pull out a seven iron and play a round. The sixth hole is the most deceptive with 2 bunkers to carry and interestingly the eighth hole is one of the shortest and hardest, particularly with a 7 iron.

If you are ever in Fresno, you only need one club and you will have a good time playing Hank's Swank Par 3 Golf Course. 
https://www.facebook.com/hanks.swank/​

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