The Right to Liberty

One of the things that I’ve been focused on quite possibly the most over the course of the past six years is my upcoming novel, currently titled The Right to Liberty.

I am so incredibly excited about this book, and really proud of the writing inside of it. While I love my previous books, they have always taken a rather adventurous approach to their narrative, allowing the excitement of the story to override anything else going on. This book is considerably different. It’s a folksy tale about an old man who lives out in the the Northwoods of Wisconsin who unintentionally starts a revolution.

This book started as just a simple concept, originally just a young drunken idiot who accidentally started a full fledged Revolutionary War-style revolution, but I found myself getting inspired by a few things when I finally sat down to begin writing it. Things like the adorable novel The Mouse That Roared while I was writing it. It’s no where near as silly as that book which was turned into a Peter Sellers movie, but similar in its concept of a small nation standing up against the power of the United States. And things like my father-in-law, who I thought could be an interesting perspective to frame a revolution around.

The book therefore became a lot less epic than was originally planned, but far more of a story that I think actually manages to say something. It’s about the power of the people and of community and about how much stronger we are as a people when we’re together instead of apart.

It attempts to try to take away the differences we hold because of our political beliefs and see what might happen if we merely needed to survive together.

But even more so than that, it’s about an old man and his dog, struggling to determine what to do when a few hundred people start showing up on his lawn and declaring themselves as the new country of Monrovia.

A year ago I sent this book out to my beta readers and got all sorts of love back, but when I looked through the book with the refreshed eyes of the notes I got from the readers, I realized there was so much more I could put into it. So, for the past year I’ve been slaving away at rewriting this thing to become far more than it was originally, while still keeping all of the same folksy spirit that I believe made the previous draft so much fun for readers. Although none of the actual plot points change, and the general activity within each of the chapters remains the same, I’d be willing to bet that only about 30% of the original words still exist in the book.

And because of that, I believe this book marks a significant increase in the quality of writing you may be accustomed to from yours truly.

In other words, I am so damned excited to show you want I’ve got.

And I’m so close to getting there. Just a few more chapters left of this extreme polishing I’ve been putting on the thing and then I’ll be moving on to some final drafting. And before you know it, this book will be bright and shiny and new and ready to find a cover and a shelf to be placed on.

This book may not be quite as adventurous as the previous books I’ve released, but it’s so much more than that, while still keeping that pioneering spirit that adventure requires. I think you’ll find that it shares many similarities with my previous stuff, while still being so very much more.

Have fun out there.