My new fiction hero: Jimmy Trumbo

 On the Way Out series

Vol. 5

Part 6

This one will take some time.

How does one put a lifetime of ups and downs into print?

How does a struggling writer -- an average Joe who lived a life under the radar for eighty years put the words together and make sense of it all?

We arrived in this world naked, and we will leave the same way. In between, we are clothed, and we add on the accessories as we go: we add on kindness, hatefulness, pain, agony, humility...love, tenderness, meanness...well, the list goes on. Take your pick. It doesn't take us long to get bogged down with some of those traits mentioned. Some of us are overweight in that respect. Some of us may be lacking in many of those traits...underweight if you will. Some need to change their wardrobe from time to time... regroup, try again, and begin to love ourselves first before we can walk that fine line through life.

As I have said many times to those willing to listen, I love to sit down with all the characters I have come into contact with in my little world — my narrow pathway through time. I'm not worldly, far from it. Being an average Joe is pretty cool in my book. I've spent years in direct contact with men and women who battle through life, work hard, provide for their families, and simply make a difference to their loved ones and friends around them. The average Joe and the average Jolene are not average by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, they are the cornerstone of it all...the brick and the mortar that carries this world forward. Without them, there is no nation, no congress, no president, and no governor. Without the so-called average Joe and the average Jolene, the world just couldn't exist.

In those so-called books I put into print — what seems like decades ago — my hero in each of them faced obstacles to overcome. Will my hero in my next offering, a work in progress entitled Where Eagles Fly, offer any insight or make any difference to the reader who grabs my fiction book off the shelf?

I mean, this is not John Grisham talking, certainly not Hemingway...and it is undoubtedly not a how-to-fix-it book -- the stuff that actually sells at bookstores nowadays.

I've been told many times: "I don't read fiction."

Too bad. Heck, does anyone read anymore? It takes time. Following the news doesn't. News channels repeat the same daily news over and over throughout the day. Take your pick... tune in, gather the information in a five-minute burst, and then hit the road. Finish your day and complete your tasks.

And remember, you are supposedly the average Joe and the average Jolene that makes the difference in the lives of many.

No! You are a lot more. Young or old -- you have been the difference maker all along.

We will see where Jimmy Trumbo goes. 

It's a long process. Fiction? Yes. But the characters are real in my eyes.

My next character: Who will I meet? What path will he or she take?

That alone keeps me alive.