One Season Ends, Another Begins

Its amazing how quickly four months goes by. It's a third of the year. And for me, it goes by like a long weekend. Football is officially over for me, at least on a such a time-consuming level that I can't write. My high school team that I coach finished with four straight losses to end the year 4-6. Not what we wanted, of course, and certainly not the high expectations that we started the year with. Over 20 seniors and you are supposed to be in contention. And we were. Of the six losses, we were ahead on the scoreboard in four of those in the second half. Not good times. Bad times. Oh well, this season is over and it's time to move on to another season... the one where I promised myself that I would finish one middle grade novel and one thriller. But to quote Lee Corso on ESPN's "College Game Day", "Not so fast, my friend!"

My wife due to give birth to our second child in the next two weeks. And if you haven't had a child, it has a tendency to cut into your plans. So writing is on my list of things to do, but it is rapidly being moved down the list, replaced by diapers, bottles, late-night feedings, and other baby-type stuff. Maybe I should just write in my Daddy blog!

Writing, Football and Other Stuff

We had our first official game of the high school football season Friday night. 35-6, we were on the winning end, but we played like donkey doo-doo. No focus, no emotion, no energy. I don't care what the score is, I want to play a good game. Winning is great, and I'll take it, but I want a well-played game. Hey, that's the coach in me.

College football started as well and my Ole Miss Rebels revealed something that I had been afraid of since the start of pre-season practice reports leaking out of the Oxford, MS campus: they are not a very good football team. A 14-13 loss to BYU showed that the offense has little to no weapons, and the defense is going to be called on to win a lot of games when they aren't capable of it. I hope I'm wrong...

On the writing front, not much is in the "Works In Progress" file. In fact, nothing is. Football season tends to do that. However, I did get an article published in Mississippi Magazine, so that was fun. My mom said they passed it out at The Grove on Ole Miss's campus for all the tailgaters. That is ultra-cool! If they made their way to this site via the magazine, welcome! Email me at toddbushbooks@gmail.com and let's get to know each other.

I have done no promoting, no writing, and barely any thinking about writing recently. Unless you count writing a film breakdown on how to beat Palm Beach Central's 4-4 and how to combat their Jet motion counter and iso. No, that doesn't add to my word count.

Keep reading, folks! Rick Frost will return soon in a book tentatively called Rick Frost & the Escape from Gotham. And yes, it's set in the Capitol City of the World, New York! Talk to you soon!

Mississippi Magazine

An essay I wrote about football in the South is featured in Mississippi Magazine this month. For their August/September issue, they always have a field guide full of articles about football, hunting, tailgating, etc. My piece is in the "On Being Southern" section.

Go to their website to order a copy.

A New Blurb

This is from best-selling noir writer Mike Dennis, whose latest novel SETUP ON FRONT STREET is available from Amazon. If you know of Mike and his writing, you know he's got the goods. If you have never picked up his stuff, why wait? Here's what he had to say about THE BACKSEAT VIRGIN: A SOUTH FLORIDA NOIR COLLECTION:

"Florida crime fiction writers had better make room for Scott Chase. His original voice rises from the Miami demimonde and drags the reader deep into its underbelly. These tough stories are what noir is all about."

Sounds like it's time for me to start writing some more noir. Unfortunately, my writing and posting will be cut drastically starting next week. It's August, as you know, and that means the start of football. As the coach for kickers and punters, as well as co-special teams coordinator at the high school where I work, my world is going to revolve around the pigskin. I usually kiss my wife and son on or around the first weekend in August and say "See ya in November!"

So to my readers and those who keep up with this blog, *smack*... See ya in November!!

Not really, I'll keep you guys updated on what's going on with the team.

Talk to you soon.

Rick Frost Has Arrived

This is ultra-cool!!! How about this for publicity? From an airport in South Florida:

Happy Independence Day

I thought about writing a long, heartfelt blog about my feelings for this country, and specifically the men and women who have fought to make it free. I thought about doing what countless others will do today, and rightly so. Because freedom isn't free, and needs to be defended. But I decided to let someone far smarter, far greater and much more of a hero than I ever will be do the honors today. From his speech commemorating the 40th anniversary of the D-Day landings at Normandy, here is Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States:

"These are the boys of Pointe de Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life...and left the vivid air signed with your honor…."

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith, and belief; it was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you."

God bless America, and Happy Independence Day!

The Backseat Virgin

I like shadows in my stories. Superheroes are great, so are adventure stories and even the occasional drama. But I prefer all of those to have at least a hint of darkness in them. Make me choose between Spider-man and The Punisher, and I'm taking Frank Castle every day (for those of you who are confused, that's The Punisher's real name). I rarely, if ever, root for the perfect hero. It's just not fun to follow someone who has nothing wrong with them. Because of that, I like writing those kinds of characters. Rick Frost, the main character of my YA adventure series, does have a dark side to him. I've only really hinted at it so far, but it is coming out more and more in later books. But that wasn't enough...

THE BACKSEAT VIRGIN: A SOUTH FLORIDA NOIR COLLECTION is four short stories and one short novella that don't just wade into those shadows, but dive in head first. I love writing noir, which is a style of literature that doesn't avoid the darkness, but glorifies it. The characters in noir stories are heading for doom; there's no avoid it. There is no happy ending, only an end.

These stories are set in South Florida in the late 1970's and early 1980's in the middle of the drug boom. Cocaine was just being discovered and had started to take off as America's drug of choice, and South Florida was where over 90% of it came into the country. With all that money, drugs, greed and power packed into one area, it was inevitable that darkness was going to creep in and take over. These stories highlight that darkness.

If you don't mind walking into the shadows with me, then click above and take the journey. I hope you like reading it as much as I loved writing.

Buy THE BACKSEAT VIRGIN: A SOUTH FLORIDA NOIR COLLECTION from Amazon.com