And that’s the last chapter in Book 1 (The Diamond Thieves) of the Extra Innings Trilogy by B W Gibson.
Browsing Tag
Innings
Ann McIndoo is an Author’s Coach who was referred to me by a friend & colleague of mine. Ann suggested that I create a Summary Resume for my book Extra Innings. I’ve completed the first half and am now working on the second half which is a Table of Contents using 2-3 powerful impact sentences to summarize each chapter. Holy Cow! Summarizing each chapter is much more challenging than what I had initially perceived. Wish me luck world!
For anyone who is interested Ann’s website address is www.soyouwanttowrite.com
Editing Book 2 of the Extra Innings Trilogy (Race of the Gemini) is underway. I have decided to go with my brother-in-law’s cousin Derek Mitchell. Derek is a writing tutor with his bachelor of arts from Kent State University. We had a great talk yesterday regarding his impression of Book 1 (The Diamond Thieves). Derek said he enjoyed getting to know the characters and said it was a fast read that kept him interested through all 160 pages. More to come as I take this journey with Derek deeper into the lives of Jimmy and Billy McGee.
Teenage TWIN brothers Jimmy and Billy McGee are fictional characters, from a fictional town in Eugene, Mississippi. The story begins on their 13th birthday in their attic bedroom of their parents home. I was nineteen years old when I began writing Extra Innings. The plot begins with the twins and their friends confronted by the neighborhood bad boys threatening to take full possession of the school’s baseball diamond. A dispute of this gravity can only be settled but one way … the boys would have to play for it. Whichever team wins the game will claim dominion of the baseball diamond forever.
After the game, I took a few years off to focus on college. Then I moved to Massachusetts to start the Rock ‘n Roll band that was intended to launch my musical stardom! I had one particular semi-successful run before our brotherhood fell apart after which I escaped to NYC for a brief blink of an eye until the tragedy of 9/11 overhauled my perspective on the importance of family and I moved to Ohio to be with my parents, sister, brother-in-law and newborn nephew Brevan.
I was broke, living back with my parents and heavy-hearted from a soul searching quest for my identity. Finally, I landed a decent paying job. . That’s when my creativity got squashed by small-corporate America and I began craving a therapeutic outlet from the Real World. Being a few years older and more mature, I felt ready to tackle the heavier subject matter of the latter half of the twin’s teen years and finally, Extra Innings, the book, was completed in 2008.
Most authors probably don’t require ten years to write a modest 600 + page novel … but maybe they do. I loved the story and the characters but the storytelling did not meet my vernacular standards for a “smooth and easy read.” I wanted a piece of work that readers would breeze through without feeling any sort of burden from its length. Many sentences and paragraphs were awkward and clumsy. Perhaps this is from my lack of experience as a reader. I’ve only ready maybe 10 or less books in my entire life (including all school literature reading assignments as most of them I didn’t actually read … shhh! – don’t tell anyone) so, as a result, revising Extra Innings to make it more reader friendly took years!
The book is now being edited. I can’t wait for everyone to read a finished copy!
Everything’s gonna be alright … everything’s gonna work out. Awesome advice for a guy turned down by literary agents and publishers in a quest to plant my flag on this planet. They always give the same excuse how in today’s shrunken economy they are unwilling to take on an unknown writer. Too bad I’m not a celebrity – right?
Anyway, my first book is called Extra Innings and the author is me … B W Gibson … and the more I examine it’s content and deliberate with close friends and colleagues, this 600+ page manuscript and its Young Adult target market are screaming for it to be divided into a TRILOGY. A summary of Extra Innings is now posted under my WRITINGS tab here on my site. Check it out!!
The best rewards in life come from achieving your goals and I’ve cast one helluva uphill climb for myself with Extra Innings. I am so passionate about its originality and the magnitude of its content that I am determined to see this story reach as broad a scope as possible.
All goals present challenges. For me, the supreme challenge of them all is Twitter. I’m brand new to using Twitter and I can’t figure out why we’re not clicking. It just ain’t happening between us right now. I can’t get into it. Even though, not a day goes by that my partner is not standing there reminding me to Tweet Tweet Tweet. Oh well, I know it’s ultimately up to me. So, my friends, wish me luck as I start this climb! May the story of twins Jimmy & Billy McGee help me along the way.