The Betas take the field in 'The Fracking War'

WATKINS GLEN, New York, USA - Eight months and 95,000 words later, The Fracking War (at least Ver. 1.0) is done.

Spiral-bound copies of the manuscript were dispatched today via U.S. mail to two beta readers, one in California, the other in Maine.  The third beta reader is my in-house editor (and wife!) who each week checks over my column for the Finger Lakes Times carefully before I send it in.

All three beta readers have been tasked with the same thing: Please read this as you would any novel and see if it works.

The  idea for writing this book came from reading several very well-done, non-fiction tomes critical of hydrofracking for natural gas. They were full of details, numbers, references to studies. There were references to lots of news reports. Lots of references. Lots of news reports.

In some chapters, the books showed flashes of the emotion and trauma that surrounds this technology - a technology so lovingly embraced by our incumbent U.S. President and fossil-fuel companies who are making a bundle of cash.

And pretty much destroying the environment in the process.

Unfortunately, I don't believe those books have been able to capture the imagination of the public. They report and recite. In The Fracking War, I want to report and ignite - as in ignite passion.

My three beta readers will let me know in the next few weeks if I did that.

If I did. Well, Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Dogs of War!

First rereading of Part 1 of 'The Fracking War' is finished

WATKINS GLEN, New York, USA - I just reread the first segment (of five) of my draft of The Fracking War ("Prelude to War"). It was my first peek at the book since I drafted it last winter in Mexico.

Natural gas explosions, scary in real-life, too

I let it sit a long time so I would forget a lot of it. The time, I thought, would help me determine if it moved along fast enough, the dialog made sense and the plot was plausible.

Well, with some modifications, it looks like yes, yes, and yes.  Woo-hoo!

But it will be up to the Beta readers to determine if my somewhat-biased judgment is anywhere near right.

Where's my hammock?

It took a couple of hours to go through, reading fairly fast. I believe I will go back in the next day or so and edit this first section, making it final (as a draft). I had thought I would read through all five sections and then go back and edit.

But what I saw/read is pretty clear to me right now and doing it this way will make the editing task a little less Herculean.

Maybe.

Regardless, this writer needs a nap right now.

Right now. I'm writing myself a nap in this chapter of my life.