'Fracking Justice' section titled 'Sedition' nearing completion

WATKINS GLEN, New York - The fourth of five sections of the sequel to The Fracking War has about a week's worth of writing left to do. At least it seems that way on a rainy upstate New York afternoon.

The section of Fracking Justice under construction is called simply 'Sedition'. And it's pretty damned seditious.

What's slowing progress is that the section has a chapter in need of a major rewrite. Then there are five more chapters that need to be added to close it out.

Still, it's surging ahead. And as in the drafting of The Fracking War, it's hard to keep ahead of the bizarre hydrofracking/gas industry news.

Just think about the bills working their way through Congress right now to make gas exports much more easier. Or how in upstate New York, propane companies are blaming last winter's fuel shortages on a lack of storage, when we know it was mostly the results of export to other nations.

Next thing you know, the natural gas and oil industry will be exempted from most federal clean air and clean water laws.

Oh. Sorry. They already are.

 

'Fracking Justice' finally gets back into the queue

WATKINS GLEN, New York - After cleaning my office this past week and doing everything possible to avoid getting back to working on the draft of Fracking Justice (the sequel to The Fracking War), I ran across the cartoon at the right on Facebook today.

How could I not dive back into Fracking Justice after seeing that?

For the record, writers are generally not all that self-confident about their writing. If they do exude self-confidence, it's usually an act.

That said, after rereading the first section of Fracking Justice, I'm self-confident enough (or just acting) to say that it will be done sometime this summer. Reading just the first part of the book (of five sections) makes me wonder if I should title it Fracking Injustice.

For the novel writers and would-be novel writers reading this, I have a warning about writing a sequel: It's freakin' hard.

Why?

Just as in writing a news article, you cannot assume that a reader has read the previous book. So all that hard character development has to be recreated. Then, of course, there has to be some new characters created, a few old ones made to disappear, and entire fictional communities made whole again.

Like I said, freakin' hard.

But in the end, justice will be served, hot and cold. Fracking Justice, that is.

Someone else's love story - a novel well-worth taking a look at

WATKINS GLEN, New York - Someone else's love story, a novel by Joshilyn Jackson, says on its cover "You won't be able to put it down."

Damn... it was true. Too true!

After a couple of marathon days, reading in between other projects (including writing the sequel to The Fracking War) I rammed through this book, finishing it last night with a contented sigh.

It's quite a tale, twisting and turning with a lot of surprises. A lot. And the surprises come up fast in the copy. Forget foreshadowing. And it works.

There's crime, romance, familial discord/dysfunction, and a handful of other dramatic issues that keep you turning the pages one right after another. Thank God there are chapter breaks in the book or I never would have been able to stop.

Joshilyn Jackson

Jackson uses different character points of view to tell the story, mostly through two main characters. One of the characters has an adorable son. He's a heart breaker.

But what happens to all these characters you will have to read for yourself.

Someone else's love story is highly recommended reading. Highly! And it's even available at the Watkins Glen Public Library.

'Fracking Justice' gets underway (again) in Nuevo Vallarta

NUEVO VALLARTA, Nayarit, Mexico - The first three chapters of the sequel to The Fracking War were written in Watkins Glen as we struggled to get that book out the door (electronically).

My temporary office in Nuevo Vallarta

But today the sequel - Fracking Justice - moved ahead a chapter and a half. With luck (and a little keyboard pounding) the book will be well on its way by March 1 when Admiral Fox and I return to California where we hope a book crate full of the print versions of The Fracking War will await us.

If you have seen the movies Gasland and Gasland II, you will get a hint about what's Fracking Justice looks at. Justice has definitely been fracked by gas companies and the corporations that pull their strings.

Writing a sequel is proving to be a challenge. I can't assume that readers have read The Fracking War, so character development has to start from scratch, so to speak.

And even the people killed, blown up or otherwise missing from The Fracking War are finding themselves mentioned in the four chapters completed.

I have about six weeks of writing time here which means if I can churn 1,000 to 2,000 words per day, it will be almost complete by the time we return to the U.S.

I hope.

The Fracking War endorsed by Sandra Steingraber - woo-hoo!

WATKINS GLEN, New York - When your writing is referred to in the same paragraph as a book by John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath) and another by Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom's Cabin), there is only one rational response: You blush.

So Sunday afternoon I had a thoroughly beet-red face for quite a while after I read a book-jacket blurb kindly offered by environmentalist, biologist and author Sandra Steingraber.
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Sandra Steingraber

"It was Uncle Tom’s Cabin, not economic data, that turned the page on slavery.  It was The Grapes of Wrath, not demographic reports that opened a nation's eyes to Dust Bowl dislocation.  Out of that tradition comes Michael J. Fitzgerald’s The Fracking War.  Here, within a smoldering crucible of social crisis, is a tale of power, money, fateful choices, and consciences aroused.   If you like your drill rigs served up within the context of a fast-moving plot line, you’ve got what you want right in your hands.” 

  —Sandra Steingraber, author, Living Downstream and Raising Elijah

The beet-red blush was also because Sandra Steingraber is one of my heroes. Working here in New York as a journalist, I've published reams about her courage in fighting the hydrofracking menace, helping to lead the struggle against a manifestly dangerous propane storage project in Watkins Glen, and her arrest and jailing earlier this year on trespassing charges following a protest.

So to have her praise The Fracking War so highly, well, I'm blushing again.

Book cover art by Will Sweeney

All of the pieces have fallen into place - with a little pushing - for electronic publication of The Fracking War this week. There may be some last-minute surprises from the publisher to delay the e-launch. But as they say at NASA, 'Confidence is high.'

And the print version is on track to be available in early 2014.

By the way, my sincere thanks to all the folks who supported The Fracking War through the Kickstarter.com campaign. We made our goal. And right now Adm. Sylvia Fox and I are scrambling to get the promised T-shirts done and mailed out. I'm also trying to put together an author's website.

At a fabulous end-of-the-season party last night at The Stonecat Cafe in Hector, several people asked me about a sequel to The Fracking War. The answer is yes, there will be one. But I won't say much more about it until Wednesday at the book publishing celebration at the Hector Wine Company, which not surprisingly, is in Hector, too.