I shared the first chapter of my novel, Catfish Air with this group, and mine, and some friends, and got excellent feedback. The best part is that I got proper, constructive feedback. Not a single person said, "Oh, gosh-golly-gee-wow mister, this is swell!" Every reader said things like, "These parts are great, but that didn't work for me," or "I like this a lot, but this bit didn't make sense," or even, "Please delete this entire section - it's way too much!" And guess what? I took it all to heart. Not in a bad way. I mean I took is seriously. I genuinely went back and reviewed what I'd written and incorporated the feedback, and I think I cracked the code! Up until now, I'd had the POV and the voice all wrong. It was too stiff like I was a puppeteer with some marionettes and describing what people were doing. Not gonna lie...it kind of sucked. But now I zoomed in, stepped inside a character, share back stories as I go along which allows me to avoid cardboard cut-out characters. Thank you all so much for your feedback! And, if you're interested, I've attached the new version of the first chapter. Fair warning...there's one character who is VERY inappropriate toward women - but give him some grace because it's all part of his character arc.

After I finished my last non-fiction book, I promised myself I'd focus on fiction. And I did. I spent a lot of time developing the outline, working on worldbuilding, character development, and story arcs. Let me know what you think. Chapter One. Balad Air Base, Iraq Technical Sergeant Virgil R. Mason set his coffee cup down next to his Rubik’s cube and wiggled his computer mouse to wake his computer. The large, black mirror glowed to life. His desk was cluttered with papers in loose piles. The office he shared with Master Sergeant Edmund Erwin was in an old Iraqi military building. There was no way to know why the Iraqis built, or what it was used for. But it was ideall for this small Air Force detachment. “Don’t forget we have the assignment brief at zero-nine,” said Master Sergeant Erwin. “I think she’s sending us to FOB Colfax this week. I heard her mention it to Captain Carlisle the other day.” Virgil’s computer came fully to life and he double-clicked the Outlook icon. He remembered years before they used to say that if you wanted to beat the air force, all you’d need to do is shut down the phone system. These days it was Outlook. “And if you want to do the half-marathon, let me know,” said Sergeant Erwin. “I haven’t done any distance like that in ages and I could use the running buddy.” Virgil nodded and grunted quietly, slowly sipping his coffee. This morning he was having Starbucks’ Veranda – the one with the little hummingbird on the bag. Previous teams who had been through this office set up a collection point for coffee from care packages. If he had to guess, there was maybe seventy or eighty pounds of coffee – mostly Starbucks. His favorite was the Veranda, and he was running low. There was plenty of the Pike’s Place and whatever other dark or medium roast coffees they made – some bags of whole bean and some ground. One thing that hadn’t come in a care package yet was a grinder, so the bags of ground coffee, especially Veranda, were under his personal protection.

Welcome to The Wordsmiths' Guild. If you're looking for shortcuts, you're in the wrong place. If you're looking for someone to tell AI to write your book for you, you're in the wrong place. This Guild exists because writing has changed. For the first time in history, every writer has instant access to extraordinary tools. We can brainstorm with AI, research in minutes instead of days, pressure-test ideas, explore characters, analyze structure, and learn from the greatest writers who ever lived without leaving our desks. That changes everything. It also raises the standard. Yesterday's excellence is today's minimum bar. In the years ahead, there will be an explosion of books. Many will be technically competent. AI has made that possible. But competence isn't the goal. Meaning is. Craft is. Truth is. The writers who rise above the noise won't be the ones who produce the most words. They'll be the ones who think more deeply, write more intentionally, and create books that are genuinely worth reading. That's why The Wordsmiths' Guild exists. Everything we do here is built around three simple ideas: 🤔 Think Better. Great books begin long before the first sentence. Learn to ask better questions, explore ideas from multiple angles, research effectively, and use AI to challenge your thinking instead of replacing it. ✍️ Write Better. Master the timeless principles of storytelling. Character. Conflict. Theme. Dialogue. Structure. Voice. AI changes the tools, but great writing still depends on great craftsmanship. 🏛️ Build Better Books. A great manuscript doesn't happen by accident. Learn a complete system for planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing books that can stand the test of time. This isn't a community about writing faster. It's a community about writing better. Welcome to the Guild.

Purple prose is writing that is trying so hard to be beautiful that it accidentally gets in the way of the story. It usually shows up as too many adjectives, too many metaphors, too much symbolism, or sentences that draw attention to themselves instead of the scene. For example: The incandescent orb of molten gold languidly descended beneath the undulating horizon, painting the celestial canvas with ineffable hues. Translation: The sun set. Of course, those are opposite extremes. Good writing lives somewhere in the middle. Beautiful prose isn't the enemy. Some of my favorite authors write gorgeous sentences. The difference is that they know when to let a sentence sing. If every sentence is trying to be unforgettable, none of them are. One of the hardest lessons in writing is realizing that readers don't need to be impressed by every line. They need to be carried through the story. Save your best language for the moments that earn it. A good question to ask during editing is: "Is this sentence serving the story, or is it asking the reader to admire the writing?" Those aren't always the same thing.

I decided on the cover art for You Are Forgiven.