Musings Of A New Southern Man

April 24 marked the one-year anniversary of Kevin Dale calling me into his office and notifying me that my job at The Denver Post was being eliminated in a reduction of workforce. I won't write about that decision today. That is so last year. But I learned a lot in those intervening months, so it's time for an update. It is a situation in which there is good news and there's bad news. People given the option of what to hear always take the good news first. I will reverse that order. Those bad things sit deeper in my soul, as they should for anyone who put decades of effort into his or her craft or profession. So here are the three worst parts of leaving journalism. 1. I have so much to offer and no opportunity. I am a skilled journalist. I have numerous writing awards. I was a good copy editor who worked on some of the best newspapers not only in the West but in the world. What was that worth in the job market? Not a darned thing. I applied for any job that had the word

You have to tip your cap to Daniel Pace. He was like so many veterans who came home from Iraq with nothing but hope and a stash of combat pay. He started a small company in the Seattle area, and success built on success. Now he lives in a million-dollar home with a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. He looks like a winner on every count. But there are signs that not everything is as it seems. He lives alone, and his social contact is limited once he lives his office. That beautiful home is surrounded by a high wrought iron fence, and no one gets in without knowing the proper access code. Is the fence there to keep threats out or secrets in? I have one Pace first draft done, but I need to revise that considerably. I am about a third of the way through a second Pace novel, but I won't forge ahead without getting the first novel completed to my satisfaction. There is a lot of good stuff in that first novel, in my humble opinion, but it's just not there yet as a br