Book Progress & Teasers

Deadlines, duties and shifting priorities.

January 3, 2022 by Jeff Berney

I’ve been thinking a lot about priorities and responsibilities lately. I started 2021 with a pretty clear agenda. First, spend more quality time with my wife and kids. Next, finish my second novel and publish it by the end of December.

Well, if you’re playing along at home you or you’re more than a casual observer of my probably have noticed that I haven’t published “The Fall of Faith” yet. In fact, I haven’t even finished the first draft. But I’m okay with that. Why? Well, for the most part it’s because I did very well on my first priority. The year 2021 was a great one for my family, well, until November anyway. More on that in a moment.

You may know that my wife and I are blessed with seven children. Four of them are still living at home. So we have a full house. And then some. In 2021, we took our kids on some epic camping adventures in our travel trailer, most of which included my parents joining us in theirs. We visited two national parks and a ton of state parks. We escaped Missouri’s February flurries by camping on the beach in Florida. We traveled thousands of miles and enjoyed hundreds of campfires. All while I was able to work or take vacation.

Everything was great. Then our daughter got COVID-19, which spread to her boyfriend. They had been vaccinated, but it still was a scary time. Especially because they’re currently living what my parents. Luckily it didn’t spread to them. And both my daughter and her boyfriend have made a complete recovery.

But that was just the beginning. On top of that my wife got sick. Thinking back on it, there were signs of trouble early in the year. As a writer, I can appreciate the foreshadowing. As a husband, I don’t give a damn about it. Doctors visits turned up nothing. Test after test seemed normal. For awhile, she thought she was going crazy. She knew something was wrong but nobody seemed to believe her.

Then things got so bad I took her to the ER. Have you been to an ER during the COVID era? I’d read the articles about out overwhelmed hospital system but nothing prepares you for the realities of sitting in an ER for four hours when you’re worried your wife might die. And once we got past the waiting room, well there were beds lining the halls because they had run out of rooms. She was admitted to the hospital, but that didn’t mean anything. They had no room to move her to. More tests. Still no answers. And we went home.

That was the first of three ER visits. One by ambulance. Oh, and somewhere in between one of our 11-year-olds had surgery. He came through it with flying colors thankfully. And weeks later, we finally had a diagnosis for my wife. We’ve started treatment, but it’s a long haul and a lifelong issue that is sure to change our lives. But what it won’t change are our priorities. Our health comes first and our time with each other and our family comes next. We’ve already planned two epic camping adventures for this year. Another winter Florida escape and summer journey to Yellowstone.

And, yes, I have recently gotten back to my draft. I can promise you my next book will be published this year. I just can’t tell you when. Not yet anyway. There is too much to do and too many moments to enjoy with my wife to worry about that. Thanks for your patience and for your continued appreciation of my first novel, “A Killer Secret.” I am truly blown away at the reviews it has received and hope to raise the bar with “The Fall of Faith.”

It’s hard keeping my mind in the clouds.

August 10, 2021 by Jeff Berney

Normally, working on a book is an escape for me. Typically, when I’m in the middle of a writing project my wife is always telling me that I’m in “book mode.” And she’s right. Day dreaming about my characters is how I subconsciously work out plot holes, find more complex meanings in a passage or even write a vivid first draft of a scene.

When in book mode, I’ll constantly email or text myself ideas. I’ll jot notes down in my phone. I’ll make a quick audio recording. Anything to get an idea down before it drifts across the oasis that is my semi-conscious mind.

For a year and a half, I’ve found it nearly impossible to remain in book mode. Oh, I still have thoughts. I still email myself. And I still make my notes. But the actual writing that turns these scraps into storylines has become hard to maintain.

For the record, I have never believed in writer’s block. I still don’t: I know from experience that if I sit down at my computer the words will eventually come. They may start haltingly. They may not be great. But they do appear. It’s a matter of letting your mind wander back into the magical make-believe world I’m conjuring out of nowhere. The problem I’m experiencing isn’t writer’s block. I’m still excited bunny sophomore novel. It’s something deeper.

Ever since the pandemic upended the real world, I’ve struggled to control my imaginary world. You’d think it’d be easier. With so much uncertainty and chaos in our everyday lives, you might think I would find myself sinking deeper and deeper into my fictional story as a way to cope, or as an escape mechanism. Heck, I thought that would happen too.

When my entire company was sent home a year ago in March, I was actually excited. Here was my chance to spend more time on my book. Lunch hours and commutes would now be furtive writing time along with my typical late-night sessions. Instead, work on my novel stopped completely for months. Then, in December, when I realized I’d wasted two-thirds of a year, I forced myself back into the writing seat. That worked for awhile. In fact, as vaccinations became more widely available and the pandemic seemed to wane, I found myself writing more and more.

And then the third wave came. And the fourth. The Delta and Lambda variants began to plunge us back into the isolation we were on the precipice of leaving behind. Add to that the fact that suddenly, disparate maintaining distancing and wearing masks, our household began to find itself infested with various sicknesses. Not Covid-19, thankfully. But stomach ailments, colds and even RSV.

I’m currently sitting here with a pounding head and clogged sinuses. I can’t breathe through my nose. I have no energy. And my manuscript is gathering figurative dust. I had hoped (and part of me still does) that I would be able to publish this book this fall.

Here’s what I’ve decided to do. I’m not going to beat myself up. But neither am I going to give up. I will finish this book. It will be better than my first. And I will publish it when it is ready. That doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on my original deadline, but it does mean that I won’t be adding to my anxiety by worrying about my current lethargic weekly word counts. There are bigger things happening in the world, and at my house, right now. So I’ll write when I can. Continue to put one foot in front of the other. And as long as I’m moving forward, I’m making progress.

Conspiracy Theories: excerpt from “The Fall of Faith” coming this fall.

July 12, 2021 by Jeff Berney

Jimmy sat at what he’d come to think of as his spot at Kenny’s bar. Kenny had just poured them another round. Jimmy swiveled around on his stool, happy to feel just the slightest pull in his side to remind him of his recent misadventures. A few men were scattered throughout the dim space.

Jimmy raised his glass to the man in a dress who sat at the far end of the bar. The man quickly looked down at his own drink and turned away from Jimmy. The smelly bum-slash-town-mayor sat slumped in a chair at a table by himself. Jimmy chuckled to himself as he realized the two men at the next table had slid their entire table and chairs to be able to drink in more breathable air.

“Why is this place never packed?” Jimmy asked Kenny as he turned back to the bartender and rested his elbows on the dried remains of his own blood.

Kenny gave him a sideways glance as he mopped up the backbar. “What are you talking about? This is a good turn out.”

“There are exactly five customers here, and that’s the most I’ve seen in the three weeks I’ve been here. How in the hell do you stay in business?”

“Let’s just say this isn’t my only business,” Kenny said as he poured Jimmy’s next round. “Like a lot of folks these days, I’ve got my hands in a lot of pies. Some side hustles, you might say. Helps me pay the bills and keep this place running.”

Jimmy looked at the drink in his hand. “You know, I didn’t really drink before I crashed into Eden. Now I can’t remember a day or night I don’t have a whiskey glass in my hand or at the ready.”

Kenny punched him in the shoulder. “Welcome to small town life, my friend. Nowhere to go but to the liquor store or bar and nothing to do but drown your sorrows in a glass. You know alcohol was invented to keep the working man in line?”

Jimmy looked at his friend and shook his head as he laughed. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s true,” Kenny said as he sipped from his own glass. “What better way than to keep laborers from rebelling than to keep them lit?”

“Come on,” Jimmy said. “Do you believe that crap, or is this some bogus bartender bullshit you’re feeding me here?”

Kenny looked around the bar then leaned in close to Jimmy. He spoke in hushed, excited tones. “Are you kidding me? That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Governments have been covertly trying to keep their subjects in line since the very beginnings of civilization. It’s not just about alcohol. It’s full-scale surveillance with ‘so called’ UFOs. You know drone technology has been used by the government since the 1940s?”

Jimmy slammed his drink and pulled the bottle away from Kenny. “I think I need a little more of this,” he said, “to keep me in line. Or at least to help me follow along.”

Kenny shook his head slowly and sighed. “It’s not your fault, buddy. You’ve been brainwashed since kindergarten. That’s when the indoctrination begins. This ‘free society’? It’s all bullshit. All of it. Every history book is a lie. All those cute little elementary school milk cartons? They’re filled with drugs that make us complacent.”

Jimmy looked around the bar to see if any of the other patrons were listening to the lunatic rantings of their hometown bartender. “Come on, man,” he said. “Tell me it’s the whiskey talking, or this is some sort of initiation you do with all your new customers or you’re just bored on a chilly fall night and decided to fuck with me.”

Kenny whipped the rag from his shoulder and twisted it in his fists. He mopped his brow and paced behind the bar. “Look around, Jimbo. There are black helicopters in the sky above every major city in this country. They’re watching us. Keeping us under their thumb. Making sure we stay fat, dumb and harmless.”

Jimmy sucked on an ice cube and contemplated retiring to the lumpy cot upstairs. “Okay,” he said. “Say that’s true. Why?”

“Because if we knew,” Kenny said as he slammed his fist on the bar, “they wouldn’t be able to control us. They’d lose everything. Their power, their money, everything.”

“So you’re saying this is the government doing this, right?”

“Not the government as you know it, or think you know it. No. It’s the people that pull the strings.”

“But what about all the good things government does? Technological advances. Social services like feeding the homeless. Medicines. You’re saying all that is somehow a means to an end? A way to control us?”

“Yes,” Kenny bellowed. “Look who decided to show up. Now you’re getting it, my brother. Medicines were created to keep us calm while nature takes its course. And vaccines don’t prevent sickness. They inject microscopic trackers and nano technology that can control our organs, even our thoughts. So if we become a danger to their power, they can just shut us down with an app.”

Jimmy knew he should walk away, but he just couldn’t believe what he was hearing from the guy he had come to think of as a friend. “Dude, I want to know what you’re smoking, because you’re clearly not sharing. And while we’re talking about medication, I think someone has definitely taken the blue pill.”

“Exactly,” Kenny said as he grabbed the whiskey bottle and drank from it while he continued to pace in tight circles in front of Jimmy. “‘The Matrix’ was an attempt by those in power to test the limits of that power. Don’t you get it? Could they release a movie about our lives and we not even notice its truths? It blows my mind, man. And look what happened. The chattel not only remained oblivious, they actually demanded sequels. Sequels, for godssake.”

Jimmy stood up and put his hands on Kenny’s shoulders. “I would love to sit here and debate these things with you, but I’ve had a weird enough day as it is. I thank you for making everything else that’s happened to me in the last several weeks seem pedestrian.”

Kenny grabbed Jimmy by the cheeks and pulled his forehead to his own. “You’re going to believe, brother. Before this is all over, you’ll see.”

Excerpt from “The Fall of Faith” Coming Fall of 2021

December 28, 2020 by Jeff Berney

Jimmy’s stomach growled in thundering protest, but his well-seasoned fork hand kept shoveling the under-seasoned Eggs Benedict into his mouth. His other hand gripped a cracked mug of thick coffee that the waitress efficiently refilled after every couple of sips. His droopy eyes stared across the deserted Waffle House, taking in everything but unable to focus on anything. His left arm felt glued to the stainless steel countertop. Every tap of his foot pulled up another layer of grime, which stuck tightly to the heel of his boot.

The only thing that’s not greasy in this place is my spoon. The thought made him smile. His wife would have shook her head at such a dad joke, which in itself would have been ironic. His mouth tightened and his eyes watered. He shook the thought out of his head and buried the pain. That’s what the men in his family did. They took their lumps in silence, as God intended.

“How you doing, darlin’?” The rotund waitress asked as she poured more sour coffee into his mug until Jimmy was sure it would overflow, scalding his hand. He was disappointed when she stopped just before the ceramic dam broke.

“I’m good, ma’am. Thank you,” Jimmy answered loudly so she could hear him over the constant rumble of the big rigs on nearby Interstate 49. Even in the dead of night, the highway was still full of life. One of the minor arteries pumping commerce to and from the heart of the country.

“Don’t call me ma’am. Makes me feel like an old lady. And though I may be old, I’m anything but a lady. The name’s Gladys.” The waitress cackled and winked at him, which caused a chasm of makeup cracks to form from the edge of her right eye down her cheek. She touched Jimmy’s arm with her free hand as she spoke. “How was your breakfast, hun? You sure scarfed it down like you haven’t eaten in weeks. I like a man who loves to eat and don’t mind what he puts in his mouth.”

“It was good. Really good.” Jimmy tried to pull his arm away, but the suction of the countertop combined with the weight of the waitress’ hand held him in check.

“You’re a two-time liar, but you’re awful cute, so I guess I’ll give you a break. And ooh would I love to break you.” The waitress cackled again. “So what do you do, handsome?”

“I’m a truck driver.”

“Oh, well shoot, I’m surprised I haven’t seen you in here before. We’re real popular with you truckers. And I’d remember if you’d been in before. A tall sturdy feller like you.”

“I don’t usually stop. Most of my days and nights are spent cruising along the highway back and forth between Bentonville and Kansas City.”

“A Walmart man, huh? I sure do love that danged old store. What brought you in tonight, doll?”
Jimmy stared down at the congealed mess of his nearly empty plate. He’d finished everything but the four strips of thick cut bacon. “I just needed a break is all.”

Gladys leaned across the counter and patted Jimmy on the shoulder. “Is that all? I thought maybe you’d spent all your money at that damned strip club masquerading as a truck stop across the way.”

“No, ma’am. I’ve never been.”

“Get out of town! Every man’s been to a strip club. Especially you truckers. Why you can’t throw a rock without hitting a club or a triple-x video store along this stretch of the highway, or any other I imagine.”

Jimmy shook his head slowly and stared out the window. He frowned at his reflection. He looked like a ghost of himself. His hair had begun to thin recently and looked even thinner in the glass. He found it fascinating how the hair on his head was slowly migrating down to his shoulders and his back. Like an hourglass he couldn’t turn over or reverse. Maybe it was the gravity of a hard life, a life on the road, never stopping, never standing still. Jimmy liked to imagine time as a hand constantly reaching up for you out of the depths of the earth, trying to pull you down and bury you. Only the bravest, the luckiest of us, get to escape by the hair on our heads. It looked to him like his time was about up.

As he stared at his receding hair line, he acknowledged, if only to himself, that he had had neither luck nor courage. Never had. He had always been more comfortable inside himself than out in the world.

“Sugar? You still with me?” The waitress’ voice broke the comfort of his solitude.

“Sorry,” he said as he shook his head. “I’ve just never had a reason to wander into one I guess.”

“Well good for you. Why should you pay for what you could get for free from a cow, or however the saying goes.” She cackled again as Jimmy forced a smile. “You should stop back by during the day sometime. I get off around lunch. I could show you around. The nearest town is Eden, which is fitting because this place sure seems like the birthplace of original sin if you ask me, and I know you didn’t.”

“I appreciate the offer, Gladys, but after 15 years of wearing out my tires and wearing away my life, this is my first and last visit. I’m getting out of the trucking life.”

“That’s too bad, sugar. You might find there’s something to do here upon deeper inspection.” She paused, and Jimmy supposed it was to see if he’d take the bait. “But I’m not surprised you’ve never stopped. Not many do, ‘sept for them that just don’t have the gumption or the gas to go no further.”

“I’ll just take my check, and a doggy bag please.”

“Okay, but there’s no need to rush off. You look like you’ve been on the road a bit. It might do you good to get your blood pumping.”

“I’m running late, and my wife is expecting me.” He hoped she wouldn’t see in his eyes that this was another two-time lie.

“Oh well. Suit yourself, hun. I’ll get you that doggy style bag.” The waitress squeezed his arm as she pushed herself from the counter, her arms now coated in grease and lint. She blew him a kiss as she waddled away.

Jimmy’s thumb rubbed against the line of pale skin on the ring finger of his left hand. All these years on the road, and he’d never strayed. Never fallen prey to the undercurrent of lesser demons, the ones who stirred up trouble and spurred on man’s innate needs to conquer new villages and vaginas.

Book update: round 3 edits almost finished.

July 21, 2019 by Jeff Berney

Edits to my debut novel, “A Killer Secret,” are nearly finished. Boy has this book been a journey! I started writing it slowly in what little spare time I had between my job as a creative executive at an ad agency and my crazy home life filled with seven rambunctious kids and one very amazing wife. Okay, full disclosure: two of the oldest kids are out of the house now. But I left out the two dogs, two cats, and one fish. Not to mention the odd rabbit now and again.

I wrote the first few chapters in March 2017 at a coffee shop and at a hotel in Denver where I’d accompanied my wife to a banking conference. After that, I’d write on lunch breaks, on airplanes to and from business trips, in hotel rooms, late at night when the rest of the house was asleep. I thought about my characters during my daily commutes. I practiced dialogue out loud when nobody else was home.

I would write a scene here, a snippet of dialogue there. Progress was unsteady. My writing times sporadic and unpredictable. And then I lost my job last Halloween. Well that’s not true. I know where it is, but I’m not in it. I was the victim of a global merger. I went home, put on a mask, and hid my misery and embarrassment long enough to trick or treat with the kids.

That was nearly 10 months ago. It was the lowest point in my professional career. It was quite a blow to my ego, too. You want to know something weird though? The world didn’t end. My wife and kids didn’t love me less.

So there I was with time on my hands and a half-finished manuscript. I took six months and finished the first draft while I thought about the next chapter in my career. Then I put it away and out of my mind for a little over a month so I could concentrate on finding a job, and so I could look at it fresh when I started the edit.

To my surprise, I still loved the story when I reread the manuscript. Sure there were some bad sentences, weird scene shifts, and a ton of inconsistencies, but I liked the book as a whole. I even found that I like the editing process.

But who cares what I think! I should like my own story. After two rounds of edits, the book is in the hands of my first beta reader – my wife. If she likes it, I’ll send it to a handful of others to read and critique. After making any final edits based on their feedback, I’ll work on the audiobook production and finalize the layout for the ebook and print editions.

My goal is an early December launch. So stay tuned!