I’ve always been a writer. In fact, before I started my career as a journalist, I wrote various works of fiction. I’ve always been told I was a good storyteller, and I enjoy writing. But life has always gotten in the way.

Until today.

Call it laziness. Call it frustration and disappointment over a rapidly changing publishing industry, one in which any one with a few hundred dollars can pay a big-box publisher to distribute on-demand copies of pure drivel.

But it’s now 2012. I’ve had input from fellow writers in Miami Beach and for the last year have participated in a great Literary Novelists Workshop that had its origins at Nova Southeastern University and now consists of a group of five talented writers from all aspects of life.

EXIT 19

Formerly titled “Just Another Pretty Face,” this work of fiction focuses on the events and actions of a family that in fall 1980 is grappling with the realities of divorce. Set in the fictional Upstate New York town of Olive Ridge, a hard-working husband pushed into running the family business by his parents is confronted with divorce, with his restless housewife pulling the trigger to what could lead to a new beginning. But at what consequence? What’s going through the mind of their eight-year-old son, who can only think of baseball and the cute girl in class he’s deathly afraid to talk to.  Will their eighth-grade daughter be forced to take sides in a likely custody battle while anguished over a scandalous act committed by her high school crush?  Is the split inevitable, or is a reconciliation possible?

This novel is set for completion in April 2012. Edited and finalized chapters will be uploaded to the Fiction Factory at a later date.

THE TOWER

In fall 2011 I began work on a second novel, and will resume work on it later in 2012. It is called “The Tower,” and is centered around Alfredo de la Torre, a 60-something Mexican-American businessman in San Antonio, Texas who is ready to give up on everything. A rags-to-riches-to-rags tale spanning three decades, this novel demonstrates how passion – when combined with stubbornness and failing to change with the times – can literally kill a dream … and perhaps its protagonist.

To view the first few chapters of this book, click below:

http://www.jakeadams.net/2012/02/the-tower-a-new-novel-by-adam-r-jacobson/