While I Did Enjoy Writing My Novel, I’ve Sure Missed This Place

Some of you may have noticed I’ve been gone, well not gone, I’ve been lurking in Notes, liking and sharing things and trying to keep up with the pages I subscribe to, but I haven’t published anything new in a few months. The somewhat good reason for this is, I have been plugging away at the thesis— it’s a novel titled APPALACHIA ADJACENT— for my MFA.

I submitted the final bit of the draft to my adviser last night and now it’s on to revisions. Honestly, I never thought I’d be able to complete a novel. I’m more of a short story and CNF kind of guy but the program forced me to keep my ass in the chair and I’m almost proud of what I’ve banged out.

Once I’ve done all the revisions, I’ll probably query the thing, or maybe it will end up in the trash a few pages at a time, you know, serialized for the housekeeping staff. Either way, I’ll take what I learned from the process and write something better.

I thought I’d share the draft of the synopsis, and since this shit is way outside of my wheelhouse, ask for any advice you all might want to offer. Don’t worry about hurting my feelings, at this point I’ve dumped them all into the writing and I’m pretty numb.

---

Synopsis APPALACHIA ADJACENT

In 1983, TROY’S life is thrown into a blender when his dad, a cold and abusive man but his only real role model, dies in an accident. The loss of her husband sends his mom off the rails. She runs around their small western Pennsylvania town, drinking, bringing men home from the bar, and forcing Troy to step into the role of parent until, in the summer before his senior year, she runs off to New Orleans with a roughneck.

Troy is left in the care of a couple from church, DENNIS, and WENDY, as part of a rental agreement for the family home. Dennis is a small-time criminal and ex-con with dreams of making a big score and a name for himself. Troy is drawn to him as a role model, and it doesn’t take long before they’re robbing gas stations, and then a meth cook named BRUCE.

On a trip to meet STEVE, a buyer for the stolen meth, Troy runs into VAL, a girl in foster care out in the sticks but originally from the Hills, a rough neighborhood in Pittsburgh. They set about making a place for themselves somewhere between the gang bangers and hill-jacks, selling meth and desperately tiring to hold onto enough money to get the hell out.

With the help of Val’s UNCLE MIKE, Troy discovers there is a pecking order to things, and he realizes that his place is not at the bottom. Troy and Val go into business with RUTHIE, a gang boss who runs her operation out of a pool hall in the Hills. They find themselves pulled deeper and deeper into the underworld while a string of tragedies eats up their savings and Uncle Mike proves himself untrustworthy.

Along the way, Troy and Val struggle with the prejudice and roadblocks set in front of their interracial relationship and find a hollow victory in an act of revenge. They learn to depend on one another but find that ‘the life,’ whether in the hood or the hills, has a gravity to it and that gravity makes it difficult for anyone to achieve escape velocity.

---

In the next few weeks, I’ll be back publishing essays on whatever it is that strikes my fancy. I’m working on something right now about my ‘Bruce Willis is dead’ moment while writing. If you don’t know the reference, Bruce Willis is not dead, but you should watch The Sixth Sense.

Or maybe not, since I just ruined the twist for you.

Oh, and in that essay, I’ll argue that The Sixth Sense destroyed M. Night Shyamalan’s career. Or rather, it really put a damper on things.

And seriously, if anyone has any advice to offer on my synopsis, I’d be grateful.