A Bazillion Brazilians --

-- is the title of one of the novels for which, as yet, I haven't come up with much more than the title. It could refer to residents of Brazil, to the fashionable style of womanscaping, to the Brazilian real, the country's currency, or perhaps in indirect ways to all of the above as well as to other things. The title of another novel I haven't written yet is You Magnificent Bastards. As with A Bazillion Brazilians, I haven't moved very far in the actual writing of the novel past liking the way the title sounds.

Then there's Because It's There. I've actually written 3 figures of pages' worth of various drafts of this one. Its protagonist is a man in his late 20's who's appeared rather unremarkable and lazy in his life so far, until, one night, he suddenly stands up in his usual dive bar, sets down his longneck Bud, announces to his drinking buddies that he's going to walk and swim all of the way around the world, with no motor vehicles, no boats, no life jackets, no nuthin', and walks out into the Ohio night and proceeds to do exactly that. The Key West-to-Cuba scene will now have to be rewritten with a reference to Diana Nyad. This swim will be perhaps the greatest challenge of the entire journey for my young hero, because until now he has not been a good swimmer by anyone's standards. Fortunately, the walk from Ohio to Florida has both gotten him into much better physical shape, and given him a lot of alone time in which to mentally steel himself for the long swim. Still, it's not as accurate to say that he swims up onto the beach in Cuba 6 days after leaving Florida, as that he washes up on shore, half-dead. Luckily, he's discovered before he actually dies and rushed to a hospital where he receives excellent medical care free of charge. Staying true to the rule he set for himself, he backtracks on foot to the beach he landed on before continuing the trip.

Then there's the novel about angels I started to write on this blog a couple of years ago.

So why don't I ever finish a novel, you ask? I have. I've finished two of them, Salvation and Independents. How many have YOU finished? Yeah, that's what I thought! You want to be helpful, don't stand there complaining, go scare me up an agent so I can publish some of this stuff, kay thanx.