Think On Your Sins

One of the goals I set for May 2024 was to finally write--and finish--my Ben Parks story "Sins of a Sidekick."  YEAAAAAARS ago (I think it was 2018), I wrote another installment of the series, called "A Sidekick To Miracles," and while I was writing it, I thought, "Gee, there's room for two stories between Sidekick's Journey and this one."*  So, I made reference in "Miracles" to an experience Ben had with a Reverend Elias, and logged it for possible future use.  It's something I've learned to love about writing series, leaving breadcrumbs that I could come back and pick up one day, if I ever decided to.

Unfortunately, I made the choice, years back, to wait to publish "Miracles" until after I'd published "Sins," which I did start on, back in 2019 or 2020 . . . but then abandoned it, which meant that the story I'd actually finished never went anywhere either.  Sigh.

Cut to 2024.  Big Anklevich is writing like he's in port for only one more night, and is apt to lose the use of his wiener once he's back aboard his ship, and I can't help but feel like I ought to do something other than sleep, run around the block, and criticize people who want to see BEETLEJUICE 2.  I wrote "A Sidekick's Journey" (the best installment in the series so far) in 2015, and I decided enough was enough, and that I ought to get back on the horse (so to speak) and finish "Sins of a Sidekick."

But saying I'll do something and actually doing it are two different things.

I have had a heck of a time finding the strength to write this story, partly because it's a Western and I'm out of practice (it's easier to write about small town 21st Century America than 19th Century small town America) and because so boring.  I struggled the first time with writing this story because I didn't want to spend ten thousand words sitting on a homestead with Ben Parks, wishing he were someplace else.

But that's the story I set out to write, and I've written probably eight or nine thousand of those words . . . and then I can get to the fun part.  And then the super fun part, where I write those two glorious words.

This is preliminary artwork--what do you think?

Right now, the story is sitting at 17,851 words, so, maybe 3/4ths of the way there.  Sins notwithstanding, wish me luck.

*"Sins" begins with Ben coming back from a final adventure with Lorelei Skruggs, the female gunslinger he met in "Journey," though the details of that adventure are not revealed.