Jason P. Reed's Blog

Well, I gave it a shot. Not my very best shot, but an honest, sustained effort, the end result of which is three New Bayou books, tens of thousands of pages read, and a handful of media articles and podcasts. I’m proud of what I’ve been able to do. But, realistically, it’s just not enough. 

The hard truth is you can’t spark a revolution in South Louisiana literature from the other side of the Atlantic. I assume the same is true for the other side of the Pacific, too. And since that’s where my day job and my family will be taking me this fall, the only conclusion I can draw is that it’s time to shut it down. 

Before I sign off though, let me tell you about October of 2022 . . . I spent most of that month back home around Eunice and Lafayette. Over the course of two festivals, a book reading, a podcast taping, and lots of one on one interactions, the spark caught some tinder and started to burn. It was exactly the boost New Bayou Books needed. Just from those few weeks of personal outreach in Acadiana, all kinds of good things started to happen. Book sales, website hits, and messages from established authors and new readers surged.

But I could not fan that flame from afar. 

I was never one for rolling around in the muck of anti-social media, for spending money to buy advertising “impressions” . . . for anything that isn’t personal and direct. And so New Bayou Books lost momentum. 

I learned a very simple and profound lesson over the past couple years: writing a book, as hard as that is, is far easier than selling a book. It’s hard, hard work for an unknown author to attract readers and listeners, even in scenarios where you can talk to people face to face. I found the challenge to be even greater from a distance. 

So, that’s the bad news. 

But let me assure you, I haven’t written my last South Louisiana novel. Or my last blog post. Or done my last interview with podcasters and TV personalities. It might take a few more years, but I will be back . . . and when I return, I’ll come out swinging. 

Meanwhile, newbayoubooks.com will stay up. And I will keep writing. And . . . we shall see.

If you go to NewBayouBooks.com, you will find–right there on the home page–bootleg recordings of the first three “innings” of my latest book. The short, steamy novel is called Baseball on the Bayou: The Colton Lacombe Story. If you’re interested in the New Bayou Books project of sparking a renaissance of South Louisiana literature, I hope you’ll give it a listen.

I learned a couple interesting and as of yet uncharacterised lessons in the process of recording the book. Which I will review now . . .

It’s FUN to read the books! I have always enjoyed reading aloud. Reading your own work, it turns out (at least for me), is even more fun. It only makes sense, when you think about it. You fall in love with your characters in the process of writing them, and so it only makes sense that you, the author, are the most qualified to bring them to life in this way.

But I kinda suck at it. This is the second big take-away. It turns out that, just like sex and guitar, it’s possible to be bad at it while still having a great time in the moment. Obviously, the only thing to do about this is to keep on trucking. I’m old enough to know that there’s only one route to perfecting any skill. Practice makes, if not perfect, than at least better.

DIY recording is technically challenging. I have what I think is probably the easiest do it yourself recording set up. It consists of a Blue Yeti microphone and an Apple computer with GarageBand loaded on it. Even a guy like me can understand it. Still, the final mixing, EQ settings, and splicing in new sections are all technically challenging.

The big one. Above all, the thing I’m noticing is the uncanny way speaking the words exposes the quality of the writing. For the most part, I actually quite like the style and the flow of this latest book. I feel like I got pretty close to what I was going for. And still, there are certain sentences and word-choice that stick out like an unzipped fly to me. Reading aloud remains the great equaliser.

Do me a favour and give it a listen . . . tell me what you think. https://newbayoubooks.com

I gotta level with you. I dropped the ball this week. It was my kid’s second week of spring break, and so he was around the house A LOT. Which tends to cramp my style, writing and routine-wise. And so I didn’t prepare my blog ahead of time.

But, if you’ll indulge me for just a few minutes, I think the little insight I’m about to offer might help to give you an extra piece of the peace of mind we’re all searching for.

Jason

I used to get myself pretty stressed out in the days leading up to a trip back home to visit my extended family in South Louisiana. The reason was because, basically, I was a know-it-all. I didn’t realise it, of course . . . but that’s what I was. An “enlightened” person who had it all figured out, just waiting for everyone else to catch up.

Despite my cocksure perspective, I found myself filled with dread that one of my less enlightened family members would say something abhorrent and stupid in my presence, and righteousness would then force me to take a stand. Oh yeah, that was me. I had it bad.

I’m going to skip past the moment of awakening when I–slowly, as I learn all things–discovered that my shit does, in fact, stink just like everybody else. Because I want to get to the practical part of this little confession . . .

Everything changed for me when this little mantra popped into my feeble mind: don’t have an opinion about somebody else’s opinion.

Once that sank in, something wonderful happened. Anxiety and stress gave way to an emotion that’s WAY more fun. Curiosity.

Instead of rebutting, arguing, or trying to influence, what I do now is try to unpack the why in everything. And as a result, I’ve had some fascinating conversations with people who, it always turns out, are way more interesting that I might have imagined.

I’ve learned that why a person holds a particular perspective is usually more interesting than what that perspective actually is. When you seek to understand the layers of life experience and embedded details that make up the tip of the iceberg that is what an individual believes, the conversation is always fruitful.

And as a writer, this trick pays HUGE dividends. Think about it: as readers, when we dig into a character, what we’re really interested in is why she did a particular thing. We want to understand both the psychology behind the action and the specific life-experiences that motivated that action.

We want to go deeper. And a real easy way to train yourself to start digging in to the fascinating characters that surround you is, don’t have opinions about their opinions. Instead, ask why . . . and then listen as the real story unfolds.

See you next week!

Though I still have some work to do to finish the audio recordings for the third New Bayou Book (Baseball on the Bayou: The Colton Lacombe Story), I’m already neck deep in my next novel. I’ve learned my lesson about talking too much about a work-in-progress (you might remember discussions about a book called The Asian Cajun that hasn’t materialized yet) . . .  so I won’t get into specifics. 

Which is fine, because the thing I want to talk about is empathy and the irony of so-called diversity and inclusion (I’m omitting the word “equity” because I still don’t know what it means–something to do with short kids trying to look over a fence, I think).  

The book I’m currently working on is rooted in the bitter divisiveness of modern American politics (which legacy media outlets euphemistically call “polarization”). Specifically, the Christrian, conservative right. Trump supporters, to put a bumper sticker on it. 

Here’s the main insight: for all the lip service that traditional progressive people (like me) and organizations seem to give to the principles of diversity and inclusion, it appears to be just that. Lip service. 

If viewpoint diversity was really a core value, we would endeavor to understand, for example, why a significant percentage of Americans believed the 2020 election was fixed. In fact, we should be very interested in the parallels between the two camps–so many democrats, for example, still believe that Russia is responsible for Trump’s presidency in 2016. 

If inclusion was really the priority, Christian conservatives would have a seat at the table too. Just a few weeks ago in Nashville, three Christian children and three of their Christian teachers and administrators were stalked and killed by a woman who happened to enjoy pretending to be a man. Somehow, the public discussion in the aftermath of the killings excluded an analysis of the apparent anti-Christrian sentiment of the killer. A killer who wrote a manifesto, which appears to have been buried. 

As I go out of my way to read material and viewpoints that I wouldn’t ordinarily gravitate to, and as I get into the head of my main character–a fella that goes by the name of Dirt–the main thing I see is a lack of sympathy and a willingness to ignore the simple science of facts. Actually, that’s putting it too mildly. What I see, honestly, is a collective, brutal effort by media elites, government bureaucrats, and academics to stamp out all that is traditional in America. 

Diversity and inclusion is, I have come to believe, a Trojan horse. The goal is not to broaden perspectives and bring everyone into the tent. The goal is to solidify a singular viewpoint, a singular ideology. 

Frankly, I have more in common with these left-leaning social engineers . . . but my sympathies lie with the other side . . . with the real marginalized. The traditional Americans–who actually come in all shapes and sizes, despite the popular caricature–are the ones I want to explore. Why is their love of guns, God, and country so mercilessly mocked and ridiculed?  Why are we not concerned about what will fill the vacuum when we remove religion and tradition from the culture? Why are certain words taboo now? Why are average individuals more inclined to self-censor now? What happened to public debate and discourse? 

So many questions . . . so much to explore. 

See you next week.

Hi friends. Today’s post is quick and off the cuff. I have family visiting from out of the country, and I’m still in the final throws of publishing my latest short novel, Baseball on the Bayou: The Colton Lacombe Story (available now on Amazon), so this entry will have to suffice.

Jason

I don’t worry about my legacy. At least not as an author. As a father? Sure. As a friend . . . perhaps. But as a writer? Hell no!

The world is already over-saturated with new literature . . . new “content”, in the modern parlance. Our attention spans are shrinking while the volume of shiny new media grows. So there’s no point in worrying about making a dent in the universe, literary or otherwise.

Once I took legacy and its kissing cousin–reputation–off the table, I found myself feeling a lot more free. These days I write what I want to write, say what I want to say, and think whatever the fuck I want. The only rule is: get better.

If I’ve learned anything at all about achievement and personal growth, it’s the simple observation that you can’t sit still. If you want to be a great or even good writer, you have to have the gumption to complete stories and put them out in the world. Somehow, producing and then sheltering them on your hard drive isn’t enough. You have to put it out there (and risk the hits to your reputation, ego, and your legacy).

Write the stories. Publish. Repeat. That’s my method for the duration. There are now three books to my name. I haven’t written a truly great one yet, but the pursuit of greatness is in there, and every time I hit “publish” on a book, I climb another rung on the never ending ladder of progress.

Whatever it is you aspire to do: complete the project, put it out into the world, and bury your head in the next effort. It’s the only way. We don’t wait for greatness . . . we pursue it.

Happy Day After Easter-Y’all.

Jason

I uploaded the latest New Bayou Book–a short novel called Baseball on the Bayou: The Colton Lacombe Story–to Amazon earlier today (available for pre-order soon). So it seems like a good opportunity, for the sake of other independent authors, to offer a quick breakdown of the time, cost, and process associated with the project. 

Here’s how it went down. 

In April 2020, I visited my hometown of Eunice, Louisiana, and during that trip, I took in a Bengals baseball game at LSU-Eunice. The field there is absolutely beautiful! To a guy like me, for whom the phrase “the older I get, the better I was” definitely applies, watching that game was a transformative experience. 

Besides the quality of the field, the thing that struck me was the “walk out” music that plays over the PA as each hitter steps up to the plate. I started thinking about how that 10 seconds of music affects the player, and especially what the choice of tune says about him. 

When I returned home from the Louisiana visit, I immediately went into coaching my son’s Little League team. It was his first year playing organized baseball and my first time even thinking about the game for almost 20 years. There was a kid on our team named Colton. It seemed like one of those names that’s just perfect for baseball. 

By July, I had invented the character of Colton Lacombe and published a brief character sketch in The Yard: A Crime Blog. By October of 2023, I had a 35 thousand word novel that I was quite happy with. 

The book is brief by design, for two simple reasons. Or, maybe three, depending on how you count it. The first is that people don’t seem to read like they used to. I certainly don’t, and I’ll bet you’re the same. Related to that decline in reading–call it reason two–is the rising trend in listening to books. So if I pivot towards writing shorter books, I figured, it will be easier to create audio versions of them. Third . . . I just have so many ideas for characters and books! So the shorter the books, the more of them I’ll be able to actually write, I figure. 

So, that’s how the story came to be: an idea intersecting with personal experience, real life, and an updated business model. 

Let’s talk about cost. 

Please forgive me if this sounds petty, but the reality is I paid 1.5 cents per word for editing that turned out not to be worth it. For the previous two New Bayou Books, I paid the same editor one penny per word, and I was happy with that work. A penny a word is a bargain basement price, and so with this book, I volunteered to pay a little more. But between the second and third book, this editor went totally woke and–following the current trend of editors-turned-self-appointed-sensitivity readers–much of her commentary was unusable. Rather than editing services, I got a series of admonishments about offending hypothetical readers. 

Anyway, that was 500 bucks. Next time, I’ll pay for a proof-reader instead of an editor. They’re cheaper, and this way you’re not paying someone to pass judgment on you (I was raised Catholic, so I get my judgment for free). 

For the cover, I commissioned a designer on Fivver.com (you can also hire a proofreader there). It cost me 100 bucks, and only took a few days. I got what I consider to be a delightfully tacky design that nicely matches the noir style of the text. 

For the audio, I’m using a Macbook Pro that I bought primarily because it comes with GarageBand. Before I bought the computer, I experimented with various free audio-recording programs, but I found them all too complicated. The Mac was not cheap–around two grand–but for me, it’s worth it. I consider it a long term investment. I plug a hundred dollar Blue Yeti nano microphone into it for recording. 

So, excluding the cost of equipment, I spent 600 dollars in services for this book. 600 bucks and a little less than a year. 

Realistically, I won’t break even on this deal. But, I produced the book I wanted to, and I learned some useful lessons. With the next one, I’ll come in a little cheaper and learn a little more. And over time, that’s exactly the equation that I believe will make New Bayou Books successful. 

For the past few weeks I’ve been procrastinating on finishing my latest short novel, a noir thing called Baseball on the Bayou: The Colton Lacombe Story. The book is 99% ready. Realistically, I could address the handful of small changes that still need to be made in an hour. But my feet continue to drag, and I’m not sure why. 

Though I hate to admit it, one reason is because I’m still bruised by some critical comments an amateur editor recently made about the manuscript. 

Much of her commentary was the kind of half-baked stuff that’s made the news recently with authors like Roald Dahl and the guy who wrote those Goosebumps books. I should be careful about noting an older man’s “turkey jowl”, the editor-turned-sensitivity-reader warned, for example, because it’s ageist. And I should avoid describing someone standing in a doorway “like a Johovah’s Witness” because it might offend religious readers. 

Those notes just got tagged and deleted as the symptoms of the woke mind virus that they are. They don’t serve any purpose to me other than illustrating how easily the constitutionally weak among us will bend to social pressure. 

But there’s one piece of insightful criticism about my new book that did actually cut close to the bone . . . it’s the one that inspired the title of this blog. The criticism came in response to a spot in the narrative where one of the characters makes meta-reference to her life feeling like a “trashy novel”. The editor commented: 

“Obviously this is not a trashy novel, but it’s interesting that you made the comparison. There do seem to be a few common elements: steamy sex scenes, depiction of women as sex objects, hard-drinking and violent men, low-life criminals, macho swagger.”

After thinking about it for a while, my conclusion is that the first part of the comment, “obviously this is not a trashy novel”,  is false. And I think my former editor knew it was false. She just opened her commentary that way in order to cushion the blow . . . in fact, that reluctance to offend is probably the same reason she flagged all the other insensitive language. Because no one wants to be accused of writing a trashy novel . . . right?

Here’s the part where the stoic, macho part of me wants to say that in my case, I set out to write a trashy novel, and that I’m damn proud to have hit the target. But that’s not really true. I would like to make that claim, but I can’t.

I set out to write a crime story about a baseball player. And the truth is, it came out kind of trashy. It’s not something I planned. 

My only plan for my writing career is to consistently produce page-turning, South Louisiana fiction. And to learn and improve each book. 

I’m not trying to be anything other than who I am. In fact, in a way I’m writing the books to explore who I am. 

It might turn out that the best I can do is to write damn good trashy novels. And honestly? I can live with that. 

Baseball on the Bayou: The Colton Lacombe Story will be out soon! Watch this space for details. Meanwhile, check out the cover . . . totally trashy, right? I love it!

Hi friends. I’m cheating this week, offering a sneak peek of the opening paragraphs of the next New Bayou Book. The first “inning” of that book will be posted here, for free and along with the audio, very soon. Meanwhile, I’d love to hear what you think.

Also, before I let you go, I wanted to let you know that I also started a newsletter on Substack. The essays there are more personal in nature. It’s free, of course.

Jason P. Reed

Baseball had always been a kind of sanctuary for Colton Lacombe. Once he stepped onto the field, especially when he stood in the chalked rectangle of the batter’s box, ready to pounce on the first good pitch, the outside world couldn’t fuck with him. He was in control. 

It had been that way since he was 12 years old. The ball field was a refuge, the one place with a set of rules that some asshole adult couldn’t change on a whim.

It didn’t take a genius to see that the chaos of his parents’ divorce played a role in the way Colton came to need the game. But that realization only came later, once he was in high school with an ornery streak and something to lose. As a kid, it was just baseball. Every afternoon and every weekend, any way he could get it. Colton played, got better, and eventually distinguished himself as one of the best young prospects around Lake Charles, Louisiana. 

He progressed faster than his peers because he needed the game more.

But it was more than just a game. And all that practice, which really wasn’t anything more complicated than a bright, athletic boy insulating himself from the harsh realities of life . . . well, it paid off. By his senior year, the college scouts were circling.  

But then he landed in jail, and the one possibility of a future evaporated, just like that. 

Or at least, that’s what he believed all through the dark months leading up to his incarceration and those first anxious weeks in jail when there was nothing like hope to cling to. Only fear. Anxiety. 

The symbolism wasn’t lost on Colton. He was down to his last strike. He’d been picked up on suspicion twice before and managed to talk his way out of it. But when three cop cars came out of nowhere just as he and two new associates with suspended licenses, outstanding warrants, and a taste for cheap speed pulled away from a house they had no business at, in a neighborhood where white people only went for one reason,

Colton knew it was his third strike. There would be no talking his way out of this shit.

Things could’ve gone either way. He might’ve just leaned into the hard lessons that parish jail–the minor leagues of criminal prospects–had to teach, if it wasn’t for Coach Bo. His old high school coach and mentor, the only adult male Colton ever called Sir or bothered to listen to, pulled off what Colton could only see as a miracle. Somehow, he talked LSU Eunice into offering a walk-on scholarship, and then convinced the judge to let him out in time for the start of the season. 

It wasn’t just the nicest thing anyone had ever done for Colton. It was really the only thing, at least of that caliber. You couldn’t exactly compare the treats his mom occasionally brought home—a twelve-pack of Dr Pepper or a jumbo pack of sunflower seeds—to something like this. 

Colton actually opened the letter from LSUE right there in the Calcasieu Parish jail.

It had a handwritten note from the renowned Coach Gene Larson, the fat and fiery head coach for the Bengals. The man was night and day different from Coach Bo, who still carried that folksy, black way of speaking ingrained in every sugar-cane progeny of old-school sharecroppers from North Louisiana.

Coach Terrance Bo was a wise and wary black man, a product of the Jim Crow South, careful with his words. Larson at LSUE was his well-known opposite. The LSUE legend was red and ruddy—a hard-charging, bombastic son of a bitch always ready to mix it up. 

The envelope from LSUE contained a brochure about the baseball program, a bunch of forms, and a folded note from Coach Larson himself.

“Consider this your get out of jail card,” it read, “but it won’t be for free.”

And then, “Prepare to work your ass off.” Below the scribbled signature, a P.S., “Don’t drop the soap.”

“The woke worm has turned”

Piers Morgan

Before I get into this week’s material–which is nothing more than a segue to a recent discussion on culture and art between Piers Morgan and Ben Shapiro–I want to address the somewhat political nature of some of my recent essays. 

To be clear, New Bayou Books is all about storytelling. My goal has always been to tell South Louisiana stories that involve characters you feel like you know (or sometimes wish you didn’t). Every character I invent has a specific way of talking . . . of thinking. And so, to tell the stories in an authentic way sometimes requires a pretty course vernacular. 

I’m just barely out of the gate as an author, and already this commitment to authentically rendering my characters has cost me. I’ve been through two editors and I’ve lost out on more than one opportunity for publicity. Not because the content of any New Bayou book is particularly radioactive or scandalous . . . but because people are scared. 

At the root of the issue is language and freedom of expression balanced against immense social pressure to conform to a new set of “sensitivity” rules that are about five minutes old. We still have freedom of speech in America, but the price you pay for exercising that right can be incredibly high. It can cost you your job, your friends, your reputation. 

So, if my commentary seems to steer towards the political, or towards a specific ideology, please know that it’s because I believe the stakes are too high to remain silent. Also, please know that I don’t give a fuck about red or blue, right or left. In fact, I think the most boring people in the world are those whose opinions track neatly to one side of the other. I’m for independent, thoughtful weirdness . . . and you don’t get that from towing the party line. 

As an emerging writer and as an ordinary citizen, I believe that freedom of speech and expression are fundamental to liberty. As I said last week, when you start to self-censor, the art suffers. Unfortunately, western culture has been trending in the wrong direction for a good while now. 

Which leads to this video clip. 

Andrew Breitbart is credited with the line “politics is downstream of culture.” If this is true, then it may be that the fever of the woke mind-virus is about ready to break. But don’t let me convince you . . . listen to an educated man with an English accent tell you about it in the context of the Roald Dahl controversy, which we talked about last week. 

Until next week . . .

Don’t gobblefunk around with words.

Roald Dahl, The BFG

The latest sucker punch in the ongoing, back-alley beat-down of western art and literature concerns Roald Dahl, author of classics like “James and the Giant Peach” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. Oh, and don’t forget “Matilda”. I don’t know how true to the original this latest Netflix musical is, but it’s a fine piece of entertainment. The songs are so catchy that even my (presumably straight) 11 year old son knows all the words!  

What happened was, someone at Puffin publishing took it upon herself to shield future readers from offense. She decided to change the words of this beloved, dead author’s published work. Apparently nobody taught her that you should never touch a dead man’s words. 

After some careful thought, I decided not to cite the downright retarded changes Puffin publishing was prepared to make–before the public backlash caused them to rethink their strategy for releasing the new, diluted works. I’m doing this for the same reason that reputable news agencies don’t name mass murderers. They just don’t deserve to be dignified in that way. 

Okay . . . just to put it in context, here’s three quick examples: “fat” was watered down to “enormous”; “mothers and fathers” was neutered to “parents”; and “black” was softened to “dark” (in this last case, even the ridiculous new convention of using vanity caps–Black–wasn’t enough of a kowtow). 

Now, let’s talk about this business of causing offense. 

It’s the cardinal sin of the new religion of woke: to offend. Or at least, to offend someone from a disadvantaged class . . . which is to say, anyone but white men. You can be as nasty as you want towards that arbitrary grouping of humans. 

To offend another person–even a hypothetical person, an imagined future reader/watcher/listener–is the thing that must be avoided at all costs. Because the new cult of woke does not value authentic expression. It values passive sentence structure, fabricated words, and above all personal truth. 

But making art is incongruent with the new dogma. 

Any writer, filmmaker, comedian, or artist worth his salt knows that thinking about such things–self-censoring for the purpose of avoiding offense–is antithetical to the process of expression, of creating. Self-censorship and art just don’t mix. 

Here’s where the unscrupulous and cowardly among us come in. They go by a variety of titles. Some call themselves editors. Or “sensitivity readers”. Others, like the grifters at Inclusive Minds, the organization behind the arrogant and downright un-funny changes to Dahl’s work, use the audacious title of “Inclusion Ambassadors.” I shit you not.

My guess is, these people don’t have the gumption and the imagination to create their own work. So they get their rocks off by imposing their will on real artists bold enough to show some vulnerability. 

They anoint themselves champions of the easily offended, mistaking their hair-trigger sensitivities for some kind of gift . . . a special skill, a magic power with which they help the naive artist navigate the modern minefield of mediocrity. It’s a self righteous, virtue signaling mask that too many failed artists-turned-editors put on. 

There is a conspicuous absence of courage in all this. Just as it takes courage to make art, to express yourself . . . all that’s required to censor yourself or others is cowardice. And it’s a lot easier to be a coward. 

It’s so easy that the folks at Puffin managed to demonstrate their own rubber spine twice within the same act. They showed their lack of character in consulting with the charlatans at Inclusive Minds in the first place. And then, when courageous authors like Salman Rushdie objected to their weak-ass changes, they backed down, announcing that they’re going to release both the original versions and a new, light version. 

But it’s not just the folks at Puffin who earn themselves a cowardice badge in this case. If you visit the Inclusive Minds website, you’ll notice they go out of their way to claim that they do not edit anything, but merely make suggestions to authors and publishers. 

Why won’t they cop to their role in this sneak-attack on classic literature? Well, because they’re being sensitive to your feelings. The last thing they want to do is upset you.