Nick Poff's Blog

Yeah, I know it’s long past the date I originally promised, but as John Lennon so aptly put it: “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.”

I fervently hope to have the finished book to you in 2026.

Until then, here’s an excerpt:

          Ed ran down the back walk, dodging raindrops, arriving at the carriage house shaking the rain he had not dodged off as he entered the workshop. The dark room’s red light was not on, so he knocked and entered. Rex was bent over the small counter studying a piece of paper. He looked up and asked, “Papa, which one of these do you like better?”

          Ed looked and saw, in Rex’s handwriting, REX STEPHENS and REX BENTON. “Dad likes Rex Stephens. He says that sounds more like a name for a globetrotting photographer.”

          “Is that what you want to be? A globetrotting photographer?”

          Rex shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know that if I ever get any credit for any photos I take, I don’t want the Kennedy clan to take any of the credit.”

           “Well, it doesn’t surprise me your dad picked my last name. He’s never been too fond of his own, especially after all those high school creeps went around calling him ‘Bent.’”

          “Do you mind? If I change my last name to yours?”

          “Of course not. I’m honored. But changing your name legally, I hear, can be a process and expensive. For now, why don’t you just use it as your…oh, professional name.”

          “That works,” Rex said, settling the issue. He reached for a manila folder and pulled out an issue of Natural Indiana magazine. “I needed to know what name to use for my entry.”

          “Huh?”

          “The contest!” Rex’s green eyes flashed with excitement. “This magazine is having a photo contest for amateur photographers. You have to be eighteen and a resident of Indiana, so I can enter.”

          Ed flipped through the magazine. He had vague memories of seeing it before, maybe at the dentist’s office, he thought. He found the information on the contest. “Two hundred fifty bucks for first prize,” he said. “Modest but not bad at all for a state magazine.”

          “Plus they’ll print the winning photo and the four runners up! And they’ll consider sending the winner out on a genuine photo assignment somewhere in the state. The theme of the contest is ‘Hoosier Dreams,’ and I’ve got the coolest fucking idea ever for a photo.”

          Ed grinned at his enthusiasm. “What’s your idea?”

          “It’s gonna be a picture of you.”

          “Me!”

          “Yeah!”

          “Why me? Why not your dad?”

          “Because Dad doesn’t go to work in jeans and work boots, and an old faded blue cap with frayed edges.”

          “I’ll let him borrow them.”

          Rex signed. “Get with the program, Pop. Look, when I think of a dreaming Hoosier I don’t exactly see Dad planting a FOR SALE sign in someone’s yard. What I do see are the hardworking men who cleared the forests for farmland and did all that other shit you had to do ‘way back when’ to earn a living.”

          “You’re gonna put me in the nineteenth century?”

          “No, no,” Rex shook his head. “Look: Grandma’s great-grandparents moved here from Kentucky to homestead, right? You’re a descendant of that same energy. The dream is just different. And,” he rolled his eyes, “if you’re getting all self-conscious, I’m only gonna shoot you in one quarter profile. You have a great profile, Pop, better than Dad’s. His face is kinda round, but you have some interesting angles.” He reached out and began tracing his finger on Ed’s face. “Yeah, definitely the right side,” he murmured to himself.

          Ed took a step back. “So are we going out in the rain and do this in the backyard?”

          “No. In a couple of days. The weather forecast says once this rain moves on we’re supposed to have clear and cool weather. You know, stay cool because of that volcano that erupted last year in The Philippines, kind of like another year without a summer.”

          “Are we getting back to the nineteenth century? That’s when that happened.”          

          “Yeah, I know,” Rex said impatiently. “Back when you were an infant.”

          “You wanna take my picture or do you want me to break your camera?”

          “Hee!” Rex let go with his usual sound of amusement. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist. It was too easy. Anyway, all that… dust or whatever in the environment is making the sunrises and sunsets even more colorful than usual. So when there aren’t any clouds, we’ll do it.”

          “At sunset.”

          “At sunrise.”

          Ed sighed. “I gotta get up early? Do you know how early sunrise is in June?”

          “Aw, Pop, it’s for art.”

          “No, it’s for my wacko son. Have you gotten something planned in the yard, or what?”

          Rex jiggled his foot. “That’s the best part. We’re going to do it at Lost Bridge.”

          “Oh,” Ed said.

          Lost Bridge wasn’t actually lost in any real sense. It simply didn’t exist anymore. the Wabash River cut through Stratton County on its far western edge and made a turn to the south by the tiny farming community of Riverbend. At some point in the mid-sixties, INDOT (The Indiana Department of Transportation), rerouted the state highway near Riverbend through the town, building a more modern bridge over the river. The old rickety, somewhat dangerous back road bridge was removed, and barricades were installed on both sides. Ed began to understand Rex’s vision.

          “It’s perfect,” Rex said. “If we shoot it on the Riverbend side, you can stand by the barricade, looking at the sunrise, which comes up over farm fields, which ain’t lookin’ real good right now ‘cause of the weather. It symbolizes so much; the abandoned bridge site, the poor field conditions, and a man standing there, dreaming of something better for the future.”

          Ed nodded, impressed. Rex had given this a lot of thought and had the confidence to visualize what he saw. “Okay. I’m in, kid.”

A gentleman from Australia wrote and posted a lovely review of Book #5 of THE HANDYMAN SERIES, The Handyman’s Summer, on Good Reads. It never ceases to amaze mr how the good reviews always seem to come when I need them the most. You know, when life has been rather on the sucky side, and I’m convinced I have NOTHING to contribute to the world. This made my day. A friend suggested I share it here, and I thought, Why not? I do hope the reviewer doesn’t mind. If you do, sir, let me know and I’ll delete this.

I seem to be ageing faster than the MCs in this great series! I was in my early forties when I first came across this delightful small-town romance between a handyman and a postie and these guys didn’t seem all that different in life-stage to me then. Fast forward 12 plus years and now i find I’m just past my mid-fifties and yet Ed and Rick are yet to hit their forties – eck!

I enjoyed catching up with the MCs and their extended group of family, friends & colleagues, besties, neighbors, townsfolk … despite some having passed on, it’s nicely reassuring to find life is sloooowly improving socially and economically for Ed and Rick. However – since we’ve now reached the latter part of the 1980s … the ugly specter of AIDS/HIV has now reached into their circle/community; and homophobia (both external and internal) still reigns over social justice, equality and acceptance of difference. That said, our MCs continue to take on the mantle passed on from their beloved English teacher Hilda Penfield by providing acceptance, encouragement and shelter to younger townsfolk from the LGBTIQ family; ‘expanding the borders of their tent’ in fact.

A ‘cold-case’ mystery regarding the demise of two ostracized persons comes to the fore when Ed and Rick take possession of an abandoned/derelict home (I was quite devastated by the heart-breaking and tragic story-line that unfolded). And for those who have a yen for the days of the penultimate decade of the twentieth century – there’s lots of mention of music/songs of the day (the Bangles!), boom-boxes, videos, even Nancy Reagan gasp!

There seems to be one more book in the series and I’d better get onto reading that before I age into my twilight years/dotage LOL! 4 solid stars.

My Aussie reviewer mentions The Bangles in the review posted above, and yes, a passing reference to their hit “Walk Like An Egyptian” is made early in The Handyman’s Summer. I still get a kick out of that record, but my all-time favorite Bangles song didn’t come out until 2003, “Something That You Said.” I was the music director of a Soft Rock radio station at the time, and I played the hell out of it, hoping it would become a huge hit. Alas, the record company pulled the plug on promotion, and it died a quiet death over Christmas, 2003.

Fifteen months later I was in Provincetown, MA, to attend a writer’s workshop. My first full day there I was browsing through a book store with some of the other attendees when much to my surprise and delight “Something That You Said” began to play on the radio station piped into the store’s speakers. “I cannot believe I am actually hearing this song on the radio,” I said to one of the proprietors. “Things like that happen in P-Town,” the man said with a shrug. Later that day, when it was my turn to share something from a work in progress, I read aloud the scene from The Handyman’s Dream where Ed and Rick swap senior prom stories. By the end I had two of the men at the tables in tears. I had finished the first draft of the book, and frankly I didn’t know if it was any good or not, but at that moment I began to believe Handyman Ed had a place in gay fiction. Seventeen years and five books later, I’m glad the world got to know him.

http://reviewsbyamoslassen.com/?p=81266&fbclid=IwAR3_G5PsKKk7lWxcczYxFDq-6L_uDMduqr6RVSqs5IeL1Q7G-XQ7ARigum0

Looking back over this past year’s events — worldwide and more specifically here in the United States — “storm” is a pretty good word to include in a book title — uh, metaphorically speaking.

Last night it occurred to me that probably four or five years from now I would look back on this book and understand it better in hindsight. So much has happened in the past year I honestly don’t think I’ve begun to process it all. I suspect a lot of what I’ve been feeling and dealing with subconsciously came out in this new book. Well, if that is case, writing is indeed good therapy. I just wish to hell I knew what I meant by it all.

This book runs just over 100,000 words, and came in at 292 pages when formatted for publication. It is a good deal shorter than I anticipated. I think that’s because there is so much I left out. Not the plot; the entire plot plays out, but I do believe a lot is left unsaid, and if I had included everything that was going through my mind it would have been twice as long. So why did I leave it out? I’m not entirely sure, but the whole time I was writing I had a feeling that whoever read it would understand all of the under-the-surface emotions without having to have it explained to them. That’s a bold thing for a writer to do. Oh, writers have been doing that for years, of course, but one runs the risk of being misunderstood. No one wants to send their child out into the world to be mocked or misunderstood. Trust me, it is the same with books, especially when the characters are as dear to one as the HANDYMAN characters are to me. Funny thing, though; I’m not too worried about it. If nothing else, this book, although part of a series conceived many years ago and set thirty years in the past, is a pandemic child. I believe anyone who has survived this past year will somehow understand what this child is and how it was shaped by the turbulent times in which we now live.

As for the story itself, I’m reluctant to reveal much about it. I really want people who have read the first five books to read this one with no preconceived notions from me. I will say this much, though. The original plot came to me more than ten years ago. What hit the page is a good deal different from that idea. The actions in books four and five had a lot to do with the subtle changes. And again, I’m somehow convinced it would have been a different book if written in a different time. Ah, who knows? I could be full of insight or full of shit. I’ve been full up on both many times in my life. We’ll see. The most important thing any reader needs to know when beginning their journey with THE HANDYMAN’S STORM is that the characters are true to themselves and Porterfield, Indiana, is still a beautiful but occasionally ugly place. Penfield Manor stands strong upon the earth on which it was built in 1898, and it’s still an oasis from a world than can be very cruel. And I’ll tell you, no matter how much musing or analysis I may indulge in, that’s exactly what I set out to do with this book; continue the story of Ed, his partner, his family, and his friends; indulge in the minutiae of their lives, and give readers a chance to hang out in a place that is comfortable, familiar — even safe. The concept of a “safe space” is mocked a lot these days, but whether anyone wants to admit it or not, we’ve all been in a need of a least one during this dark time. I am proud, pleased, and humbled to provide one in this fictional world I’ve created. So…relax, read, enjoy…and be safe.

And enjoy the record I share below, ’cause we all can use shelter from our storms.

Some of you reading this will remember the CBS-TV soap opera The Secret Storm. It aired from 1954 through 1974 and was hugely popular for many years. It might have lasted longer than twenty years and two weeks, but CBS bought the show from American Home Products, tinkered with it, and killed it. This happens a lot. Substitute ABC for CBS and you have the same fate as my beloved All My Children. I will never understand why numbers people labor under the delusion they are also good at creative emotional endeavors. I went through the same thing as a radio music director, but I digress.

The basic concept of the The Secret Storm was simple, a probing look at the turmoil that bubbles within all of us. (Fun Fact: The original title was The Inner Storm, but since American Home Products planned to use the show to advertise a stomach calmative they changed the name. Good thinking, huh?) The show was pure melodrama, but melodrama that worked because it lived up to its name. I was just a kid and had no interest in daytime drama other than Dark Shadows during its era, so I can’t claim to have followed it. However, when I became fascinated with the concept of interlocking continuing stories (i.e. Soap Opera), I spent a lot of time reading what I could find about Storm, and with the advent of You Tube I’ve been able to see a few episodes. I love the concept — how the struggles we try to conceal play havoc with our reactions to situations, both mundane and earth-shaking. The Secret Storm may be fifty years in the past but the basic human experience of this (shared universal experience for you Lit majors) is timeless. Consider: when someone seems to overreact to something and your reaction is “Well, who pissed in your Froot Loops this morning?” You know? It makes you wonder what that person isn’t saying.

I had this concept tucked away in my mental story file for the time when our hero, Handyman Ed, would reach a point where the complications in his life would put him in a position in which he was reluctant to reveal what he was really thinking, what was really bothering him. The time came with the sixth installment of his story, The Handyman’s Storm. Ed and his partner Rick have a lot on their shared plate. When it all becomes rather overwhelming they are both left to wonder just how in the hell they got to where they are, and how best to handle the situation. And more importantly, how does their individual perspectives come in to play as they move forward as a couple? I’ll be honest here; originally I envisioned the pure melodrama of The Secret Storm and relished the idea of some hugely emotional, even shocking, scenes with our guys, but it didn’t turn out that way. As always, when it came time to hit the keyboard and tell their story the truth of it came through as opposed to the potboiler antics I had planned. Ed and Rick may be gay, and as such be susceptible to drama queen moments, but as it turned out the quiet respect they have for one another wouldn’t allow for over-the-top histrionics. It did however, lead to some communication failures, and, I think, a much more realistic story of conflicting secret storms. I’m very pleased with the result. I don’t know if it would make any but the most diehard fans “tune into tomorrow,” but I do believe I did justice by these two men so many readers have taken into their hearts.

The book should be available soon. Currently I’m kvelling over the cover Matt Cresswell is creating. Can’t wait for you all to see it! The Handyman’s Storm has a lot to offer in the way of storms, both meteorological and emotional; some quiet, some noisy, and a combination of both that makes for a barnburner of an ending. There’s more to come so by all means… tune in tomorrow.

I wanted to share a little of The Secret Storm with you. This episode, from 1966, features Jada Rowland as long suffering Amy Ames. Amy’s scene with Janet Hill (Bibi Besch) is the kind of classic confrontation The Secret Storm did very well. Oh, and it’s also a damn good catfight. Enjoy!

The fifth book in the Handyman Series, THE HANDYMAN’S SUMMER, went out into the world a little over a year ago. I was very pleased with it. The book was well received, and if anyone was disappointed in it, they didn’t bother to tell me. Thus, I was content to rest on my laurels for awhile.

Still, I knew there had to be a book six. Although the ending of SUMMER was tidy and satisfying, there were a few things that bothered me. There were stories left to tell or finish or at least continue. I’ve always considered the first three books in the series to be a trilogy of sorts. Books four and five were part of the next trilogy, and although my math skills are rather shaky, I knew there had to be a book six to finish the second trilogy.

Then 2020 arrived. I mean, who knew? Who anticipated? Any thoughts I had of writing were washed away in the landslide of reality that was this past year. I, like a good many people, found ways to cope. My big thing last summer was gardening, something I had neglected for years. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but when autumn arrived and I began to think about next year, you know, saving seeds and planting bulbs and all that, I knew I had to have something to get me through the remainder of the year and safely into 2021, which so far, has been pretty hairy as well, but that’s another story.

Management at my day job insisted we remote workers return to the office in September. None of us were too thrilled about it. I, for one, figured it wouldn’t last long; Covid was far from over. Turns out I was right; they sent us back home at the end of October. Wearing a face mask all day and having my temperature checked every morning made me all that more determined to find a distraction. I realized it was time to return to Porterfield and get Ed and Rick through what was left of the eighties as a way to finish this trilogy and neatly tie up the lingering story threads.

The hardest part for me was knowing THE HANDYMAN’S STORM could not be a “stand alone” book. It simply wouldn’t have much of an emotional connection to new readers. I spent weeks arguing with myself about that, and finally one day decided – fuck it. This one is for the fans, the ones who have stuck by these characters through five previous books. I realized one of the main impulse behind getting the book written and out there was to satisfy all the emails and messages from fans who wrote asking about another book. The stories the readers share with me and their enthusiasm for the Porterfield gang mean the world to me. Really. Knowing I’ve connected with people all over the world still blows my mind. I may not have achieved fame and fortune, but I’ve entertained a lot of people. That never ceases to amaze me.

So! For those of you who have read your way through five books, please know book six is especially for you. I hope you’ll join Handyman Ed as he comes to the end of a decade, and a place where he can look back and take a good deal of pride in what he has accomplished. The manuscript is frozen and in the process of becoming of a book. It should be coming your way soon.

Talk about buried musical treasure! I stumbled over this one online last spring, and from the moment I heard it I knew it would have to be in THE HANDYMAN’S STORM. When you read the book you will discover why.

Happy New Year! Everyone has plenty of reasons to be grateful to see 2020 in the rear view. It was an odd year in many ways, but I managed to make it out of 2020 with a finished manuscript for my new book.

So, what can readers expect in Volume 6 of the HANDYMAN SERIES? Well, our hero Ed the Handyman is, as The Escape Club told us, heading for the nineties, living in the eighties. And any idea Ed and his life partner Rick might have had about sailing smoothly in the nineties is hastily forgotten in the final months of 1989. There are life changing events for them, unexpected guests at Penfield Manor, and when Ed’s guard is down he finds himself entangled with a new client who’s neither honest or honorable. Oh, and remember the gay teen they “adopted” in THE HANDYMAN’S SUMMER? Yeah, he’s still around, giving Ed and Rick a crash course in parenting.

The post-manuscript work is ongoing here at Old Spruce Productions. I hope to have the new book — softcover and Kindle — available for you next month.

Back in the late summer of 2000 a CD single landed on my desk at the radio station. It was a new song by a new group, Soleil Moon. The song was “Never Say Goodbye.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKkso-qfaNM&list=WL&index=25 I loved it the first time I heard it. We added the song to our playlist, and I scheduled the hell out of it, hoping it would become a hit. It didn’t. Trust me, it was not the only time a record I thought was deserving of hit status died on the charts. Over the years I’ve come to understand a hit record has to have a certain amount of luck and timing behind it. And these days, lots and lots of promotional money, too.

A few months later another CD single came my way by these guys, their rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Now, considering my well known love of pop music, some might be surprised to find out what a grinch I can be regarding Christmas music. Blame it on my work. All those years in radio, all those holidays seasons made miserable by upending the format and playing the same Christmas tunes over and over and over again until I wanted to stick my head in the paper shredder. Uh huh. I’ve been out of the biz for ten years now, and I can still only handle Christmas music in very limited doses.

Anyway, back to 2000. I am sure I rolled my eyes when I saw this CD single. I can’t even fathom how many covers of Christmas classics we received from artists and record companies ever year. Christmas is the time when record companies try to cash in on established artists and classic songs. Trust me, I do my best to put my cynicism to rest in December, but when the pile of Xmas CD submissions would rise higher than my desk, I would have unpleasant thoughts about Corporate America, and the more sinister motivations behind American Christmas. Oh, and by the way, a good many of those recordings were beyond awful. They were Gong Show awful. That guy auditioning for American Idol with “She Bangs” awful. And at least ninety percent of them were simply uninspired. The rare one worthy of airplay truly was a needle in a haystack. I assumed the Soleil Moon recording would be just that — uninspired, but I gave it a listen and was pleasantly surprised, even emotionally moved, which at that time of year had become, for me, a rare experience. Let me tell you, folks, I have heard a LOT of versions of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” and in my opinion this was the only one since the 1944 original recording by Judy Garland that came even close to expressing the same emotions — a frustrating tangle of despair and hope. THAT’S what made the original so beautifully haunting. I can only imagine how it sounded toward the end of WWII, when everyone was tired and hope was damn close to being one of the many things rationed. The Soleil Moon guys got that.

Twenty years later, that CD single is still in my stash of Christmas music, and the song is on my computer as well. I can’t say I’ve listened to it every year, but it has definitely been my Christmas song of choice this year. If ever there was a Christmas season full of despair and hope, it’s Christmas 2020. Therefore, despite all the woe, I’m doing my best to hope for bright times in the New Year. I hope there’s good news for all of us coming soon.

I am happy to report progress is being made on my latest book. There’s some discussion as to the title, so for now we’ll continue to call it HANDYMAN #6.

It’s rare the time of year I’m writing about and the actual time of year sync up, but oddly enough, I’m writing Handyman Ed’s Christmas adventures from 1989 as we approach Christmas 2020. As we all know, it’s going to be an unusual Christmas this year, so my gift to you is a sneak peak into one of the new book’s holiday scenes.

“Geez, Mom.” Ed indicated the ragged assembly line. “Are you making cookies for the whole town?”

“Your mother,” Clyde archly observed, “bit off more than she can chew.”

Norma made a face at him. “You’re such a wit, Clyde Croasdale.”

“So why am I here?” Ed asked. “Am I charge of red and green sprinkles, or what?”

“I’m doing the sprinkles,” Lesley said, not looking up.

“Wonderful,” Ed said, crossing his arms. “Mom?”

“Well, since Christmas Eve is next Sunday, everyone in town is having their holiday parties this weekend, and with the roads so icy they want them delivered. I figure you’re used to driving on icy streets.” She pulled a piece of paper out of her apron pocket. “I’ve got the names and address right here for the cookies that are ready to go. By the time you get back I’m sure we’ll have more for you.”

“I see,” Ed said thoughtfully. “What’s in it for me?”

“What!”

“Well, you expect me to run all over Porterfield and probably even farther away on my day off, using my down time and using my gas. I think it’s only fair I get a cut of the profits. And don’t even suggest taking it in trade. We’ve got Christmas cookies coming out our ears at home.”

Norma gave Ed her strongest glare. “Edward, are you attempting to blackmail your mother?”

“Wish I’d thought of that,” Lesley muttered.

“Now, Mom, don’t make this into something ugly,” Ed said calmly, uncrossing his arms. “I’m just asking for financial compensation for my cooperation.”

“Well, I never! What happened to helping your family in a pinch out of the goodness of your heart?”

Ed smiled kindly. “It’s the eighties, Mom. As Michael Douglas said in Wall Street, ‘Greed is good’.”

You’ll find out who wins this latest go-round between Ed and Norma in THE HANDYMAN #6, available first quarter 2021. Merry Christmas, everyone!