I wasn’t going to finish what is now A Cage for the Wind. I wrote most of it from December of 2020 until August of 2021, and most of that was written while dealing with some very difficult-to-navigate emotional strife on the homefront. I won’t go into details, and I don’t have to, I don’t think; much of how that all went down literally bled out onto the pages of A Cage for the Wind in its own way. I spent a few solid nights in a hotel in the early winter of 2021, getting completely batshit wasted, forwards and backwards, much like the ilk of my early 20’s, wondering about the future of my own life, having deep conversations with people I hadn’t spoke to since my childhood, and writing about it all. Jerry’s story embodies much of that.

            Originally titled Threshold, and originally a mere collection of poetry, A Cage for the Wind took on its own identity after I called it quits writing a novel I’d tentatively referred to as Diner, just a simple story about a guy transporting municipal toiletries via box truck all over the country. The pages I’d written for that story found their way into A Cage for the Wind (then Threshold) in the form of poems, until finally, one weird day, I decided to do something entirely different. There was never a story planned, it just sort of started out as an amalgamation of memories and experiences I’d been encountering and tackling and confronting, and slowly an image of this weird guy who didn’t know what to make of his life started to take shape. It was all very bare-bones, and I’d given birth to similar characters in the past. He has no direction, no past (at least no clear one), and anyone he meets he doesn’t know how to successfully talk to, much like myself in a way. As a person, I’m not shy, but I can only tolerate human contact for so long before I start to try to come up with excuses as to why I have to leave, and if enough time passes during which I haven’t escaped, I turn into a problem. I’m sure plenty of people can relate to that. Jerry, the main character of A Cage for the Wind, is that, and unbeknownst to him, so much more.

            A little about Jerry: he’s like most people, in that insignificant, very unspecial sorta way- he’s married (or was, maybe), has a toxic mother (or did, he thinks he did but maybe he still does in a way), he has a boring, uneventful job that really benefits no one, and isn’t very exciting to talk about, but he’s not upset about any of that, and he has a cat, Grimace, who, most who read A Cage for the Wind, will notice a certain similarity to another semi-famous cat (Hank…maybe? I’ll let you be the judge). Nothing really sets Jerry apart from anyone who wears a tie to work and goes home in the evening to feed the four-legged child, but for me, the writer and birther of his lowliness, he’s different because his story is told from three completely different points of view: his own thoughts, told in the first person, a series of poems interlaced throughout the book, which is up to the reader to decipher and contemplate, and then of course, the narrator, who fills the spaces in between Jerry’s observations and the poems with a little bit of unbiased, healthy literary mortar. At some point, he gets into a little bit of trouble, sort of, and dealing with that trouble is where things get… weird, and revealing. That’s all for now about Jerry, for now, until you read the book, of course.

            What it all comes down to is that I had written so much that I didn’t want to waste it, unlike, coincidentally, how I’ve treated most of the women in my life, but that’s a whole other matter entirely, and thank fucking God for good whiskey and good memories. So is it good? Some might say it is. Some may not know what the fuck it’s about, and that’s okay. A Cage for the Wind is entirely up for interpretation, but there IS a point to it, somewhere in the mess.

            A Cage for the Wind is set to release on October 1st of this year, so, you already know what to do. And not long after that, for all you epic story die-hards, Legend of the Horizon Vengeance, Book II in my post-apocalyptic western series The Two Revolvers Saga releases on November 29th. In contrast to A Cage for the Wind, Legend of the Horizon Vengeance is my biggest book yet. It’s a long book, yes, but it’s also my first real foray into significant literary world-building. I’ve really tried to dabble into the art with this one, and I think I’ve done a pretty good job. So much so, that with the next book in the series, titled The Dead and the Dying, which is Book IV in the saga but chronologically takes place at the same time as Mercy and for a while after, I have begun writing the prologue and first chapter, but have been focusing more on writing the background history first, so as to have a clear timeline of events. I’ve had to sharpen my skills at drawing maps as well, so as to get the geography right, which I promise is pretty fucking fun. It’s pretty lengthy business, and tedious, but the most fun I’ve ever had while working on a book. I don’t suspect The Dead and the Dying will be finished in at least a year or two, maybe longer, though I’ve been very wrong about making estimations in the past. Whatever happens, I sincerely promise it will not turn into a George R. R. Martin situation. That man will die before he finishes A Song of Ice and Fire (though if he does actually finish it before his demise, I will put together a letter of apology for my doubt and send it to his publisher immediately. Not really, though. Fuck that dude.)  

            Finishing A Cage for the Wind has really brought something else to the forefront. All writers have heaping piles of unfinished work. Stories and ideas for stories, sometimes hundreds of pages of what could be a great novel, just lost interest in by the writer, and left to rot. It’s nothing personal, really. All writers go through it. My past attempts at what are now unfinished novels, short stories, or novellas reach the dozens. And finishing A Cage for the Wind has convinced me to go back to those and sift through the mess. I know for certain that not all of those ideas for stories will climb into the light (I still have hopes to one day finish and release the long-planned sequel to 2017’s Lockless Doors in the Land of Harsh Angels), but I’d really hate to let them all just fade into nothing. Starting probably in December, I’ll be organizing all those lost files and figuring some shit out. I’ve got way too many ideas to just be writing post-apocalyptic westerns for the rest of my life.

Keep drinking. Don’t let the doc tell ya it’s killin’ ya. Life, is the real killer.
Love you all, most of you, anyway. The rest, well, we had it good for at least a moment, and sometimes a single moment is more than anyone can look back on.