The Banality of the Mundane

This first post will serve a few purposes. First is to say, well, hi hello and how are y’all doing? Welcome to my author website which still feels super douchey to write into a post. Then we will dive in together with the background to NEITHER LOST NOR FOUND: where the idea came from, the journey to publication and whether it’s true or not. We will look at my plans for the website and the goals for starting down this path of trying to become a semi-successful author. Finally, we’ll close with a few reflections of the process and what is coming up next. Sound good?

Part 1: A Rambling Bio of Sorts

            M name is Joe. I was supposed to be the Fourth of a given name but my old man decided against it. I graduated from Huntingtown High School in little Calvert County southern Maryland after the Navy brought us from California and Florida. I then attended Asbury University (college at the time) before transferring to Simpson University in Northern California. I bounced between trying to get a job full time with Parks and Recreation with the City of Redding, to considering grad school or trying to jump into the trades. In the end I moved back to Maryland, because I’m a momma’s boy at heart, and started working part time in retail and part time as a professional Adventure Athlete (or professional dirt bag) with Wilderness Systems. I did some stuff and things in Cyber but found it was not for me.

            I had some incidents, some might call accidents, and I stepped away in 2017 officially after one concussion too many. While recovering from a TBI my neurologist recommended I start writing to help me think in longer sentences and to help put my brain back together. I started drafting my first novel in the summer of 2017. That novel, completely unrecognizable to what it would become, was NEITHER LOST NOR FOUND.

            After doing the Adventure Athlete thing and failing in cybersecurity, I went back to school to become a math teacher. I earned my Masters in Teaching from Notre Dame of Maryland University in 2021. I taught for St. Mary’s County Public Schools and most recently The Calverton School, a slice of heaven nestled in the hills of Huntingtown, Maryland. Now my wife and I with our four kids have relocated to Northeast Florida in wonderful Ponte Vedra where I’m taking on the mantle of Mr. Mom and trying my best to write during naps and after everyone’s asleep.

Part 2: Neither Lost Nor Found

            My first draft was approximately 140,000 words and about 20,000 were worth reading. It was stuffed full of long flowing detail and purple prose. It was saccharine as hell and frankly a hot steaming pile of garbage. I joined some groups, got some feedback and ended up killing a large chunk of the manuscript and teased out the elements that worked. This was 2019 and I had made the jump from white water and mountaineering to teaching Math to high school students at a Title 1 school.  Teaching took a lot out of me, Covid hit and I lost some students. I got remarried to the love of my life right when I finished Draft 1 and my two kids from a previous marriage moved in with us full-time three months before Aisling and I were expecting our first child together.

            Three years and two drafts later I entered the query trenches. I quickly landed a full request, which turned into an offer. The agent provided me with some great feedback, and I revised the manuscript into draft number 4. My agent’s life fell apart a few weeks from submission and they ended up leaving the industry. I was bounced around the agency before we formally parted ways. Well shit. Wrote a book, got an agent and promptly got dropped before going on submission.

            I let the book sit for a year and in 2025 I fired up the folder holding the manuscript and started a reread. I cut some more and added more scenes. New plot points, fixed some pacing.  I thought I might as well self-publish at this point since it’s a few years’ worth of work. I shot out a few queries, no bites. I sent the manuscript on an open submission to a small press on a whim. I was teaching an Algebra 2 class when I got the call from the acquisition editor at Sutra House Press who could not wait to speak to me. She had read the manuscript in two days, couldn’t put it down, blah blah blah, I had heard it all before I thought.

            A week later I signed with Sutra House Press after a call with the CEO Kay and I talked through the novel. Where he saw the market fit, what he wanted from me and what he wanted to tweak in the manuscript. Kay offered to give me two weeks to go back to agents with his offer letter to see if I wanted to shoot for a Big 5 offer. I took a night and signed in the morning. Kay put his name on the dotted line in an industry full of cut throats and wishy-washy committers and non-communicators – what right did I have to parade his offer to try and land an agent?

            NEITHER LOST NOR FOUND releases January 25, 2027 and I’m nervously excited. I am officially in the proof-reading stage as Draft 6 is finalized.

Part 3: Based on a True Story?

            A question I get often from people who know me is, “So how true is this?” They might have read the blurb; they might have listened to me talk about it or I may have shared a chapter or two. The answer is, some of its true, a lot of its completely made up. Most of it is based on a true event that happened but I dialed up the drama, tension, reactions or consequences. A character may have started based on someone in my life but they became individualized on their own. Some of these situations I portray in the book are ripped from my own perception of an event that happened. See what I did there? My perception. My version considered from my background and world view. No one person is actually here as themselves. Some people might recognize themselves and that’s intentional.

            I wrote this as a novel people can read themselves into. A shared life experience people of our age probably have a lot in common. Angry parents. Disappointing parents. Bouncing around colleges, jobs and commitment. Wanting to blow money on travel and adventures instead of saving for retirement. Loss. I pull from my own experiences with grief and that annoying habit that I, like I’m sure many of y’all have, of trying to become worthy of those we lose along the way. Stay tuned and maybe when I’ve had enough drinks and I’m supposed to release a post I’ll write about it more.

Closing:

            So, what comes next dear reader (hi mom). Great question and I’m not really sure if I’m being honest. I’m supposed to start building a community, but let’s be honest, I’m not nearly pretty or titular enough to blow up on Instagram or tiktok so I’ll write here instead. I’d rather communicate directly with y’all as a long form than a thirty second reel or a four panel scroll and ask y’all to like or subscribe.

            My work in progress is currently in the final outline stages. It has been a journey as a reformed pantser. I’ll have more updates to share on that soon. I’ll start releasing some pages from NEITHER LOST NOR FOUND as soon as I get the greenlight. I might write more about the title, the themes and being embarrassed that I tried to write a commercial book that got labelled as Literary.  Regardless, I’m going to do my best to post weekly.

For this week I’ll leave those of y’all that are neither lost nor found with a closing thought. Find happiness in the tedium and look for the simple joys. Whether it’s your kids kicking ass, a new milestone or even a song you can’t stop listening to. Adulting is an exercise in the banality of the mundane and it made write a book.

-Finlayson