As you may know if you’ve read my first three columns, I live a double life. I’m from Warren County where I’ve worked at the paper for the past 28 years. I’m working here while I run for office there. I moonlight with a professional wrestling company and I was once a woman. You may want to research that last thing.
As part of that double life I also play both sides of the road when it comes to writing. Yes, a lot of what I write are downright lies, made up off the top of my head, tall tales of fiction. Before you ask, I’m not talking about my job here at the Review as making up lies and telling them as fact would work for about one issue before I got run out of town on a rail.
While I cover stories that impact you here in DeKalb County, as a news writer, my night time writing is purely fiction, stories concocted while I sit in the hot tub in the evening, scheming up lies people like to read. I recently published my sixth novel, releasing it last month.
Like many writers, I write under an assumed name. My pseudonym is R.D. Sherrill. You can look me up on Amazon and Kindle. I’m legit. Murder mysteries and suspense thrillers, most set in a small town like Smithville.
When I do book shows and talk to various groups, I’m always asked how I motivated myself to write my first book back in 2013. There are a lot folks out there who want to write a book but don’t know how to begin. That blank page can be pretty intimidating. My response to that question always catches them by surprise. I wrote my first novel because of a kidney stone. Hey, you folks who have had one know it’s not if the stone is going to kill you, it’s when it’s going to kill you. All you can do is lie there, groan and pray.
So, as I gasped for what I was sure was my last breath, I thought about things I hadn’t accomplished, one of which was writing a book. So, with that last gulp of air I prayed to God and promised if I lived I would write that book. Well, against all odds, I lived. The stone passed so, that very week, I sat down and started writing what would become my first novel, Red Dog Saloon. I haven’t stopped since, releasing Mad Justice last month on my 53rd birthday. I hope to have my seventh book out by the summer or early fall as it’s just a chapter from completion before it goes to the dreaded editing – editing being the worst part about writing.
Anyone who needs some writing or publishing pointers can contact me here at the Review. Hey, I’ll even sell you a signed copy of one of my books if you stop by and ask. Shameless self-promotion. But, bottom line, a book won’t write itself. Sit down and start tapping on that keyboard. You’ll be surprised what may come out.
Contact Duane Sherrill at
news@smithvillereview.com
