Welcome to "The Way Life Should Be"

I've always wanted to be a novelist and thanks to everyone here at Gather, Simon & Schuster/Touchstone is releasing my first book Sep. 18.

 "The Way Life Should Be" is the story of newspaper editor John Quinn, who returns to his hometown in coastal Maine with his wife to raise their son. When his best friend - a married politician with children - is killed at a gay pickup spot, Quinn realizes he's the only one who wants to learn what really happened.

Not only that, but someone is willing to do anything to stop him from learning the truth.

I first had the idea for the book many years ago when I was - you guessed it - a newspaper editor in Maine.

So what took me so long?

Well, the transition from writing non-fiction to fiction was harder than expected. I also had to learn to craft a novel, which in my case involved a lot of trial and error. I also gave up several times, only to find myself back at it, sometimes with gaps of several months or even years.

This slow process quickly morphed to warp speed at the end of May, when I was named one of two winners of the First Chapters Contest. As Geoffrey Edwards, author of "Fire Bell in the Night" can tell you, this made for an interesting summer.

Normally, it takes a year to a year and a half to release a book. We had three months. That meant all the revisions, editing and promotional material were done on a tight timeline - quite a change from the long, lonely process of actually writing a novel.

But believe me, I'm not complaining.

Instead, my wife Beth and I are getting ready for the book tour, which will take us from our home in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Maine and back. I'll be doing readings and signings in several states, including places where I lived and worked as a journalist.

I'd like to meet as many of you as possible on the trip, and hope you enjoy the book.