Why I don't like reading modern books

I developed an interest in Isaac Newton. Then I came across this book called Dark Matter by Philip Kerr, which is a fictionalized story of Isaac Newton's life. Issac Newton—the apple falling on his head guy. Mathematician. Scientist. He discovered Calculus. A towering intellect, a scientific genius.

Okay, a little bit about my reading interests. I don't like reading sleazy stuff. It's just not my thing. And I don't write it either. A couple of my books have some sex stuff, but it's always pertinent to the story and never explicit or titillating. Same thing with profanity—my books don't have any profanity. I don't like to read it, so I don't write it.

But back to Dark Matter. Isaac Newton. Isaac Newton! Certainly there wouldn't be anything sleazy in a book about Isaac Newton, right? Guess again.

217 pages into the book it got really sleazy. And so now I've invested a lot of time, and I want to know what's coming. But if I want to continue, I have to read trash. Nope. Not for me. At this point I don't trust the author anymore. I put the book down.

That's why I wish books had ratings like movies. But at least, for the most part anyway, it's safer to read older books. They just don't have the sleaze modern books have.

My Navy Seal book started as a joke

My newsletter list, the people who help me with many things (thank you!), was giving me suggestions for overcoming writer's block. Which I was suffering massively from. Amongst the many great suggestions was 'write whatever you want.'

So I started writing this insane story about two Navy SEALs in Hawaii. And I started sharing it with my newsletter. Some hated it. (One guy told me I knew nothing about Hawaii. Which wasn't true, I knew about Don Ho music.) But a lot of people enjoyed the loony humor and I was enjoying writing it, so I just kept going, figuring it wouldn't amount to much.

Oh, some of it had to go. I got rid of the first scene where the protagonists latch onto a shark that swims 15 miles out to sea and then they're saved by a Navy SEAL helicopter that 'just didn't happen to be doing anything at the time.' But a story started taking shape. Yeah, the new SEALs were loopy, but they were given a big mission--to find a US Senator who disappeared in Cuba playing golf.

One thing led to another and before long I realized I was writing a novel.

Like my buddy Plato said:

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

Old Plato knew what he was talking about. ;)