The Dogs of Banality

Written By Joe Smolen

Just today, I “wrapped up” a novel with the working title N3(Novel 3). By “wrapped-up,” I mean, I have the ending framed, I know I have 46 chapters all safe on a separate little zip-drive and 100K words. N3 is a sequel to Lostine, which is launching via Sterncastle Publishing of Newport, Oregon in May 2026. Even though it is full of crime and punishment, N3 has been termed “a sweet, nostalgic love story.” Suddenly, as I type this and I am looking back at my previous sentence, I am thinking I will change N3’s working title to “A Sweet, Nostalgic Love Story.” Before I risk into a next revision, I will read Jane Austen again. The dogs of banality will eat anything, and writers insisting on sex scenes are satisfied to feed them, while Jane Austen is read with fascination.

Joe Smolen

Joe C. Smolen, AKA L.W. Smolen is an Oregon Coast writer of insufficiently exaggerated notoriety. Never having been arrested, he lives with his wife Sherrie and the ghost of their black, Standard Poodle Rico Suave in a really pretty good, Prairie Style house they built themselves. Since the Literary Magazine Fleas on the Dog of Kitchener, Ontario has permanently stopped accepting submissions, in order to read L.W. Smolen’s 2021 short fiction, A Real Guy, you are referred to joecsmolen.com. Some of L.W’s other, subsequent short fictions are archived at Olive Tree Review, Ginosko, Cardinal Sins Journal, Wrath Bearing Tree, Wilderness House and etc. Kirkus reviews once interpreted his work favorably.

https://joecsmolen.com
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