First timer

Found this site by chance, and am looking forward to participating here, as well as improving my own writing skills.

I am a recently retired archaeology professor, and over the years have had several non-fiction archaeology books published. But I have long been wanting to write novels. Unfortunately, every one I've started died its own death due to my boredom with it. However, a few months ago I began another novel, and have just finished it. It is a little over 70,000 words, and though it needs considerable rewriting and editing - esp to make the dialogue more compelling - at least it remained interesting to me all the way to the end. What was so unusual for me was that every time I sat down at the laptop to write, I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next - just as if I was reading a great new novel. That's what gave me the motivation to push on, and led me to think it might be a good story.

Hope to interact with all of you in this writer's forum and exchange ideas.

Going the traditional route. Will eventually be looking for an agent, but need to polish it up first. Had hoped for 80k, but didn't get there in the 1st draft. There are some areas I could expand and keep the flow going, so may get into that on the 1st rewrite. Thanks for the comments.

Tom Johnson said:

Welcome to AW, E. Steve. As a professor in archeology your background should also produce some interesting works in fiction. Good luck with that novel, and I hope you will let us know when it's published - along with the title, naturally.

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Thanks. Kind of hard not to include what we know best, isn't it? For the last year I have been volunteering with an NGO recovering WW II MIAs overseas, and one of the objects we found last winter in a battlefield cemetery, an engraved medallion, is the catalyst that has compelled me to write the book. It still haunts me.