How “The Unlikely Angel of Casco Bay,” Became a Novel

When I retired at the end of 2021, I was already blogging on this website, and initially it was a ribbon type, or a more traditional blog, but quickly morphed into an Op/Ed place for my political rants and anger about too many things. Over time, I tempered the anger, and decided to try writing more about what I wished to see in the world, or about positive things, lifestyle articles, health articles, and other random things that I decided to share at the time. I was typing a lot more, and enjoying the heck out of writing articles and essays, even considered becoming a full time freelance journalist. While figuring out how far to go with journalism, I decided to try writing some short fiction to see what might happen.

I added one short story, then another, and another. After publishing The Unlikely Angel of Casco Bay on December 21, 2023 as an original short story, an extended family member told me that she loved the story, but was frustrated by not being able to know what happened next to Ben, the main protagonist. At first I thought her comments were her (very kind) way of saying that she simply enjoyed the short story. I appreciated it, but moved on. But she persisted by bringing it up a couple of more times and, finally, and with a seriousness to her tone, she point blank asked me if I’d ever considered writing fiction like a whole book or novel. I can’t recall, now, how I responded at the time, but the fact is that I had thought about writing fiction numerous times throughout my life, but had never acted seriously on those thoughts beyond writing a few pages here and there.

In the 1980’s, while still in my thirties, I enrolled in a Writer’s Digest novel writing course which, back then, was by correspondence via snail mail! I submitted a few starter pages, and had them critiqued fairly favorably, but in the end it was too expensive for my income at the time, and, sadly, I had to let that dream go . . . until now. 🙂

I used the short story version of The Unlikely Angel of Casco Bay as my springboard for the novel, even leaving the short story in its entirety as a first chapter. I left it that way until about two weeks before self-publishing the book for the first time on Amazon’s KDP platform, which debuted on March 1, 2025. When I did a final read of the novel one final time, the first chapter’s length stood out as abnormally long to me, so I decided to split it into the first two chapters, ending chapter one on page 14 of the manuscript, where Ben passes out from hard drinking, and Andrew is on his way to pick him up for the surprise party. The change seemed perfect afterwards.

Essentially, once I retired, I had a lot more time to write, and I coupled that with a desire to get away from angry political blog posting, and a strong desire to be part of putting something positive out there into the world for content. That started my mind thinking about different, more positive things, and not only was I a lot more into the writing, but the writing began to reflect that positivity. Then, wanting to have even more fun with writing, I started back with fiction, beginning with the short stories, followed by my first serious attempt at actually writing a book.

I was determined to write the entire thing. Nothing was going to get in my way this time. I wrote the first draft between December 23, 2023, and February 2, 2024. By May of 2024, it was done. I had revised and edited it four times. The only other changes made since then, have been finding and editing out a few more grammatical errors and the last minute edit and chapter retitling mentioned earlier, changing the first chapter into the first two chapters.

Everyone in my beta reader group really liked, or loved it. However, I queried 69 different agents all summer and into the fall of 2024, with no takers whatsoever. The Unlikely Angel of Casco Bay was just sitting there gathering dust on my solid state drive, while I queried and waited for a yes from an agency, and began another novel titled, Unity House, which is almost finished now. I just kept my chin up and continued writing. I wrote through my next birthday, and through all the holidays of 2024, ultimately missing out on potential Christmas sales in the process. Finally, I decided to go ahead and learn and do what I needed to do to self-publish it.

For the time being, The Unlikely Angel of Casco Bay is available on Amazon in Kindle, softcover, and hardcover. Within two weeks, there will be a way to buy The Unlikely Angel of Casco Bay and future books directly from me, right here at my website, and for a nice discount for ordering it that way. You’ll also be able to order it from your local bookstore directly if that’s your preference. Eventually, it may show up in your library as well, as my next distributor, IngramSpark supplies 41000 retail bookstores and libraries.

Finally, after interviewing several potential narrators for an audiobook version, I’ve decided to give my own voice a try and will be narrating my own novel through ACX/Audible.com I have recently been collecting the necessary equipment, and familiarizing myself with the software. My goal is to have a completed audiobook available for sale by Christmas 2025 or sooner. Stay tuned. The fun continues!

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