The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie© is Coming Back!

The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie© was conceived in 2004.

It started as an idea while I was writing for the IACOJ. We thought that it would boost membership and readership.

I encouraged the members at the time to submit their biographies to me with the promise of creating a fictional character that I would introduce into the story lines of various episodes.

Interest was high. I had several biographies to choose from and the characters that would populate The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie© came to life. It was a very humbling experience for me.

I had several episodes posted at IACOJ in 2004-2005. Then, the website unexpectedly crashed, taking The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie© with it.

When I first introduced The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie©, I had yet to polish my writing style, relying on shock and yawn to gain the reader’s attention. Very colorful language would punctuate many of the episodes.

Since that time, I have been refining the characters and story lines with the idea of someday publishing it as a book with illustrations. I also wanted it to be stories that anyone could relate to. I especially wanted to draw in the youngsters. I wanted stories that they could read or have read to them. After all, I have a young grandson that I want to introduce to Jake and Vinnie.

At my peak, I could sit down and write TWO episodes in a day. I was so invested in the characters and the sub-plots that my pen couldn’t keep up with my thoughts.

I have always written in longhand-pen to paper. It is only after I have connected all of the dots that I sit down at the computer.

As some of you know, I had to step away from writing and blogging for awhile.

Some personal issues came up in my life that needed my full attention; specifically, a job change, the death of my sister and one of my very good friends.

I can’t count the number of times that I have told someone, “I know how you feel”, but when it happened to me, I had no idea how deeply it would affect me. It affected my mental and physical health.

I DID know that I needed to fix it, if I was to ever get back to a good place. You can become very dark and lonely if you don’t allow family and friends to join you in your journey back. You cannot do it alone. Don’t even try it.

And now?

I’m happy to say that it’s all good; so it seems like the right time to introduce new readers to Jake and Vinnie and to hopefully, re-capture my early fans to a new and improved Jake and Vinnie.

The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie© will be found exclusively on www.fireengineering.com.

Realizing the busy schedules that we all have, I may look into a downloadable audio version; perhaps a podcast.

But for now…

If you like timeless stories about firefighting, firefighters, lessons learned, relationships, raising kids as a divorced/single parent, sharing holidays, love, hate, happy endings, sorrow, evil, triumph over evil and realistic, though fictional situations; then, I invite you to join me when I release Episode #1-“Meet Michael Jacob O’Melia” of The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie©.

And let’s face it; we can all use that little escape that brings our worlds back into balance.

Stay tuned.

Art “ChiefReason” Goodrich