Process and being lost in the desert.

So I’m writing on this new project and I am cranking out pages and words like you wouldn’t believe. I mean this thing has been inside me for thirty years waiting to get out, while I’ve been keeping it tamped down and smoldering like a star with excessive gravity. Scene after scene falls by the …

Writing What I Don't Know

My greatest misconception about being a writer when I was growing up was that writers needed to go out and have experiences. I was captivated by Joseph Conrad having been a sailor, Melville having been a whaler, Twain a miner and riverboat pilot, plus Hemingway, and London to name a few. I went out to …

Marketing and the split personality

So I’ve been working feverishly on a new project and neglecting the blog. It’s true. What’s the use of the blog, sometimes I think, when I should be working on the new project like an attentive new lover. I am a writer after all and 500 words here is not 500 words there. Marketing of …

Excerpting Books for an Essay or Short Story

I took a couple of chapters from a novel in progress, formed them into a short story and sent it in to the Narrative Prize. I placed in the top ten and Tom Jenks at Narrative Magazine sent me back a copy with his editorial suggestions. Red Flag Warning had like six pages cut from …

A New Website Redux

Been reading lots of articles on how to promote a book and all are social media gaga. One article said authors needed to be social media gurus or suffer no readers and another said soon social media will be dead and all this fuss will be gone. Maybe the Book of Revelations will come through, …