SHOVELING
One last thing on Nanowrimo and then I promise to shut up about it. I noticed that what I tended to write in November was the fun stuff, action scenes, fights, chases, confrontations, the scenes where...
View ArticleBOTTOM DRAWER MSS
Lots of people have a half-finished manuscript in a drawer someplace. Usually it is not something they want to talk much about. I was one of those people, the manuscript that eventually became my first...
View ArticleNOT WRITING
One unstructured day off, and things that I would rather do with it instead of writing: 1. Write for this blog. I write this for myself, by the way, it’s really myself I’m yelling at, but of course you...
View ArticleCHRIS KYLE
The former Navy Seal and author of ‘American Sniper,’ an insightful and very readable account of his life and military career, was shot dead yesterday while in the act of helping a fellow vet who...
View ArticleNO MERCY
There are, I think, two major kinds of editing. One is easy, fun, and goes on all the time, it’s the ‘Damn, I’m good’ process. When I first open my document I generally read over whatever I wrote in it...
View ArticleDON’T DO IT, LARRY!
Lawrence Block thinks he might be done. I really think that’s too bad. I sincerely hope he doesn’t quit writing, but he’s been talking about hanging it up for a while now. I have always looked for his...
View ArticleFLOW
When I’m trying to clean up a first draft, one of the things I do is read my pages out loud. I’ve been doing it for years, long enough not to feel stupid if I get caught at it. I find that sentences...
View ArticleWHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS
I have a great day job for a writer. These days I spend most of my working life in Da Bronx, with regular forays to some of the other outer boroughs. I meet all kinds of characters, pretty much every...
View ArticleNEIL GAIMAN
There has been a point in every one of my writing projects where I lose my taste for the whole enterprise. I am about halfway through my current draft, I think, but I have been in that sullen frame of...
View ArticleTALENT
Just read ‘Talent is Overrated,’ by Geoff Colvin. The book takes a look at how over-achievers are different from the rest of us, and what makes them that way. The central premise is that it is not...
View ArticleMAKING GOD LAUGH…
is actually easy. Just tell him your plan… Even if it serves no other purpose, this blog reminds me that for me, at least, writing seems to be about coming up short, over and over, and starting back to...
View ArticleDEAR APPLE
Just bought an Apple laptop, Mac Air. Roughly $1200, give or take, easily twice the cost of a comparable machine, but I was happy to pay it. Why? Because Apples are intuitive. Because Apple does not...
View ArticleCHOP THE CHOP
Atlanta, Georgia, is home to absolutely the most obnoxious sports phenomenon since the Mayans stopped executing the captain of the losing team: the tomahawk chop. Thank you, Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler...
View ArticleMONTICELLO
After a recent visit to Charlottesville, Virginia, and Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello, I read Christopher Hitchens’ excellent biography of the man. Jefferson is revered, and rightfully so, as...
View ArticleSTUCK
I have been stuck (there’s a shock) for a while. I am right at sixty thousand words on my current writing project. To me, that means that Act 1 and Act 2 are basically finished. I have some ideas about...
View ArticleSTRESS
Stress is like cholesterol, too much of it will kill you, but if you don’t have enough, you will make your own. I do that, in my writing life. Too many expectations, I think. What I should do, really,...
View ArticleROWLING
I read somewhere that J. K. Rowling has agreed to write a series of screenplays based on the world she created for Harry Potter, but set back in time, before Harry. I was glad to hear it, I enjoyed...
View ArticleGO AWAY
I am about eighty percent done with the current draft of the writing project that I’ve been working on, and I am sick to death of it. The protagonist’s name is Saul, and I wish he would just give up...
View ArticleOHNOWRIMO
November is almost upon us. November is the month when a lot of people will set themselves the goal of finishing a novel (writing one, not reading one), or at least a good portion of one. I’m not down...
View ArticleDONE, DA DONE DONE…
All of a sudden I have a lot more free time on my hands. I did it, I finally finished the writing project I’ve been working on. The current title is ‘A Sensation of Shadow.’ Now what I need to do is...
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