Now and again, it’s a good thing to step away from the keyboard. Friday brought a break from the daily grind for my two favorite words: road trip. I packed up my truck and headed up I-5 into Washington. Destination? The 2008 Writers Retreat at the Dumas Bay Centre in Federal Way. Beginning Friday at […]
My wife knocked me awake around 11:30 last night, wearing a worried frown and fleeing the room. Of all the pleasant ways to be awakened, this is pretty damned low on the list. The living room walls were pulsing with red and blue light as I stumbled into the front of the house in my […]
Today is a personal first; I’m a guest blogger on one of my favorite sites, Writing Forward. In keeping with National Poetry Month, the topic for today is what fiction writers can learn from poetry. Check it out here
I broke one of my own writing rules this morning, which is never copy and paste from an older manuscript. I was trying to get at the heart of a pivotal scene in the current draft of Last Thursday, my current novel-in-progress, and some of the words I was tapping seemed mighty familiar. On rereading […]
Maybe it’s just Monday morning talking, but I feel like delving into dark territory. Did you ever daydream about where you’ll be and what you’ll do when it all falls apart? Call it what you will; global economic collapse, Armageddon, the big one, they’re all faces of the same nameless beast that lives in our […]
My writing partner and I have a running joke, based on a New Yorker cartoon. It shows two doors; one marked heaven with no waiting, and one with a long line and a sign reading books on heaven. The first time you stroll down the writing aisle at a reasonably well-stocked bookstore, you might be […]
I get some of my best ideas from my twice-monthly critique group meetings. Last night, I was commenting on the manuscript presented by one of our members and noted that the main character remained unnamed for the first 45 pages. The author responded, “why do you need to know that?” It’s a damn good question, […]
Technically, this isn’t a quirk of English, but of English speakers misunderstanding a Spanish phrase. “Let’s settle this right now, pardner, mano a mano.” You can see the tumbleweeds, hear the keening of the vultures circling overhead. An empty street, save for two gunfighters, hands poised at the ready…
I had in mind several writing topics on which to blog today, but I put them all aside. Tomorrow, more talk of writing. Today, it’s fitting to pause and ponder the words of an inspirational leader on the 4oth anniversary of his death. The message is just as clear and relevant now as it was […]
I was browsing my favorite grammar news sites this morning, when I came across a breaking story that made me quiver with happiness. As anyone who has ever had to learn English knows, it’s not exactly the most compact or logical of tongues. My heart goes out to anyone trying to pick it up as […]
