The Fallacy of Fiction

There is something unreal in the world of fiction. Now get me right; I’ve written fiction, so I understand that unreality is kind of the point. However, it sometimes leaves a plastic sheen that the producers of the work didn’t intend. Writers write too hard. Actors try to hard to achieve the beneath-the-nail grit that…

How to Add Layers into Your Writing

Reprinted with permission from thisblogblank.wordpress.com, 12/19/2018. After watching my wife work on a couple of her oil paintings, I’ve  come to realize that producing a work of fiction is very similar to creating a painting. Too many new writers have unrealistically low expectations about how good a first draft can be due to an overabundance…

You’re Not Alone

I’ve always held to the radical belief that writers should be able to write, painters to paint, and singers to sing. Now I’ve had the fortune of marrying a woman who can do all three things, and let me tell you, even for the talented, it’s damned hard to be discovered. Being remembered seems impossible.…

Photographic Clichés – Vol. 1

As a photographer and editor, I’ve recently become distressed by those few photographers who insist on taking photographs that don’t conform to common photographic practice. That is to say, these frondeurs ignore 180 years of tradition and insist on taking shots that are unique, having little or no banality to speak of. I don’t understand…