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…
While I’m busy cleaning up loose ends and failed endeavors, I’ve decided to withdraw all of my books from publication, effective immediately. I’m tired of swimming upstream against a tide of indifference. I’ve gotten a few rejects from agents, but that’s not the reason. I honestly don’t give a damn what an agent thinks.…
I stood stupidly for three beats, with a voice inside my head screaming to pick fun. She needed to be interviewed, and I wanted to interview her something fierce. I wanted to interview her all night long and hard—to interrogate all of her sexy little bits starting with those pretty feet and ending with the…
Every piece I write seems to have its own soundtrack. I used to attribute it to mood, but it’s more than that. When I go to write a poem, story, or novel, I simply can’t write without the right music. I usually don’t know what that music is until I start writing. Still, the words…
My next book. “One of these nights at about twelve o’clock this whole earth’s gonna reel and rock… things thay’ll tremble and cry fer pain for the Lord’s gonna come in his heaven aeroplane.” — Heavenly Aeroplane A sparse, but enthusiastic crowd sits in the aluminum stands of a high school baseball game. Along the…
One thing that hasn’t changed in my writing process is how I inject new minor characters, whether human or some dim, imagined part of my consciousness. (My process for major characters is substantially different and involved. I’ve written about it here, here, and here.) Being largely visual (though Maria argues that I am as auditory…
I have been increasingly writing in the 1st-person Point of View (POV). Initially, it was because it frightened me, and I (correctly) guessed doing so would force me to grow as a writer. Now, I am simply hooked. However, there is a new challenge, as I strew together the multiple works-in-progress I have going: how…
I created this blog because while I have a million of them, none of them is really about me or what it takes to produce work. This place is meant to be a behind-the-scenes peek, mainly for friends, but also for anyone who likes seeing beneath the covers a bit. On my writing blog, I…
I was thinking about lions and dragons, due to a poem by my favorite poet and best friend. It reminded me of my 2nd book, Awakening — specifically one chapter wherein the protagonist, Charlie a 13-year-old genius kid, first discovers his lion heart in the land of dreams. I’ll post it here, because it’s long,…
Raw, Naked Art 