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…
Looking for a way to enhance your comedic, acting, or writing skills but don’t have time for class? Want to learn from established masters instead of some night-school hack whose big moment happened in his high school play? Well, there’s an online gig called MasterClass that purports to do just that. You can learn comedy…
Truth? Prententious bollocks? Possibly.
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.…
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…
This was an ordinary day, at an ordinary time, in an ordinary place. There once was a man, who needed to reach the sea. For years, he’d been tormented by the People. They bullied him in school; they never understood when he spoke, for he wasn’t from wherever it was he’d drifted to when he…
I’m currently reading REDACTED by REDACTED (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). Okay, it’s REDACTED‘s 9th book, written under a pen name as a new novelist. However, she has convinced me it’s a debut novel, given I’m on page 74 and still don’t care for any of her characters except the lead’s sidekick. Someone or something…
By my estimation, I’m 98,000 words into a 108,000 word book. My detectives have solved the case, and now all that’s left is to try to apprehend the culprit. Oh, that it were so easy. I knocked out about 3,000 words tonight that I think will end up being increased instead of tightened. I’ll be…
Starring in the role of Juliette “Jette” d’Arc Dubois, sister of leading lady Jeanne Camille Dark, will be Ms. Jean Harlow, nee Harlean Harlow Carpenter (1911 – 1937). She was not originally whom I had in mind for the role, but The Voices were quite insistent and excited when I consented. Apparently Ms. Harlow was…
I’ve been struggling with my latest work-in-progress, the suspense novel Jeanne Dark, despite the fact that I know and like the characters and have plotted the entire book. Indeed, as I told Maria tonight, I feel like my characters have become impatient with me, egging me on to write the damned book already. So, I’m…
Raw, Naked Art 