It’s been one of those weeks at work, the kind where time moves back and forth in an odd dance in the mind, making it feel like minutes are hours and hours, minutes. Deadlines, chaos, and nerves–there’s something big to work on, and when the sun meets the horizon (at this time of the year, […]
Chuck Wendig’s Irregular Creatures Review
I don’t read many crime novels, sci-fi stories, horror shorts, or fantasy epics. It’s not that I have anything against genre fiction (in fact, I think everybody who writes should start out with genre fiction because it’s a great way to learn structure) — it’s just usually not my kind of thing. So it says […]
Very Short Stories
Before tackling the first adult novel I remember reading, John Irving’s The World According to Garp (Modern Library) (affiliate link), the first adult fiction of any kind I remember reading was James Thurber’s short stories, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” and “The Catbird Seat.” I read them because they were available, and they were […]
The Book Pile: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
I believe Haruki Murakami when he says in his book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running(affiliate link): “Most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running everyday.” The parallels of running any kind of distance and writing are very similar. There’s a sense of monotony, a feeling of “when the […]
The Future of Books and Publishing
I recently watched Richard Nash’s talk about the future of books and publishing. (I found it here, on Booklife.) There are some great points made in the presentation, but there were two that really stuck out: The reminder that the long form narrative is a feature, not a bug. Most writers — whether they know […]
Writing Priorities
I recently finished Haruki Murakami’s memoir about running and writing, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. While it’s much more about running than writing — even if you don’t like running — it’s worth reading if you write. The parallels between distance running and writing a novel are obvious even if you […]
Cover Story
Yesterday, The New York Times ran a story about book covers and e-books. I know we’ve all heard that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but covers do matter. I’ve judged more than a few books by their covers in my time (found my favorite book that way), and in almost every case […]
The Book Pile: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much
I’ve been meaning to write a review about Allison Hoover Bartlett’s The Man Who Loved Books Too Much for awhile, now. The book was given to me as a Christmas gift; it was one of my favorite gifts received last December. The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is the true story of John Gilkey, […]
The Platform of Silence
J.D. Salinger is dead. I’m not going to talk about what an influence he was on my writing because it was just last year that I finally got off my lazy goddamn ass and read that stinking book he wrote–you know, that one everybody talks about and stuff; the really famous one with the rambling […]
Make Them Laugh
People love to laugh. It doesn’t matter if what you write is serious or humorous, making people laugh is giving them what they want. Here are 5 tips for writing funny, even if you aren’t: 1. Be Universal If you don’t think you have it in you to be funny, you’re not paying enough attention […]
Sherlock Holmes
My wife and I saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie today. We loved it! I haven’t read all of the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels like my wife has, but I’ve read enough to have cringed when the movie was first announced. Guy Ritchie? I thought. Oh, sure, the boxing scenes he directed in Snatch […]
The Gift of Books
Yesterday, I wrote about giving the gift of reading. In yesterday’s blog entry, I wrote about how my mom is one of the people who made me love reading. We had a very rare white Christmas in north Texas. (I haven’t seen a white Christmas in 25 years, when I used to live north of […]
5 Writing Lessons in Last Night in Twisted River
I recently finished John Irving’s Last Night in Twisted River. Irving has been one of my favorite writers since I was a kid. I will never write like him; I have no desire to write like him. But I love reading his books. Even if you’re not an Irving fan, here are five lessons from […]