The Charge of the Light Brigade is on TV. I flipped over when Son of Lassie ended. I’m hardly watching. It’s background noise. For some reason, I like it while writing.

                Such as now.

                A familiar morning feeling. It’s like stretching before exercise. I remember that.

                I was just thinking about the evolution of one’s style. The transition that comes from education followed by practical experience is one of learning to use the right word instead of the big one. A young person feels compelled to justify his or her education. He (she) desperately wants to show the world how smart he has become. He engages in conversations he perceives to be intellectual and throws out words that may or may not mean what he thinks they do.

                Over time, a trial and error of boldness and embarrassment hones the writer’s tools.

                A young writer craves recognition. An old writer understands it won’t occur while he is alive.

                A young writer blurts out a word whose meaning he doesn’t know. An old writer knows the right word but can’t pluck it from the swollen memory banks of the mind.

                Thank God for the dictionary and thesaurus of the phone.

                Some writers are old when they are young. Some are young when they are old. Appeal resides in both. ‘Tis better than to be consistent.

 

I’ve written four novels and a collection of short stories. I’ve also written a number of books about sports, mostly about NASCAR. You can find most of them here.

The Kindle versions of my books, where available, can be found above. Links below are to print editions.

I’ve written a crime novel about the corrosive effects of patronage and the rise and fall of a powerful politician and his dysfunctional family, Forgive Us Our Trespasses.

I’ve written about what happens to a football coach when he loses everything, Crazy of Natural Causes.

I’ve written a tale of the Sixties in the South, centered on school integration and a high school football team, The Intangibles.

I’ve written a rollicking yarn about the feds trying to track down and manipulate a national hero who just happens to be a pot-smoking songwriter, The Audacity of Dope.

I’ve written a collection of 11 short stories, all derived from songs I wrote, Longer Songs.

Most of my sports columns are at montedutton.com.

Follow me on Twitter @montedutton, @hmdutton (about writing), and/or @wastedpilgrim (more opinionated and irreverent). I’m on Facebook (Monte.Dutton), Instagram (TUG50), and Google-Plus (MonteDuttonWriter).

Coming soon: My fifth novel, a modern western, Cowboys Come Home. If you’d like to sample it, and, perhaps, nominate it for publication in Amazon’s KindleScout program, try this link. If you nominate it, and it is published, you’ll receive a free download in advance.