Another fine mess I've gotten myself in. I'm reading a series of delightful volumes on soul-searching travels by Roan Poulter in reverse order. Poulter's third novel in a series, The Long Road Home, was, like my third, Crazy of Natural Causes, a KindleScout selection. When I downloaded another, All Roads South, it didn't make …
Author: wastedpilgrim
I'm a writer.
Blogs. Novels. Journalism. Songs.
It's all I know how to do well.
Crazy Little Thing Called Writing
So much to do. So little time. It wasn't too long ago that writers got to spend their time writing. They didn't have to tweet and post and pretend it was writing, too. A book is an art. A blog is a craft. A tweet is a trick. It's not that I don't enjoy social …
A Day That Clicked
It was blazing hot outside, but I never knew it. I shaved but never showered. On TV, the U.S. Open thought it was the Twenty-Four Hours of Le Mans. I was mainly oblivious. Occasionally, a hot-pink shirt or a crowd’s roar drew my attention. Golf announcers are exceedingly calm and mostly literate. Vin Scully is …
Can’t Rush the Important Stuff
My goal today is to complete the first draft of what I intend to be my fifth novel, Cowboys Come Home. I'm expecting it to take two more drafts, perhaps only one, but I'm optimistic on such matters, and two is the likelihood. They won't take too long. The story isn't likely to require any …
A Lovely Malaise
All the Lasting Things. It's a wonderful title that could mean a lot in various contexts. To me, it means that the characters created by David Hopson are capable of progress, but not change. Ultimately, they are all imprisoned by their pasts. Broadening their horizons is possible, but freedom from them is not. Benji is …
A Flashback to Those Glamorous Days of Air Travel
I don't dream that much -- that's while sleeping, mind you -- but I've been doing more of it lately. There's no deep-down analysis. It seems as if the 11 o'clock news seldom passes without at least one short feature on the nightmare of airport security. I used to fly 50,000-80,000 miles a year. …
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The Rush of Water
At the moment, I'm watching many people younger than I oversimplifying the life of Muhammad Ali. TV is often awash in glaring generalities. I'm also having a devil of a time with this blog. Lately I'm stuck in a blogging rut. I use blogs as warm-ups for more challenging activities, oh, like, maybe the conclusion …
She Said, ‘Mama, Got a Note Here from the Harper Valley PTA’
Tuesday was another walking contradiction, particularly since I didn't do much walking. I'd been paying attention to really important matters on Monday -- a rained-out stock car race about which the Bleacher Report pays me to write, college baseball regionals, general early-week angst -- and the grass needed cutting, and I'd spent Tuesday morning writing about …
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Something About Nothing
It's gone, gone, gone. Gone, gone, gone. Crying won't bring it back. I have paraphrased. Lefty Frizzell was singing about a woman. My loss was just seven minutes long. It was a blog I worked on for seven minutes, but it was moving rapidly when the keyboard went dead, and the screen turned Petty blue, …
The Pain of It Will Ease a Bit When You Find a Book with True Grit
I'm writing a western. I thought it might be useful to read one. My choice was darn near perfect. In 2010, when the Coen Brothers released a remake of True Grit, they insisted it wasn’t one. It was made independently from the original novel by Charles Portis. I found this odd when I watched the …
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Nightrider's Lament 