"Why do they [write] for their money? Why do they [work] for short pay? They ain't getting nowhere and they're losing their share. They must have gone crazy back there." — Michael Burton (paraphrased)
For the first half of Jake Lingwall's action-packed, young-adult novel, Kari Tahe spends a considerable amount of her waking hours in virtual simulation, testing her drones in a wide range of combat scenarios. This is the future, when the lines between games and reality are blurred. As the story advances -- forgive the vulgarity to …
Continue reading The Future Is Harsh and Scary, but the Kids Give Us Hope
This isn't the first time I've tried to let you know you can read my new novel, Crazy of Natural Causes, without owning a Kindle. Before Crazy was selected as a KindleScout winner, I wasn't knowledgeable, either. All three of my novels, and several of my non-fiction books, are available in a Kindle version, …
Let’s see. What’s the most boring, clichéd way I can begin a blog? Oh, I got it. Good news and bad news. First, the bad. Sales of Crazy of Natural Causes have been sagging recently. Rather than ranging from 15,000 to 50,000 in the ever-changing rankings, the range has shifted to 50,000 to 200,000 over …
Political correctness. It's nothing new. It's why you walk into a convenience store and ask the lady at the register where the restrooms are. Restrooms, huh? It's why a prison is part of the Department of Corrections. Not prisons. Corrections. The War Between the States was politically correct. Not the war. It was awful. The …
My novel, Crazy of Natural Causes, has been out for almost six weeks now. It's gotten a good response. The sales have been decent, particularly since it remains available as a Kindle ebook only. It only costs $3.49. You can download free apps that allow you to read it on a wide variety of …
What Amy Wolf has achieved, in her novel The Misses Bronte's Establishment, is to make, in the guise of fiction, a distinguished family of writers human. What the Brontes meant to me, before I read Amy's work, was Charlotte (Jane Eyre) and Emily (Wuthering Heights). They were remnants of an education grown ancient. I try …
I'm holed up again, writing. The weekend was exciting -- a memorable high school game, Bristol night race, up late both nights writing about them, and then restless afterward -- but I'm back in the routine of work on a short story, write a blog, pay some bills ... ... And, on selected days, I …
I've read Philip Roth's The Great American Novel, about a ragtag baseball team during wartime. I've read fiction about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. I've read novels with a supernatural element. What I haven't read is a novel like Matt Caldwell's The Lost Tribe, which combines the themes above with a few more subplots thrown …
Continue reading Not Just Another Baseball Novel, and Not Just Another Sports Writer
This is kind of a writing exercise. I decided I'd exercise my dialogue muscles by writing a short story that tells the entire story in the form of conversation. In this case, most of it's on the air. "It's Springfield Dynamos baseball, live on Oldies Ninety-Seven from Auckland Mosaics Ballpark in Halford. I'm Lamar Bridgman, and …
The Long Road Home, by Roan Poulter, is the third of his Motorcycle Chronicles Series, and a matter of a young man, Jordan Carter, finding peace in a variety of ways. Jordan is the son of a literary icon, and the tale begins when news arrives of her violent death in Argentina. Anne Carter comes …
Nightrider's Lament 