Local sports are dying down, or at least the willingness of others to hire me to write about them, for now. The football teams have entered and exited the playoffs. Rain has returned to the Desert Southeast, and smoke from the mountains is at last on the wane. All I know to do is keep …
Category: Writing
The Result of the Roads
My next novel, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, is now above the 46,000-word mark. I worked on the 18th chapter during parts of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. This morning I updated the outline, which is now nearly 13,000 words on its own. Updating ranks right up there with paying bills and trimming the branches of trees …
I Need Insight More Than My Site
As you may have noticed – I hope someone, preferably hundreds, has noticed, but I can’t prove it – my other blog site, montedutton.com, is down. It’s been down for about a week. Three or four times, I’ve tried to fix it, but I haven’t had the time or inclination yet to sit on hold …
Based on Them
A hurricane is headed toward the coast, though, at the moment, it doesn’t appear as if it’s going to get too bad here in the Upstate. It looks like I’ll be writing about a high school football game on Thursday and Friday nights. I’ve been switching the TV back and forth between weather and politics …
Keep Your Eyes and Ears Open
My social calendar stays relatively free. Mostly, I get invited to events because people want me to write about them, or it, or them and it, whether they are ballgames, media conferences, or something else. I don’t think people trust me. They think I might write about them. Which is true. Not by name, though. …
Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Get Ready, Get Ready!
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 …
Continue reading Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Get Ready, Get Ready!
A Morning Work-Up
I intend to write a chapter of fiction in my sixth novel, which does not, of yet, have a title. This is typical of the way I sing scales in advance of a writing chorus. Only Americans would spend more than two years narrowing down a gigantic field of presidential candidates to the two …
Same Old Me in a Different Direction
I have a clue where the next novel is headed. I can see the general direction. Out on the horizon lies a lovely sunset. I've just got to figure out how to get there. As the cowboy in the old Texas tune "I'm a Ro-Deo-Deo-Deo Cowboy (Bordering on the Insane)" expresses: Gimme a beer or …
Seeking Just the Right Amount of Me
The manuscript of Cowboys Come Home is slightly more than four hundred pages, 94,000 words, double-spaced and twelve in point, and the manuscript of the as-yet-unnamed sixth novel is six pages and 1,600 words, but things are looking up. It now has an outline. A major difference between the former and the latter is that …
Wandering Through the Fingers of My Hands
Each morning Facebook provides a look back to items I posted on this date in previous years. Mostly it informs me that what I am doing is the same. Now I'm trying to tie all the loose ends in my fifth novel, Cowboys Come Home, together. The manuscript is ready. I have to make up …
Nightrider's Lament 