How does one write? It’s sort of like asking a baseball fan, how does one keep score? Why, there’s only one way to keep score. The way it works for you. Or, uh, one. Awkward or not. It’s a matter of person. If one starts in third, one stays there. No gear shifting. It’s got …
Customer Service
Today I hope to unify my novel. No, I’m not going to compare elements of two manuscripts and somehow integrate them. It’s just that I have thirty-eight chapters of the Forgive Us Our Trespasses manuscript in the sinews of a laptop presently located at the Best Buy in Spartanburg and chapters, well, here. I bought …
My Fingers Are Faster
This sharp little number has speeded me up. It’s a transformer, capable of serving both my laptop and tablet needs. I don’t fully understand my tablet needs. I’ve had a laptop. I’ve had an iPhone. Now I’ve got the capability of existing in between. Middle Earth, maybe. What could be finer than to be in …
A Sticking Key
I’m grateful for this Sony laptop. It’s lasted longer than any of my previous writing apparati. The wear and tear of writing about distant events took its toll on a Dell, a Toshiba, and another brand whose name escapes me now. I’ve also been a writer – a sportswriter for most of that time – …
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (Part Six)
The prevailing view was that Riggs Hellams was turning the trick. Leland Mortenson, slugging right fielder, was coming around. With a couple weeks to go, he was closing in on thirty homers. His strikeouts were down. He seemed happier. Those in the media who followed the team were warming to him, depicting Mortenson as …
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (Part Five)
Get your licks in/ While you can / Keep your future / In your hands / Don’t let the damn authorities / Dictate what you do / Always keep it in your mind just who’s / Screwing who. Riggs Hellams found an old acquaintance standing, arms folded behind him, in uniform near the …
Try, Try Again
I’m taking a break. I’ve been working on the thirty-eighth chapter of the first draft of a novel about an evil politician and a good cop who have known each other all their lives. It’s slowed as it nears its end. When last I left Denny Frawley, he was debating the incumbent governor and this …
No Time to Travel
She was a tiny woman, skin tightly drawn around her face, remarkably unwrinkled yet somehow looking old, as if she spent a lot of time screaming to stretch it out. The fat man hoped to God she wasn’t sitting on his row. Once he had flown on an almost weekly basis, an average of fifty …
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (Part Four)
Hide your money / From the man / Plant your head / In the sand / If you ain’t got insurance / Claim treatment as your right / And if you want to go to war / Send poor kids off to fight. “What in hell did you do? Piss him off?” Gary Sjakich leaned …
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (Part Three)
Waste your money / On a bag of weed / Take out options / You don’t need / The first time that you compromise / Well, now you’re on your way / And when you pass out on greed / That’s where you’re gonna stay It was a Sunday afternoon in Cleveland, the first …
Nightrider's Lament 