Here are a few things I believe. I'm sure I'll leave out many. I'm sure many people in the history of this old world have said the same things. I didn't read them, though. They may not be original, but they're original to me. Or from me. Whichever. The truth is seldom more evident than …
Tag: alcohol
The Rush of Danger
The matter of whether Michael Carlson's The Age of Daredevils is fiction or non is unimportant. The tale of the men and women who tumbled fatefully over the Horseshoe Falls of Niagara and through the raging rapids thereabout is true. Carlson's knowledge is imposing and his research painstaking. The fiction in it is the thoughts …
A Readers’ Guide to What and How I Write
If you have read any of my previous novels, you probably know how I write. I try to be realistic. I create characters, and they don't ring true in my mind if they don't talk and act as I imagine them doing. I don't much care about writing about the exalted classes, having never spent …
The End of the Tunnel
This is bound to be a unique kind of book review. First of all, the book I just finished, Shine, is the third in a series. Secondly, it's not fiction. Thirdly, I've known the author, Joey Holland, for most of my life, probably dating back to some swing set or playground slide or sandbox. …
Audacity for a New Year
This morning I awakened the usual way, which is to say I put on some coffee, washed down the daily medication, and retired to another sector of the manse for normal relief of bodily functions. Then I returned to the kitchen, stirred Sweet 'n' Low into the coffee -- which, I might add, was recently …
The Inside Dope from Halford
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 Feeling Bottoms Out
I didn’t plan on tumbling right back into another short story, but today really is my birthday. When my job was eliminated, it wasn’t on my birthday. Obviously, this is total fiction, and any similarity to actual events … you know the drill. The first observation of Clyde Barns on his birthday was that his …
The Charmed Life of Charles Dough
This is the story of a prominent family, Homecoming at Calliham University, and a series of events that bring the wealthy alums, their children, and a couple mischievous stoners into, uh, contention. 1. DIFFERENT GOALS Jonathan Elbert McCutcheon was a direct descendant of the founder of Calliham College, his great-great-great grandfather Estes Calliham, …
Sometimes Things Work Out
This is the final part of this serial short story, which doesn’t have an overall title yet, but I’ll come up with it when I post the whole tale in one take in a day or so. The first five episodes, in order, were “Different Goals,” “A Taste for Mischief,” “All Fall Down,” “A …
Nothing Witty About Regaining Wits
This is the fifth episode of my short story about culture shock on Homecoming Day at a private college in the South. The first four episodes were, in order, "Different Goals, "A Taste for Mischief," "All Fall Down," and "A Stroke of Smoke." “Well,” Charles Dough reported, “I finally got Christian to answer one of …
Nightrider's Lament 