Clinton, South Carolina, Tuesday, September 17, 2019, 12:49 p.m. One of the small attributes that has grown within me as I’ve aged is an attempt to minimize the effect of superstition in my life. This sort of began with research for my third novel, Crazy of Natural Causes (2015). The story of Chance Benford required …
Tag: Crazy of Natural Causes
Pick My Fiction Up on Your Way Down
Clinton, South Carolina, Tuesday, May 7, 2019, 12:23 p.m. It would probably be easier to write a song. A song can be quick and clever. A blog requires a bit more wisdom. It has to be more than clever. It’s not as complicated, but there’s more heft in its thoughts. Not that I’m an expert …
Words and Lyrics and Titles and Tunes
Clinton, South Carolina, Sunday, August 26, 2018, 2:42 p.m. I listened to a Johnny Cash song that had slipped my mind. “See Ruby Fall.” I feel I know exactly how Cash wrote it. He was in his tour bus, heading through the country, probably in the mountains of the Appalachian chain, and he saw an …
Torn between Tales
Clinton, South Carolina, Friday, September 8, 2017, 12:03 p.m. I’ve shaved nearly 10,000 words out of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which has become an on-again, off-again, long-term project. At the beginning of the year, I mostly set it aside to write two related auto-racing novels, Lightning in a Bottle and Life Gets Complicated, a sequel. …
It Is What It Is at the End of the Weekend
Clinton, South Carolina, Sunday, September 3, 2017, 3:34 p.m. I’ve drawn no conclusions from the past few days. They’ve been good experiences, I guess. Character building. Not altogether good. Not altogether bad. Clouds with silver linings still glistening. Greer clobbered Clinton, 41-0, in the local home opener. Chapman clobbered Laurens, 61-24, on its home field. …
Clinton and Laurens … and Life
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, August 26, 2017, 10:58 a.m. There are those who believe I waste my talents tramping around small-town football stadiums writing about what I see. They are so wrong. Last night Laurens held off Clinton, 24-18. In a small tract of land known as Laurens County, named after a statesman from the …
Cowboys Cheap as French Fries
Clinton, South Carolina, Tuesday, August 1, 2017, 12:36 p.m. Hey, there. Hi, there. Ho, there. I wrote a western last fall. It’s not just any western. It’s a modern western, set at the end of World War II, when a couple Marines return home to Texas, looking for peace, love, and understanding even though they’d …
Different Except for the Same
Clinton, South Carolina, Friday, July 28, 2017, 11:01 a.m. As I have recently realized, my novels have some recurring incidences, and several incidents. Over the course of writing six novels and dozens of short stories, my protagonists have characteristics I applied to more than one. I didn’t really realize the extent until I started hyping …
Take Jada Ryker’s Novel and Run … with It
Clinton, South Carolina, Tuesday, January 24, 2017, 11:45 a.m. When I started reading Jada Ryker’s Take the Body and Run, I thought it was a mess. I couldn’t keep up with all the characters. This was also the way I felt when I started reading Doctor Zhivago several decades ago. I stuck with Boris Pasternak’s …
Spanning My Literary Globe
Clinton, South Carolina, Monday, January 23, 2017, 9:35 a.m. I had another brainstorm overnight. I’m working on two literary projects. One I’ve been working on for several months. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is up to about 80,000 words in first draft. Two weeks ago, another sleepless night led me to a second project, tentatively …
Nightrider's Lament 