Clinton, South Carolina, Monday, November 27, 2017, 6:32 p.m. Raymond Chandler was an extraordinary novelist and screenwriter. I can only imagine how great a sports columnist he would have been. This man could turn a phrase. They cascade through his prose like waterfalls. “… she had a blue mink that almost made the Rolls-Royce look …
Tag: crime
Las Vegas from Back Here
Clinton, South Carolina, Monday, October 2, 2017, 12:48 p.m. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a large-scale music festival. Thanks to friends in Texas, I’ve been to lots of small-scale music festivals, but, mostly, I’ve watched favorite musicians, barely known to most of my friends, at auditoriums, converted movie theaters, and 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 …
Keep the Line Moving
Clinton, South Carolina, Wednesday, July 26, 2017, 11:15 a.m. Yesterday I finished a manuscript. It’s just a first draft, but I doubt it will require much revision. Lightning in a Bottle just required two drafts. I think its sequel will, too. The other project nestled snugly in this laptop … ah, that’s a different matter. …
So Damned Much Is Senseless
Clinton, South Carolina, Wednesday, June 14, 2017, 9:56 a.m. I don’t know what to write. I’m just trying because I find it therapeutic. When nothing makes sense, and I need it to, I just write. With a little luck, it turns into a blog. Either that, or I play guitar a while. The point at …
From Books to Movies, without a Hitch
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, April 1, 2017, 4:14 p.m. Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Both long dead. Both masters of a genre. They wrote about crime fiction about hard-boiled detectives. Both are known more for the movies made from their novels than the novels themselves. I wanted to read Chandler and Hammett. I had for …
Mystery When It Was Cool
Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, February 9, 2017, 11:24 a.m. All that I found questionable about Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep was how much it rains in Los Angeles. It was published in 1939. Perhaps it’s climate change. For a long time, I’ve wanted to read the masters of crime and mystery, principally Chandler and Dashiell …
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 …
Comedy Remains Elusive
Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, January 5, 2017, 9:32 a.m. Try as I might, I don’t seem to be able to write a comedy. Oh, a couple of years ago, I took a stab at it. My third novel, Crazy of Natural Causes, was funny at times. It was a fable of life’s absurdity, but I …
The Way I Write the Things I Write
I have demonstrated my allegiance to fiction. At present, I am about seventy-five percent done with what will become my sixth novel. Three – Crazy of Natural Causes (2015), Forgive Us Our Trespasses (2016), and Cowboys Come Home (2016) -- have been published in the past two years. It appears likely that Don’t Ask, …
Nightrider's Lament 