I’m just about to dive into the 21st chapter of my next – and sixth – novel, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which is a few paragraphs shy of 50,000 words in its first draft. Italics will be added when it’s published. But first! A warm-up. La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-lah! Get the old digits cranking like pistons! My urgency …
Tag: fiction
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 …
Tucked Safely Away
The Boston Red Sox are no more. The third game was the only one I saw. Games one and two occurred while I was writing about high school football games. Monday night was excruciating, as games tend to be when one’s favorite team is eliminated. On Tuesday, I watched the remaining baseball. The …
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 …
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Back on Schedule
For a long time, I was a creature of habit. For all but the holiday season, I was working when most people were off and off when most were working. I’d warm up for NASCAR – full-time, 1993-2012 – by spending most of a week at preseason media functions, then spend half of …
Relating in Reverse
I guess I found some identity in Roan Poulter's Motorcycle Chronicles that meshed with my own. On several levels. There are three of them, all about the troubled, but evolving relationship between bohemian literary figure Anne Carter and the son, Jordan, she left behind. Anne is an influence but not a character, in the final …
Little Help? Got a Manuscript Loose Out There
On with the show, this is it! That Oscar-winning rabbit concluded his intro with that tune, and, as of 12:01 a.m. today (Wednesday, August 17), my fifth novel, Cowboys Come Home, is up for nomination in Amazon's KindleScout program. Two previous novels -- KindleScout is fiction only -- have been published in the program, which …
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