It's hard to read the work of another writer without comparing it to one's own. Being in Amazon's KindleScout program has had the somewhat unexpected consequence of being joined, mainly via Facebook, with other writers whose novels have been published in the program. One effect has been pride. We help one another. We read one …
Tag: fiction
At Least See if It’s too Hot for You to Handle
Why should you read my novel, Crazy of Natural Causes? Maybe you follow me. Maybe you’ve read one or both of my other novels, The Audacity of Dope (2011) and The Intangibles (2013). Maybe you’ve read my non-fiction books. Maybe you’ve read my newspaper columns, blogs and stories over the past 35 years. Maybe you …
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Watch Out When the Ants Scatter on Jim Jackson’s Farm
James M. Jackson came in handy. I needed his novel Ant Farm. It leads to more. I can't wait to get around to them. Ant Farm reminds me of the mysteries of the late Dick Francis. Jim's Seamus McCree is an American. Francis mainly wrote about Englishmen. Ant Farm reminds me of a Francis mystery …
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I Didn’t Know Where I Was Going, but I’m Glad I Went
I'm envious. Writers are an envious tribe. I try not to succumb to envy, because my style is what has developed and evolved throughout my life. I bear the scars and achievements of my existence to this point. In a song, Guy Clark once quoted the rodeo cowboy Larry Mahan thusly: “Mistakes are only horses …
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A Book to Bed and a Book to Rise
With about thirty minutes to spare before the Tampa Bay-Boston baseball game commenced, and an hour ahead of my weekly radio appearance on South Carolina SportsTalk, I put a fourth novel to bed. It's an appropriate term: "to bed." It's not like I buried it, but it's a little like sending a kid off …
They Walk In but Never Out, and as Far as this Novel Is Concerned, Neither Will You
I felt as if Linda Sands was something of a kindred spirit while reading her offbeat crime novel, 3 Women Walk into a Bar. It's been out just a little longer than my novel, Crazy of Natural Causes, and most every character in Linda's story is crazy, or, at least, eccentric. Mine's not a …
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From Me to You on My Crazy Novel
Friends, countrymen and countrywomen, city folks, cowboys and Indians, readers frequent and infrequent, As you know, I've written another novel. It's good because, right out of Amazon (the retailer, not the river, but the two could be related by marriage), and into my portable devices, I read it. It took just slightly over one day, …
Bouncing Like a Rubber Ball
For as long as I can remember, I've been manic-depressive about my writing. It's not clinically manic-depressive. It's predictable and controllable. It's just that, while I'm writing, I generally think it's really good, and, then, the next time I read it, I consider it unsalvageable, and, on third read, I feel I have some balance. …
Do Me a Favor and Don’t Keep This a Secret
As the song goes, I ain't too proud to beg. My novel, Crazy of Natural Causes, will be released on Tuesday, July 21. As these words are written, that's several hours away. No matter how hard I try, I can't possibly reach enough people to make it a success by that means alone. I've got …
I’m Crazy for Tryin’ …
The day before yesterday, I drove over to Presbyterian College and shot some video footage of high school kids going through football drills. Why? Well, I do like watching football practice from a distance of, oh, forty years when I was out there sweating in the sun. I went to a football camp before my …
