Clinton, South Carolina, Monday, March 20, 2017, 10:56 a.m. Jesse Few lives in the suspended adolescence of the power life. Suddenly, all of his indiscretions come back to haunt him at once. So goes the irreverent narrative of Lying for a Living, Steve McCondichie’s debut novel. I traffic in such irreverence myself. Its smirk …
Tag: humor
The Rush to Fiction
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, March 18, 2017, 10:25 a.m. It’s been a lovely cruise, this week. Other than a couple cold nights at athletic fields, it was mainly noteworthy for what I am doing now, which is typing in various directions. This wasn’t nose-to-the-grindstone typing, in part because I own no grindstones, but also because …
That First Draft Goes Down So Easy
Clinton, South Carolina, Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 11:25 a.m. Hmm. How can I describe this? I probably don’t have to. Many who read it will be authors, too. They’ll know what it’s like to get a first draft finished. The mountain is climbed. The story is done. He (or she) has to get back down …
I Don’t Know Why, but I Know When
Clinton, South Carolina, Wednesday, March 1, 2017, 10:45 a.m. Sometimes a football team knows full well the importance of a game, and it knows it had better play well, and all the players tell themselves they’d better be ready and … sometimes themselves just don’t buy it. The fans simplify. They talk among themselves, and …
Frying the Morning Spam
Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, February 16, 2017, 10:20 a.m. One of my daily duties is to delete spam comments from my websites, wellpilgrim.wordpress.com and montedutton.com. Occasionally, one of them suggests: Manual blogging is so troublesome. You can remedy this. Click here. I’m afraid to click. As a general rule, no good can come of it. …
Something About Nothing, or, Some Things About No Things
Clinton, South Carolina, Tuesday, February 14, 2017, 11:45 a.m. It’s closing in on noon, and my chief accomplishment is half-watching Polly Bergen play the first woman president in a movie made in 1964. Also, I prepared and consumed breakfast, and delved deeply into the latest doings of Twitter and Facebook. As is the case 99 …
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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 …
Not About the Inauguration
Clinton, South Carolina, Friday, January 20, 2017, 11:47 a.m. The new president is about to take office. In a moment, I’m going to listen to what he has to say. I’m not going to write about politics. It has left me weary. I hope for the best. Instead, I’m going to write about something frivolous. …
Futility Is Necessary and Inevitable
I don’t know whether it’s depressing because it really is or because I’m getting old and cranky. Perhaps I’m just starting to suspect that my labors have all been in vain. So little of what I wanted to achieve in life is done. Every day is a new day, but the passage of each pushes …
