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 …
Tag: Monte Dutton
The World’s Fastest Review Is Two Clicks Away
I don't have a clue whether or not the KindleScout program will be interested in my fifth novel, Cowboys Come Home. Two previous novels, Crazy of Natural Causes and Forgive Us Our Trespasses, have been selected by the Amazon program, so, as Bill Murray said in Caddyshack, I've got that going for me. On the …
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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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I’m So Short of Money, It Makes My Eyes Itch
Sunday was astonishingly productive. I touched all the bases of my various sources of income. Now it’s Tuesday. Monday was a blink-out. On Monday, I went to Laurens District High School to take photos of football players. Before that, I chatted with Raiders head coach Chris Liner during the waning minutes of practice. Afterwards, my …
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Trump’s Bullshit Art
I don't know what to make of this election. Somehow the voters of the two major parties managed to spend two years narrowing down the respective fields to the candidates whom they like the least. That's democracy in action. I'm voting for Hillary Clinton, of course. If I vote for Donald Trump, I might as …
Them Steadily Depressing, Lowdown, Mind-Messing Social Media Blues
It's dripping rain in the Poconos. It's iffy at Baltusrol. It's hot as fire here, but it's supposed to rain tomorrow. If the afternoon arrives and the race is delayed, I'm not going to watch NASCAR drivers pet their puppies (um, woe be unto thy dirty minds) in the motorcoach lot. I may mow the …
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Trump Keeps Right On Trampling
Don't it beat all? Ain't things out of control? Damndest thing ever I seen. That's what my old man used to say. Damndest thing ever I seen. At the very least, three or four times a day. I guess he was easy to impress. One of the beauties of baseball is that, no matter how …
A Morning Work-Up
I intend to write a chapter of fiction in my sixth novel, which does not, of yet, have a title. This is typical of the way I sing scales in advance of a writing chorus. Only Americans would spend more than two years narrowing down a gigantic field of presidential candidates to the two …
Same Old Me in a Different Direction
I have a clue where the next novel is headed. I can see the general direction. Out on the horizon lies a lovely sunset. I've just got to figure out how to get there. As the cowboy in the old Texas tune "I'm a Ro-Deo-Deo-Deo Cowboy (Bordering on the Insane)" expresses: Gimme a beer or …
