It's not raining now. Well, maybe a mist. It's been raining. Last night it was heavy when I was driving home from Spartanburg. It's going to rain some more. A lot more. On The Weather Channel, it looks like a wall of fire is coming through South Carolina on Saturday. Any old rain is light …
Tag: music
My Fiction and Welcome to It
Let’s see. What’s the most boring, clichéd way I can begin a blog? Oh, I got it. Good news and bad news. First, the bad. Sales of Crazy of Natural Causes have been sagging recently. Rather than ranging from 15,000 to 50,000 in the ever-changing rankings, the range has shifted to 50,000 to 200,000 over …
Nothing Left to Lose
On Saturday morning, I was riding around and around my front yard on a mower, listening to Charlie Robison’s “Desperate Times.” That’s where this dark tale started. Joe Scharmann had applied for dozens of jobs. Three had deigned to invite him for interviews. Those whose job it was to conduct the interviews knew better than …
Drudgery for a While
I’m between stories right now. I just spent a couple weeks or so on a short story, “The Bright Lights Burn,” that wound up being about 16,000 words. It takes up the story of Riley Mansfield, the likable rogue who was the main character in my first novel, The Audacity of Dope, six and a …
Completely Unawares
This is the seventh and final episode of a short story about Riley Mansfield, the hero of my first novel, The Audacity of Dope. This story is set in the present, nearly seven years after the events of the novel. The first six parts were, in order, “Seven Years If It’s a Day,” “Like Old …
Far, Far Away
In response to some small demand, I took up the story of Riley Mansfield, the main character in my first novel, The Audacity of Dope. The first three episodes, in order, were “Seven Years If It’s a Day,” “Like Old Times,” and “High in La-La Land.” This is the fourth episode. Some adjustments had …
High in La-La Land
This short story picks up the story of Riley Mansfield and his wife, the former Melissa Franklin, seven years after the events of my first novel, The Audacity of Dope. This is the third episode. The first two, in order, were “Seven Years If It’s a Day” and “Like Old Times.” The simple arithmetic of …
Like Old Times
Here’s the second episode of this short story, which revisits Riley Mansfield, the main character in my novel The Audacity of Dope, seven years later. The first episode was called “Seven Years If It’s a Day.” LIKE OLD TIMES To his satisfaction, Riley Mansfield’s position had descended in the public consciousness, but he still …
Road Songs and Rivers
I hit the road this morning wishing I was going to somewhere like Texas, or Nashville, or some other place that was more than eight-five minutes away. Much of my time these days is spent holed up at the house typing away. When I get out, it’s golden. From time to time, an old friend …
Paydirt and Paved Roads
Last night I learned that the term “paydirt” wasn’t invented by some overheated local sports writer who decided that the dirt underneath the grass in the end zone was dirt that paid, even though it was probably a high school game and the only payoff would have been “under the table.” It was the term for …
Nightrider's Lament 