Marvin staggered out of bed, stopped off for a leak, and advanced boldly into the kitchen in search of a swallow of water to combat the cotton mouth. Gaining coherence and mental acuity, he applied the fundamentals of coffee making to his machine and retreated because nature was beginning to call, and, sometimes, in …
Tag: religion
The Inestimable Benefit of Sport
"Remember that time we almost lost to Hugheyville?" "Yeah," Dan Dimmelmeier replied. "Us playing against a school so small that they barely had enough boys in the student body to field a team." "Went into the seventh inning trailing by a run," his best friend, Brandin Porcher, recalled. "Then we tied it on a single …
Grab a Novel, Don’t Cost Nothing
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 …
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 …
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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Whatever Will Be
The old man knew something was amiss. He'd had a nice run. He didn't feel that badly. He was seventy-six. He didn't ever really feel well anymore. Life was a process of diminishing expectations. He could still make it out to the mailbox and back. He could cut grass if it wasn't too hot. Sure, …
Why My Novel Is Running
One of the recurring signature events of any political campaign occurs when a candidate is asked why he's running and can't answer it. If a person can't say why he (or she) wants to occupy the office he seeks, invariably he will claim this fundamental question is of the "gotcha" variety. Then he tells his …
Ever More Distant From Me
Ah. Inhale. Exhale. Relax. Sigh. Control enthusiasm. Remain calm. All is well. Publication of my third novel, Crazy of Natural Causes, beckons. As part of a process that began with the nominations of “viewers like you,” (thanks, PBS) it will be published electronically through the KindleScout program of Amazon. I’m about to have my first …
A Reluctant, Roundabout Request for Assistance
I have a few thoughts this morning on writing, publishing, etc. Perhaps I should just make them, huh? I wouldn’t need to announce I have some thoughts if I’d just write them. Oh, well. I’m not entering this blog in a contest. I do that with the short stories. Regarding short stories, yesterday was a …
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The Smart Kid
This is sort of a “Man Bites Dog” story, or, perhaps, “Girl Bites God.” Macy McMahon awakened before the alarm went off, as per the usual. She turned it off, got up, rubbed her eyes, gathered her wits, and strode down the hall, where she knocked on the door and yelled, “Rise and shine!” …
Nightrider's Lament 