"Why do they [write] for their money? Why do they [work] for short pay? They ain't getting nowhere and they're losing their share. They must have gone crazy back there." — Michael Burton (paraphrased)
Clinton, South Carolina, Friday, April 28, 2017, 11:15 a.m. I spend a lot of time writing, and I spend another considerable chunk writing about how you need to read … my writing. Tell my whyyyyyy, whyyyy, why, why, why! Whyyyyyy, why should you read my boooooks? Among the reasons is I have expenses. I have …
Continue reading As The Salesman Says, You Can’t Afford Not To …
Clinton, South Carolina, Wednesday, April 19, 2017, 9:33 a.m. It seems as if life is back to normal. For instance, take now. This Is Spinal Tap is on TV. I switched over from The Andy Griffith Show (how’s that for contrast?). The writing of Lightning in a Bottle both strained and inspired me for three …
Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, April 13, 2017, 9:27 a.m. Lightning in a Bottle struck me. It’s my new novel. I’ve written six. Right now I’m making up mind whether to start working on seven or eight, both of which are in progress. I guess the winner gets to be seven. I’m not stuck because of …
Continue reading The Thunder Rolls, but Will the Lightning Strike?
Clinton, South Carolina, Friday, April 7, 2017, 9:45 a.m. A new novel’s out. It’s the one readers have been suggesting – hint, hint – I write for years. I’m hardheaded. I had to wait until it struck my fancy. It takes a story to write a novel, and it’s too damned hard to write one …
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, April 1, 2017, 4:14 p.m. Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Both long dead. Both masters of a genre. They wrote about crime fiction about hard-boiled detectives. Both are known more for the movies made from their novels than the novels themselves. I wanted to read Chandler and Hammett. I had for …
Clinton, South Carolina, Friday, March 24, 2017, 9:45 a.m. On Tuesday night, I was having a lovely time sitting around in a circle, taking turns with others, playing guitar – most of the others could pick one – and singing while a fearsome storm raged outside. I was in a barn. There were refreshments. Meanwhile, …
Continue reading The World Gets a Little Larger When the Modem Dies
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. …
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 …
Continue reading Something About Nothing, or, Some Things About No Things
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, February 4, 2017, 9:43 a.m. The weather has cooled, though it’s still a poor excuse for winter. I just got through playing “Facebook Friends” on my Pawless guitar. Earlier this morning, I wished a few of them – the Facebook friends, not Pawless guitars -- happy birthday. I had almost exactly …
Clinton, South Carolina, Monday, January 30, 2017, 6:59 p.m. It was about ten years ago, at Robert’s Western World in Nashville, where I was working on a chapter of a book called True to the Roots: Americana Music Revealed, and the subject of the chapter was Jesse Lee Jones, who owned Robert’s. I was sitting …
Continue reading You Can Hear the Music Burning Down Copperhead Road
Nightrider's Lament 