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 …
Tag: writing
From Books to Movies, without a Hitch
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 …
The World Gets a Little Larger When the Modem Dies
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, …
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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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Lord, Coach Lombardi, What Have You Done?
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 …
You Can Hear the Music Burning Down Copperhead Road
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 …
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I’ve Gotta Travel On
Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, January 26, 2017, 9:19 p.m. I haven’t spent a night away from home since last May, which is probably the longest stretch of my entire life. That’s going to change. I’m taking off. I don’t know when I’ll be back. Probably in a few days. Could be, oh, Sunday, or Monday, …
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 …
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. …
Nightrider's Lament 