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: writing
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 …
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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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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An Unplanned Break from Civilization
In hindsight, losing my satellite TV reception wasn't such a bad thing. A storm hit last Thursday night, and while the damage wasn't severe, it did rip apart a cedar tree in the backyard. I'm not sure whether the tree will survive or not. She might just need to be taken out of her misery. …
An Age in the Form of a Family
First of all, the title is perfect. Wild Whistling Blackbirds. The title of my upcoming western, Cowboys Came Home, came quickly, but, usually, a title doesn't come to me until I'm well into the first draft. Here, it's as if author Allen Kent came up with this splendid title, rooted in poetry, and built the …
A Lovely Malaise
All the Lasting Things. It's a wonderful title that could mean a lot in various contexts. To me, it means that the characters created by David Hopson are capable of progress, but not change. Ultimately, they are all imprisoned by their pasts. Broadening their horizons is possible, but freedom from them is not. Benji is …
She Said, ‘Mama, Got a Note Here from the Harper Valley PTA’
Tuesday was another walking contradiction, particularly since I didn't do much walking. I'd been paying attention to really important matters on Monday -- a rained-out stock car race about which the Bleacher Report pays me to write, college baseball regionals, general early-week angst -- and the grass needed cutting, and I'd spent Tuesday morning writing about …
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Something About Nothing
It's gone, gone, gone. Gone, gone, gone. Crying won't bring it back. I have paraphrased. Lefty Frizzell was singing about a woman. My loss was just seven minutes long. It was a blog I worked on for seven minutes, but it was moving rapidly when the keyboard went dead, and the screen turned Petty blue, …
Nightrider's Lament 