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: writing
Moping About the Madness
This morning I'm feeling paralyzed. I need to write about cowboys in 1946, and my mind is stuck in the present. I've tried sticking planks under the tires. I've jammed the gears. Nothing. So I decided to ruminate here. I'm thinking. I'm thinking. Here's the transition I've been making, and it may be unduly influenced …
Tuesday Morning Consciousness Stream
I've had much to think of, and yet I've learned gradually that I'm living in a world that seldom thinks. It tweets. It texts. It posts. It links. It sinks. But it seldom thinks. It's turnt af. Nowumsayin? Saturday was unexpected. I was pecking away at something at least as nonsensical as this when …
The Big Mistake
Beuerlein was an upscale town of about three thousand, perched on the New Jersey Shore. Unlike many such towns, Beuerlein's residents mostly lived there year around, and most who didn't were writers, artists, and craftsmen, and craftswomen, of other ilks. Lots of intelligent, good-natured people lived there, and most didn't get too out of shape …
The End of the Tunnel
This is bound to be a unique kind of book review. First of all, the book I just finished, Shine, is the third in a series. Secondly, it's not fiction. Thirdly, I've known the author, Joey Holland, for most of my life, probably dating back to some swing set or playground slide or sandbox. …
Too Much Information About the Way the Morning Went
I just read the county arrest report on my iPhone. Police charged a man named Roydrecilous Irby with "giving false information to law enforcement." I wonder if it was his name. The bad weather has "about played out," as is often said around here. It's slick, but it'll be wet by tomorrow. I had to …
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New and Terrible Horizons
Being in an informal community of writers -- the ranks of the Amazon KindleScout winners are growing exponentially as more and more of the program's novels are released -- has led me down disparate paths. Jennifer Skutelsky led me up into the Andes in her Grave of Hummingbirds. As such, I felt a certain kinship …
The Master of the Deal
In the first place, I'm no Trekkie, but, if you're going to quibble about technical discrepancies between my short story and the wealth of data available on the Star Trek franchise, it won't bother me. The point I'm trying to make is unrelated to outer space. Besides, frontiers are common. Captain's Log, …
Christmas with All My Imaginary Friends
This Christmas I'm thankful for my characters. Not the characters, mind you. As a lad, Christmas was full of "characters": the uncle who always showed up sloshed on Christmas morning and stayed all day long, and my father, who would drink with anybody but him, fleeing to parts unknown; the Christmas Eve parties with the …
A Weird, Wonderful Tale of the Road
It's no surprise I enjoyed Joe Clifford Fausts's joy ride of a novel, Drawing Down the Moon. Dating back to a dive into the Beat Generation about a decade ago, I've grown fond of "road novels." My first, The Audacity of Dope (2011), was about a songwriter leading bad guys (and girls) on a merry …
Nightrider's Lament 