The day before yesterday, I drove over to Presbyterian College and shot some video footage of high school kids going through football drills. Why? Well, I do like watching football practice from a distance of, oh, forty years when I was out there sweating in the sun. I went to a football camp before my …
Tag: writing
The Morning Habit
For some reason, I just thought of the words to an old Roy Clark song. I never picked cotton / But my mama did / And my brother did / And my sister did / And my daddy died young / Working in a coal mine. I relate a little because, before my grandfather stopped …
It Takes a Village to Sell a Book
The reason promoting a book is so hard is that what one can do is might-nigh infinite, and time is maddeningly finite. Crazy of Natural Causes, my third novel and first published (at least for now) strictly for Kindle, is available for advance purchase on Monday (July 6). It becomes immediately available for download on …
An Open and Shut Case
As husbands went, Layla could have done worse than Preston Cranstern. The sex was good. He was, by most accounts, competent at his job. He had some annoying facets to his personality. For instance, Preston had an absurd habit of insisting he was right when he obviously wasn't. Once he had asked her to proofread …
Submitted Once More for Your Consideration
Ahhhh. Next week my third novel, Crazy of Natural Causes, is scheduled to go on sale for advance orders. It will be available, uh, "on demand," about two weeks later. The release of a book is exciting. It's the culmination of lots of work: drafts, outlines, rewriting, tinkering with the order, et al. Now I …
What’s Done Is Just Getting Started
Home is a refuge. I'm holed up, contemplating the day ahead, and trying to be creative. This is the way most days begin. Precisely this. I get myself ready to write by trying to cultivate coherence, cohesion, and, quite possibly, several other words that begin with "C." Soon, and tentatively, July 14, my third …
The Way We Do the Things We Do
Get a grip. Have a clue. Or have a grip. Get a clue. Either way, right now, you are both gripless and clueless. Know what I'm saying? Never have we interacted more. Never has it mattered less. The world is empty. We like it that way. Let's make it emptier. Order up another dozen Justin …
Personalized Treatment
Most Mondays were the same. Olin Hampden was accustomed to it. Minor crises took up as much time as major ones. The wife of the president of Hortense National Bank had a fender bender; she had backed her Escalade into the back of a Nissan that was backing out of a space behind her at …
Observations of My Humdrum Day
I had a productive day. The majority was busy and business, though I finished a short story I'm not going to post on my web site because it's unconventional and catered to the requirements of a contest. I haven't entered it yet because I have to shave about 150 words in order to make it …
Nothing Left to Lose
On Saturday morning, I was riding around and around my front yard on a mower, listening to Charlie Robison’s “Desperate Times.” That’s where this dark tale started. Joe Scharmann had applied for dozens of jobs. Three had deigned to invite him for interviews. Those whose job it was to conduct the interviews knew better than …
Nightrider's Lament 