Costume changes October 31, 2008

I’m sure it’s purely coincidental that a recent revelation about costume changes for one of my characters in The Sleep of Reason came to me the day before Halloween.
I don’t want to give away salient details about the plot or even the motifs I am using, but it occured to me yesterday that one of [...]

Can you repeat the question? October 29, 2008

Do you ever consistently make writing mistakes, like using the wrong punctuation at the end of a sentence. I do. For some reason, I tend to leave question marks off of the end of written questions. Knowing that this is a regular tic of mine, I generally spot my mistake when I re-read what I’ve [...]

Chapter 7 and seven years October 25, 2008

I continue to make fitful progress on the rewriting of the two chapters I lost from The Sleep of Reason when my hard drive crashed. I have now rewritten Chapters 6 and 7, and in the process I’ve found that I will need a new Chapter 8 to complete the work I had done before [...]

A Long Way Down October 22, 2008

Are you familiar with the fiction of Nick Hornby? He is probably best known for his two novels that became films, High Fidelity and About a Boy. I recently listened to an audio version of his 2005 novel A Long Way Down. For a novel about attempted suicide, this story was a lot of fun.
The [...]

Chapter 7 progresses – again October 19, 2008

After some regrettable delays, I’m happy to report that I’m once again making good progress on the rewrite of the two chapters of The Sleep of Reason that I lost when my hard drive failed. I’m now about two-thirds completed with the rewrite of Chapter 7, and as I noted in an earlier post, this [...]

Beacons of Tomorrow October 16, 2008

The Beacons of Tomorrow Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy Second Collection was issued recently, and my short story “Race to the Summit” was included.
I’m proud of my little story. It leans more toward the fantasy end of the spectrum — maybe a little bit of magical realism — rather than the science fiction end, [...]

You may like what you find October 6, 2008

Many years ago I worked in an office that was headquartered in a small town in rural Kansas. The town had been shrinking in size over the years, and when I knew it, the population was around 10,000 people. I learned that small towns have all the same drama as big cities, with just the [...]

Chapter Six redux October 4, 2008

In the past week I’ve managed to complete the rewrite of Chapter Six of The Sleep of Reason. I finally feel like I’m building momentum again on writing this story. Since I lost two chapters when my hard drive crashed, you would think that I only have to rewrite one more and I’ll be back [...]

Almost the right word October 1, 2008

“The difference between almost the right word and the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
Mark Twain
I’m not confident about my vocabulary. Certainly I know or can figure out most of the words I encounter when I’m reading. I credit my lifelong love of books as [...]