Writing is a mind game. As I have mentioned before, writing is about 80 percent psychological. After 40 years of writing, I have a semblance of mastery over grammar, vocabulary and use of words. What challenges me the most is seeing the story, and putting it in a logical structure. That’s not quite so bad … More Better Than Sex
Yesterday I wrote about getting started on your next book, how intimidating it can be and how important it is to just start, regardless of quality. And then I followed my own advice, and started my new book. Now I have the prologue, but don’t know where to go from there. Well, two things have … More I’ve Started. Now What?
I was just cleaning out my email inbox, and I came across a video that my wife Shelly sent me for safekeeping. It was of our grandson, Gavin, when he was probably less than a year old. He’s in one of those seats that has the wheels so that he can push himself across the … More Watch That First Step
I was listening to National Public Radio on the way to work this morning, and caught the tail end of a feature on the Gettysburg Address. Apparently, today is the 150th anniversary of its reading. There’s a lot of mythology that has built up around it, one of them being that Abraham Lincoln wrote it … More Less Is More. Small Is Big.
This is a pretty good book. Correction: this could have been a pretty good book. Here’s why. The Apprentice is what you might call a Sword and Sorcery genre book. It involves three swashbucklers that belong to the Black Knights, elite fighters sort of like the Musketeers of Alexander Dumas fame. They are given the … More Review: “The Apprentice” by M. L. Hall
How to Build a Time Machine: The Real Science of Time Travel by Brian Clegg. St. Martin’s Press. 307 pages. No self-respecting science fiction writer would try to write without actually reading some science, and this is more ammunition for my speculation gun. Brian Clegg holds a physics degree from Cambridge University, and is the … More Review: “How To Build a Time Machine” by Brian Clegg
It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, and my dreams for National Novel Writing Month have pretty much been a shipwreck, but I was able to accomplish one pretty good thing during that time. Last night, I successfully launched my 16th book title. The Last Supper is a collection of short stories that I will … More Announcing…(drum roll) Book Number 16
When I turned 30, it was a tough year. Somewhere along the line, I’d heard someone say, “If you’re not doing what you love by the time you’re 30, you’ll never do it.” Thirty meant that I had left my teen years and innocent 20s behind me, and had to become an adult. Thirty meant … More 60
People read books for a lot of different reasons. My wife very rarely will read a work of fiction. On the other hand, her side of our library is filled with self-help books. That’s her thing. I, on the other hand, read fiction–a lot of it. I also like to read historical fiction and non-fiction. … More The Extraordinary and the Commonplace
One can never really anticipate when the turning point of our life will be. In retrospect, it’s relatively easy to look back and see that our life changed for better—or worse—when we met a significant other, when we got a job, when a child was born, or maybe when we made a major decision in … More “Yesterday and Tomorrow”
The Great Adventure 