I’ve read detective fiction for as long as I’ve been able to read, practically. I started with the classics: Holmes, Queen, Marple, Poirot. But then I picked up a new classic: Spenser. I’ve read others in the genre, including other characters created by Robert B. Parker. Jesse Stone, Sunny Randall, and Parker’s Western heroes, Virgil […]
Book titles are an interesting phenomenon. Some are strictly utilitarian–they are literally descriptive in some way, like Robert B. Parker’s The Godwulf Manuscript or Looking for Rachel Wallace or Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Others are all or part of a phrase or sentence drawn straight out […]
History buffs or aviation buffs or people like me, who are just meaningless trivia buffs, may recall the story of Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan. Corrigan, according to History.com, was one of the last of the high flying daredevils known as barnstorming pilots. He once flew from California to New York. That’s not where he got […]
It started one afternoon in seminary when I began writing the opening scene of a book to keep from falling asleep in Old Testament class. Well, no, that’s not exactly true. It all began one autumn day in my college creative writing class. Nope, that’s a lie. It began one day when I came across […]
Now that I’ve reached a major milestone in the writing of my latest work-in-progress, I thought some of you might be interested in hearing about the process I follow when writing a book. This is multi-faceted, so I may end up having a follow-up or two in which I examine some elements, such as choosing […]
Last week, I posted the first half of a story I wrote a while back entitled, “Gifts Ungiven.” If you haven’t read part one, this won’t make sense, so go back to my previous post and read that before you start this one. Here’s the ending I promised. Hope you like it! Let me know […]
There are many ways Harry, my main character, is an idealized version of me. I often joke he’s me if I were younger, thinner, smarter, stronger, a better shot, and had hair. Other than that, we’re identical. We have the exact same sense of humor and smart mouth that is not well filtered. We both […]
Note: this is in place of my WIP Wednesday post, which will reappear next week. One of the questions that readers ask, whether consciously or not, is, “Why should I buy your book?” Most people have a finite amount of money to spend on books, so they want to know what makes an author’s works […]
How is it Wednesday again already? I will try my hardest to remember to put up an excerpt each week from now on. In keeping with that, here’s a scene that follows hard on the scene from last week. In it, Harry meets a stranger who seems kind of familiar and who gives him some […]
It’s traditional to share an excerpt from your work-in-progress on Wednesdays. Unfortunately, I’ve not made any progress this week on Shalan #6 (or Shalan #2, depending on how you decide to number them). It’s been a busy, productive week, just not in the realm of writing. I’d love to be one of those writers who […]