There’s a restlessness, a nervousness, and an edgy sort of despair that creeps in when I haven’t written for a period of time. I become irritable. I become anxious and unsure about dealing with the world around me. I’m not sure if all writers go …
Read MoreTo sleep, perchance to dream . . . of a story? Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt.”
Last Saturday morning, lingering in the twilight state between not quite yet awake and no longer completely asleep, I suddenly realized that I was, or at least had been, dreaming of the Ray Bradbury story, “The Veldt.” I’ve always been a Bradbury fan. Each one …
Read MoreSo here’s the “constructed” story. I’m still not sure what to make of it (read previous post).
I could blame it all on Ken Burns and his award-winning documentary of the American Civil War, which got me interested enough to read Bruce Catton’s book, This Hallowed Ground. I had been dabbling in writing at the time, and had a few short stories …
Read MoreOh no! What’s happening to my writing? Should I be scared? And thoughts on Hemingway.
Okay, I don’t think I’m actually losing my creativity, but something weird happened the other night. I set out to write a blog post on how I started writing the Civil War dark tales series of stories. I remembered having written a short scene about …
Read More“China-Ching,” an odd, dark story of despair, desperation, and defiance. Also, what a reader brings to a story or book.
I covered G. Ranger Wormser’s book, The Scarecrow and other stories, in the last post, but I wanted to talk about this particular story for very specific reasons. While there were a number of strange and interesting stories in the book, “China-Ching” stands out. It’s …
Read MoreCharacterization by way of narrative voice, dialogue, and colloquialism as opposed to straight-up description. Also, errors and reviews.
The following is a snippet from my book, Pirate Tales. The bit is from the story “Bawdy, Bonny Sally.” The character speaking is named Riley, and he narrates the whole story: All in all, it was quite pleasant sittin’ there with this natuv girl. …
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