from The Jazz Malone Series
Lie Down with Silk and Daggers You get a case and then things start going bad. Thing is, your client and her ancient Mayan dagger have disappeared… Read more…
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Mapping Your Writing
When I was a snot-nosed kid, before my parents paved our driveway, my little brother, Roger, and I used to “play cars” in the dirt after school. Fun times involving early miniature cars and a small gas station made from thin metal and painted with Gulf Oil Company thematic colors and emblems. We would scrape […]
MoreWriting Jig-Saw Puzzles
Everyone, at some time or other in their life, builds a jig-saw puzzle. Not in the sense of actually manufacturing a puzzle, however, but placing the pieces to form a whole picture. Some puzzles are simple, and only require a short time to complete. In contrast, complex puzzles need considerable study time in order to […]
MoreOn Being An Addict
One of the great joys of my life is my fur babies. Billie girl, the rescue kitty. Banjo, the baby momma. And Ebon, the boy wanderer. Three cats, all with distinct personalities, all with individual wants and needs. Once or twice a week, in the morning after they eat breakfast, I give them catnip for […]
MoreIs It A Coincidence Or A Synchronicity?
Synchronicity is a concept first explained by famed psychiatrist Dr. Carl Jung, which holds that events are “meaningful coincidences” if they occur with no causal relationship, yet seem to be meaningfully related. The same can be said for writing as a science, wherein luck and coincidence supposedly have no place, yet storytelling has both to […]
MoreSometimes It’s Not About The Words
Sometimes it’s not about the words, it’s about the music, underlying the words. About the melody flowing through the prose, from beginning to end. Nature provides an underlying melody, a frequency at which all animate and inanimate creations vibrate. Simultaneously exclusive to the individual creation, and inclusive harmonically with all other creations in nature. Writers […]
MoreThe Right Stuff For The Write Stuff
The write stuff of another kind, Philip Kaufman’s seminal 1983 movie “The Right Stuff,” was the story of America’s first steps into space. The movie also served as a reminder of the high cost of sending men into space. Writing the right stuff is very much the same. The “lives lost,” in this case, are […]
MoreKeeping It Real with Emotional Content
When I first began writing, I sometimes had difficulties fictionalizing periods of my life around which I wanted to build a story. Keeping it real while turning fact into fiction was not something I was familiar with, and hence became a stumbling block of sorts. Fellow writers advised me to “let it rest,” that maybe […]
MoreReturn To Sender
Every writer has days where nothing seems to go right. Ideas won’t come, words don’t get written, story-telling gets put-off, for whatever kinds of justification (it’s a rainy day; the relatives are coming; the cats need food, etc.). Mental chaos, in other words. Maybe it’s because you’re over “stuffed.” You already have way too much […]
MoreMuscle Memory
The process is commonly known in the sports world as “muscle memory.” A phenomenon not limited to athletes, writers engage in very similar practices in order to excel at their craft. Storytelling, whether faction or fiction, uses the same principles. Training through exercising—writing—testing, adjusting, and exercising—rewriting—again. Top athletes train for long hours in a concerted […]
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