Genre fiction fits into defined categories in order to appeal to readers who groove on that particular type of story. Fantasy, crime, science fiction, thriller, horror, and romance are popular genres. I never thought I’d dabble in genre fiction. My other novels (Stash, Clean Break) can only be considered general fiction. Not literary enough for the highbrow, not formulaic enough to fit into a...
Sometimes the stars align and we’re all at home and in the mood to watch a movie as a family. This time we went old school and sat down to the iconic horror film “The Shining”, directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the novel by Stephen King. From Rotten Tomatoes: “Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) becomes winter caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado, hoping to cure his...
I’ve been a writer most of my career and managed to cobble together a living doing so. I’ve had novels published. I’ve written a zillion words for corporate clients. I’ve taught college-level writing. I’ve mentored other writers and have edited other writers’ work. You’d think at this point I’d have a high degree of competency with the English language. Maybe even consider myself a master...
André the Giant was born André René Roussimoff, a French professional wrestler who was over seven feet tall and afflicted with acromegaly, a disorder in which the pituitary gland produces too much growth hormone. He died at age forty-six. Visiting a statue of Robert Wadlow when the kids were young. Robert Wadlow, also known as the Giant of Illinois, at eight feet eleven inches, was the tallest...
I got a Facebook message from a woman who said her granddaughter has “her heart set on being a writer.” Said granddaughter is always writing in her journal and writing poems and stories. Grandmother wants to know if I have any advice or tips she can pass on to her granddaughter. Sometimes I think there’s more advice out there about writing than there is actual writing. Do a Google...
What book are you reading? It’s called “Maus.” What? Where did you get that? The school board made it very clear that book was being removed from the library. Noelle lent it to me. She owns a copy. You’re not supposed to have that book. It shows people hanging. It shows the Nazis killing kids and there are naked people in the book. Schools should not be promoting that kind of thing. They’re not...
Why is French toast such an effective storytelling device? A generation ago, in two consecutive years (1979 and 1980), the Academy Award for Best Picture went to a film in which French toast serves a pivotal role in developing character in two early scenes. In Kramer vs. Kramer, Joanna (Meryl Streep) suddenly leaves her husband, Ted, (Dustin Hoffman), a workaholic advertising executive, on the...
The world is coated with ice outside my window and it makes me think of an ice storm that served as a literary device in my novel, CLEAN BREAK (thank you, Harriet). I call it a literary device because it’s one of those writer’s tools I’m using to move my characters around into the right locations for the critical subsequent scenes. Plus it casts a chilly, foreboding atmosphere...
I’ve been a father who doesn’t take his heart condition seriously but instead focuses on preventing his daughter from marrying a man he doesn’t approve of. I’ve been his daughter, a recent college graduate who meets the wrong kind of guy and slides into drug and alcohol abuse. I’ve been that wrong kind of guy who isn’t an awful person but will manipulate others to achieve his goals. I’ve been a...
Another corporate giant has rebranded itself. Facebook the company is now Meta the company. I suppose it had to be done because of brand confusion. Facebook was the name of the company as well as the name of the app used by billions of people. It’s similar to when Google the company became Alphabet the company, and Google remained one of Alphabet’s platforms. So why now? Many observers...
I hated that people thought my father was crazy, because the guys were right: That kind of stuff could be hereditary. It can get mixed up in your genes. I could be next. To make matters worse, about a month after the McGuire thing my father showed up at school one morning at nine o’clock. I’d only been there an hour. He had the vice-principal come and get me out of class, making like there...
I recently took a gander through my writing journals of the past fifteen or so years. I have both notebooks and online documents, but because my handwriting is almost illegible, trying to read the notebooks isn’t worth the effort unless I’m desperate to locate something specific. The online journals are the nerve center. It’s where the fast typing takes place, legible sentences are...
Lately I’ve been thinking about a character, Adam, from CLEAN BREAK. He suffered from a gambling addiction, ended up in a rehab center, lost his family, was now living with his parents and trying to get his life in order. But it was hard. He relapsed. He was in debt and in trouble and heartbroken. I had so much empathy for him. I knew him, this figment from my imagination. From CLEAN BREAK:...
Plan ahead if it pleases, but you can see only as far as the next turn you take. One turn and then another. Which way at the fork, how to act, try not to look behind. You alone decide. Under blazing sun through drenching rain over deepening snow against gusting winds. Across concrete sidewalks and rickety bridges and endless asphalt. One turn and then another. Shoved this way, pulled that, and...
It’s not a good look these days at the Food and Drug Administration. Former U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams was quoted in Forbes saying the “quickest path” to herd immunity against COVID-19 in many U.S. communities is “organizational vaccine mandates, but lack of FDA licensure leaves schools, colleges, businesses in a legal quandary.” In other words, organizations that might mandate the...
