TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES
In my last column , I dwelled on what most writers fear: Rejection. I used as examples some of the world’s most successful authors (Jack London, Jack Kerouac , George Orwell , Sylvia Plath , Mario Puzo , John le Carré , Alex Haley, Tony Hillerman, to name a few), whose work initially garnered more rejection letters than I get solicitations for credit cards. Which proves that publishers and banks are equally clueless! I have received a fair amount of such letters, but rejection is not my biggest bugaboo. Truth is. Yes, truth. I suspect that many fiction writers incorporate real-life experiences in their work. I know I do. I have experienced many of the things that happen to my characters. For example, in my novel Sound of Blood , one of my characters recalls how, as a young fisherman in Cuba, he once almost stepped on a huge barracuda, thinking it was a log jutting out from the shore. That actually happened to me on a break from the Guantanamo Bay post I