Hello!

-
In my career as a reporter, editor, columnist, reviewer and novelist, I have written millions of words.

I have won journalism awards, been nominated for a Pulitzer and have e-published 17 thrillers and mysteries on Amazon.

I have a website, and am active on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites.

And, yet, this is my first blog! Go figure!

I'm calling it "The Write Stuff," which is also the name of my column for the Washington Independent Review of Books (WIROB). I debated using another name, but I'm an inveterate punster, so why not? Besides, Sam Shepard, a great actor and playwright, just passed away and it just feels appropriate. His portrayal of Chuck Yeager in "The Right Stuff" movie based on Tom Wolfe's book about the Mercury astronauts (remember them?) is iconic.

What I hope to do in this blog is offer tips on writing. Such tips, I believe, will be helpful to fiction and non-fiction writers, and germane to print and electronic publishing. I will also provide some inside "how to" knowledge about self-publishing, which is a lot easier today than ever. (Please don't assume that my late leap into blogging is an indication of computer incompetence. I've been pretty busy writing those 17 novels.)

I also intend to comment on books and movies. I have been both a book and movie reviewer, so I hope my insights will be helpful. But please feel free to disagree -- agreeably, I hope -- with anything I say.

I will soon provide links to WIROB and other useful sites. WIROB, in particular, is a font of terrific reviews and commentary, aimed mainly at those who read print books. The fact that the WIROB folks put up with me, and my Amazon-centric e-book philosophy, tells you something about their devotion to literature.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WHAT'S OLD MAY BE NEW!

-
  It occurs to me that it has been a while since I wrote a column in which I recommended books to read. Since many people are presumably stuck at home, now is probably a good time. However, unlike many such lists, I will highlight books that may not be particularly current. Why? Well, mainly, because I am also stuck at home staring at my bookcase, and it’s full of books I read years ago. Some of those that I mention may be hard to find, but heck, that’s what Amazon is for, right? So, here goes, in no particular order:   FICTION   Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. This massive 1985 tome is probably my favorite science-fiction novel. The plot is believable. An alien race consisting of a species (whose members look a lot like pachyderms) attacks and then invades Earth. What makes this story so compelling is that the invaders have their own moral code (we see things from their perspective), and their weapons are not all that superior to ours. I won’t give away the endin
Read more
-
I am often asked if a novelist should inject his or her political leanings in a book. There is no easy answer other than to say nothing should stop the flow of a narrative.  Most readers are interested in murder and sex. It would be highly inappropriate for a couple locked in a steamy sexual encounter to stop what they are doing to reflect on the mid-term elections.   Sometimes an author has to give a character an unpalatable opinion, usually in a conversation. Such conversations define the character as a racist, a bigot, a chauvinist, a sexist pig, ax murderer, pederast, serial killer, or even a Red Sox fan.   But authors don't inhabit an ethical vacuum. My protagonists are basically moral people, who usually know right from wrong and are offended by injustice. When they offer an opinion, you can be pretty sure it’s one I hold. Interestingly enough, some of the villains in my books also have a moral code, and I like them to express it on occasion.  In fact, I think that coming fro
Read more

FORE!

-
No, this isn’t about my golf game. (For those that are interested, my handicap is now 26 and rising faster than ocean levels. Pretty soon, I’ll be getting strokes on the practice range!) I’m talking about fore shadowing, fore boding, fore telling and fore warning. I once saw an interview with Sidney Sheldon, who according to Wikipedia is “the king of the potboilers” and “the seventh-best-selling fiction writer of all time”. Sheldon, who didn’t start writing fiction until he was 50 and died at 90 in 2007, said that he started with an idea but never knew where his books were going. He added that he liked to write himself into corners, and then write himself out of them.  That’s basically how I do it and that’s where the “foreshadowing, foreboding, foretold and forewarning” come in, since I don’t want my readers to be lost, too. I use computer-writing software called Scrivener, which allows me to put chapters, research, ideas, scenes and odd thoughts (of which I have many) on electr
Read more