The Write Stuff

·         “A writer is a world inside a person.” -- Victor Hugo ·         “A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.” -- Eugène Ionesco I believe that a writer who takes his or her work seriously is never, so to speak, off duty. That doesn’t mean writers actually think writing 24/7. When I’m poised over a three-foot putt, I’m not pondering anything but the excuse I will use when I miss: 1.       There was a spike mark (which is less useful nowadays; the prevalence of spike-less golf shoes means most greens look like pool tables). 2.       A damn gust of wind. Any whiff of breeze will do, even if it wouldn’t move a mayfly. 3.       An opponent talked (or sneezed, belched, passed gas, or had a heart attack). 4.       I suck. I have included golf scenes in my thrillers, but my protagonists are typically capable golfers; that is to say, figments of my imagination. If I wrote about my missed three-foot

As many readers of this blog know (gee, I hope there are many readers!), I self-publish eBooks.   I have even gone so far as to enter the fray between “legacy” publishers and Amazon. I won’t go into my position again, since I am tired of checking under the hood of my car for bombs wired to the ignition. (Actually, having Sicilian blood in me, I just send my wife out to start the car.) But some people believe that I don’t like print books! Nothing could be farther from the truth. I love print books. I’d probably be living in a three-bedroom condo but for the fact that one of those rooms is full of freakin’ print books. (I also have two Kindles, a Nook, and various iPads, Androids, computers, laptops, etc. with reading apps on them; they don’t take up much space.) I love the luxury of pulling one of my favorite Spenser or James Bond novels off a shelf and getting a transfusion of colorful writing. And as for more recent influences, I’m certainly don’t have a mindless antipathy