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Found History and the Complexities of Character
The Third Reich’s Last Eagle One day my dad, who served in the European theater of WWII, handed me a book. “What’s this?” I asked. “Just read it,” he said in his charming way. A man who had been a corporal under dad during the conflict had subsequently gained a commission, had risen to colonel,…
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One Last Shot Across the Bow
I know, I more or less signed off this blog – – and I will continue the odyssey through my writing/publishing career. But One Thing deserves to be said again today. This One Thing has its birth in a latest issue of Publishers Weekly magazine. Although I’ve terminated my publishing arm, I still have a…
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Baseball, Magic, and Insanity
Collateral Damage, and Stories I had a surplus of stories, and after Sam’s Place sold fairly well, I thought to ask Mike Aloisi if he’d like to see another batch. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Admittedly, he didn’t sound too enthused at the prospect. He’d put out quite a bit of cash on Sam, but…
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My Old Alabama Family Stories
While I was writing those early novels to little acclaim and quite a bit of frustration, I was also writing short stories. I had in the back of my mind a collection of some sort. This was in the “early oughts” of the new century, and I had been a writer-in-residence at NC’s Peace College…
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Searching For The Truth
After my experiences with my first two books, you’d likely understand that I felt my writing skills were buried in my imagination, filed under “wishful thinking.” So I set out to seek the truth in that regard. Another piece of new writing would surely bare that. I decided a short story or essay wasn’t going…
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The Good and the Bad of a First Novel
Ever see those guys in Acapulco swan into a dive from the cliffs, disappearing in a bloop 135 feet below? Ever considered trying it yourself? That’s a bit like taking on writing a novel. Of course, you don’t know that until you’re 100 pages in and all balled up in character conflicts and subplots. That’s…
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Nothing Like Starting Over
I hesitate to write that I’m done. Age is creeping by at something more than a turtle’s pace, and I’ve long since seen youth disappear in my rear view mirror. I’m currently engaged in moving back to North Carolina and entering a retirement community. That’s the modern euphemism for what was once called an “old…
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Holding Onto What is Precious
This morning after a leisurely Sunday breakfast I settled into a podcast during which two men whose opinions I don’t always give two-thumbs-up to, but whom I find I have respect enough to consider, were talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They weren’t taking sides, nor am I in this writing, Their consensus was that from…
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Narrative Descriptions of the Plains
The author of The Comanche Kid, James Robert Daniels, began a chapter with the below passage. Notice the sensory appeal to touch – heat, and at paragraphs end, the metaphor of the prairie aflame. To make the sense of touch more tangible he adds the effect of the wind. Then there’s the visual effect of…