Most writers will tell you that the thinnest book on their shelf also contains some of the best wisdom (and possibly the most dogeared pages). The Elements of Style by William Strunk Junior and E.B. White is a go-to for…
I assigned myself this blog because Life had taken me away from Art and I needed a way back to the page. I thought if I had a deadline I’d produce. And I have produced—many many badly written glib little…
Here’s a comment my copyeditor, Jade Z. Scibilia, made about my last manuscript: “I laughed when you had Lynch mention the number of Johns in the police force (I recall we had to work on that in Idyll Threats). Buuuuut, we have…
Twenty years ago, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by the novelist Robert Cormier. That night he said, “The reader doesn’t care what you were trying to write. The reader only cares about what’s on the page.” In…
I am not a Buddhist (although I have researched Buddhism in the service of one of my novels), but I’ve spent time pondering in relation to my writing a variant of the famous Buddhist kōan*: You can hear the sound…
I was weeding around the shrubs in my yard this weekend, which gave me a lot of time to reflect on what matters. My answer: Nothing. That’s right. Nothing matters. Let me explain. Maybe you need a better idea of…