You write a book. A while later it is published. A lot of other books are published at the same time. You do some publicity. You travel and read for strangers. You appear in some media. Strangers talk about your book in places you have never been. And then it stops. Your book is on […]
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Just When You Think You’re Out, They Pull You Back In
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Tagged al pacino, art, cave paintings, caveman, drawings, Editions Marchands de feuilles, French, gilgamesh, godfather, Lascaux, paperback, tacos, utnapishtim, Waiting for the Man
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Wheels Keep Turning
So. The first draft. It’s percolated. Enough. I’ve left it alone for a few weeks now. Almost a month. I have ideas. I really do. I have cuts to make. Lots of them. I have things to add. New things. Surprises. More things. Less things. Red things. Blue things. Starred things. Stuff. I’m surprised by, […]
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Tagged agent, agents, beer, dr seuss, editing, first draft, flat circle, journey, lynard skynard, nietzsche, rust cohl, schopenhauer, steve perry, the queen is dead, The Smiths, true detective
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Pity the Trees
Well, no. At least they’re renewable. I believe this paper is certified or something. It’s “good” and not old growth. I can only imagine what the “carbon footprint” of my laptop is. And my iPhone. And iPad. And TV. At least I don’t own a car. More photos of the physical nature of my first […]
Alpha and Omega
And then the end of the first part happens and you remember it’s the easy part and now the hard work begins. Because it is hard. Very much so. But a milestone is a milestone. It deserves to be acknowledged. If only because the work changes now, shifts gears, the work comes from a different […]
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Tagged first draft, Jones, little red riding hood, novel, pew pew, writing
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Because Social Media is Social!
We’re sharing stuff. Lots of stuff. My last book was partly about this (and that last book is out in paperback this summer – preorder now! And if you don’t like reading, you can get it as an audiobook too!). Not completely but more than one review talked about the “age of oversharing” or something […]
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Tagged bullies, devo, ello, Facebook, first draft, Jones, krakken, trolling, trolls, word count, writing
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This Is What I’m Up To
I believe I’m three quarters of the way through the first draft of my new novel. If I’m following the outline (which has become more like a well-thought out list of well-thought out suggestions rather than an actual set of, you know, instructions that I’m supposed to heed), then I’m three quarters of the way […]
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Tagged almonds, audiobook, bleeding, California, Cosmonaut Avenue, drought, editing, ello, Giller, Joshua Tree, Los Angeles, meerkat, microfiction, overpopulation, Palm Springs, Quebec Writers Federation, Skylight Books, tweet, Twitter, water, workshop, writing
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Here Be Monsters
As a writer, I’m very protective of first drafts. Or have been. For some writers, first drafts are throw-aways, warm-ups, and nothing more. I’ve read of some writers that literally throw away their first drafts and start over because now the story is inside them or something. These people are monsters. The first draft is […]
The New Thing
I’m reading this Sunday at a bar on Crescent Street. Not by myself, because that would be unbelievably awful, but with a bunch of other writers. I’m going to read a chapter from Jones. That’s what the new project is called. It’s still in first draft mode. Half way through the first draft. Meaning the […]
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Tagged cold, Cosmonaut Avenue, Crescent Street, Montreal, Waiting for the Man
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Scenes From the Making of a Novel
What does it look like to write a book? It’s a stupid question. I wrote Waiting for the Man over a long period, in many different circumstances. Some drafts were written by hand. Some were done entirely on computer. I do most of my editing by hand as well, so I’d print out the latest […]
I’m Not Making A Single Resolution
I don’t believe in resolutions. I’d like to say I don’t believe in New Year’s at all, since the calendar is a human construct, but that’s not really true (the earth does revolve around the sun after all and we’re just measuring that passage) and I’m not remotely that cool. As humans we need milestones, […]
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Tagged abs, Bourbon, December, Elvis, new year's resolutions, nostalgia, umami
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