Author Archives: mcbruce56

The day comes on, I don’t know why I see your ice blue eyes, cool, serene I don’t know what to say, Josephine. 2. My youth is now a myth to me I gaze at you in reverie Was there ever a time when your eyes were green And we could have been together, Josephine?Continue reading “Josephine”

So I’m at the breakfast table at the California Crime Writer’s Conference two weeks ago, pondering my sliced fruit and muffin. One of the presenters, a pleasant woman who gave an interesting talk on how to put sex in your stories (her conclusion: Very carefully), sits down with me despite the fact that I haveContinue reading “The Question”

Perry Mason was a terrible lawyer. Yeah, I know he never lost a case. Luck. Pure Luck. No, a boy who once sat enthralled while Raymond Burr brought the irascible and dynamic lawyer to life on the little screen, I look at these shows now and want to yell at the screen. Gotta go talkContinue reading “My Beef With Perry”

My Angel sat down next to me as I dozed on the couch. “Pretty good month, eh?” my angel said. “Cover of Hitchcock. On a Writer’s Panel at a conference. No one out looking for you with a gun.” “Leave my ex-wife out of this,” I said sleepily. “Really, we did some good stuff thisContinue reading “Advice from My Angel”

31 Most Beautiful Women Of All Time Scarlett Johannsen’s Sordid Past Boyfriends Obscenely Rich Writers The Sexiest Man Alive Top 1000 Too Smart For Their Own Good Billionaires And Their Gold-digging Brides Billionaires And Their Gold-digging Husbands The 20 Most Ripped Men Alive Nice Guys Who Finished First Monkey Men And Their Gorgeous Women Nobel’sContinue reading “Stories I Will Never Appear In”

Don’t let the calm look fool you. My mother was a viking. You don’t raise four rowdy kids by yourself, with no help from your no-good ex-husband (that’s the mildest thing she ever called him) without having a bit of the axe-wielding, long-boat raiding savage in you. No one messed with my mom. Okay, aContinue reading “My Mother, The Viking”

So when you are a writer, you dream. You dream up your stories. You dream up your characters. You dream up the pretty girls who will flock to your side when they read your brilliant prose. You dream of being published. That’s a dream not three in a dozen writers ever realize. Even fewer endContinue reading “Cover Boy”

When I was young and green and thirsty to get published, I lapped up every writing advice book and magazine I could find. There was no piece of advice too weird, too outlandish that I didn’t take seriously and try out. Write with a potato on your head? Why not? Write with a plate ofContinue reading “Tired of Advice”

I am, as the title of this blog tells you, the creator of the Minerva James stories. Enough of them have been published that I can say this with some degree of pride. The next one to be published, by the way, is in May-June’s issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, “Minerva James and theContinue reading “My Secret Writing Life”

You can’t tell the players without a scorecard. And you can’t get your book considered by the top publishers without an agent. Facts of life. So those of us who have ambitions beyond self-publishing with Amazon spend our days, when not writing, trying to interest an agent in our work. Not easy. Especially these daysContinue reading “Agents, Agents”