Category Archives: Uncategorized

I do not think of myself as a writing guru, and will not until my books are selling in the millions. Even then, I will be highly suspicious of any advice I can give other writers, seeing how I struggled for 65 years to get anything of value published. Still, these are things I’ve learnedContinue reading “Mark Bruce’s Ten Rules for Writing Anything”

I have finished “The Socratic Method.” It weighs in at 85,000 words, all of which came in a rush over a month and a half. Now? Now I haven’t written a word of creative endeavor for two weeks. As I said in the last post, when one is in the Zone, everything works. But whenContinue reading “Been to the Desert”

And then, sometimes, there’s magic. The characters talk to you like you’re an old friend. Then they start doing interesting and exciting things. You watch them like a spectator at a new play. They love, they fight, they get into trouble, they extricate themselves painfully from trouble… All thoughts of writer’s block are gone. Writer’sContinue reading “The Zone”

In my email feed is a tag line: “We miss you…” It’s from a robot. In particular, a robot from a place I’ve purchased a recent object. A robot that wants to make me feel guilty about not buying more stuff from them. I have enough people in my life trying to make me feelContinue reading “We Miss You”

So say you are reading a mystery and the writer has dialogue between a newly married couple. The dialogue goes like this: “I love you.” “I love you more.” “I love you more plus one.” “I love you a million.” “I love you a million plus one…” And on and on. What do you do?Continue reading “Love Stinks”

So you went out and bought your Rams Super Bowl Champion T-shirts. You high-five everyone you see with the gold and blue jerseys. You talk about Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald as if you’ve been following them for years. NOW you”re a Rams fan. Where were you in 1995 when Georgia FrontiereContinue reading “Oh, NOW You’re a Rams Fan…”

Sorry, America. Know you were rooting for the Bengals, who have never won a Super Bowl and had that young, charismatic quarterback. Know you wanted the underdog to come out on top. Know that you really don’t care about Los Angeles teams. Tough. So sad, too bad. As a long-time Rams fan, all I haveContinue reading “Rams 23, Bengals 20”

Creative people understand that you need to kiss the muse if you are to stay in the game. This lovely lady likes to sneak up on you and inspire you at unpredictable moments. You’re grocery shopping. You see a jar of peanut butter. Suddenly, a poem about peanut butter sandwiches in your childhood comes toContinue reading “Kissing the Muse”

And only a lawyer would think the word “addenda” would attract a reader… Anyway, earlier this week I complained about a silly agent whose “rules” for the first line in your novel include “No waking up” and “don’t start with dialogue.” It was pointed out to me that some very successful novels begin just thatContinue reading “Addenda to the Rules”

I have just finished listening to a “seminar” given by a literary agent in which she critiqued proposed first lines of novels. Sounds good, right? If the first line doesn’t grab you, the rest of the book is in trouble, right? Yes, except that this particular agent was…well, a fool. “We never begin a bookContinue reading “The Rules and The Fools”