Category Archives: Uncategorized

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”

I am loving the new job, folks. Which bothers me. Every time in my life that I found myself in a good situation, something unexpected and ugly sits down and fouls the nest. Okay, there’s one thing that is less than optimal. The drive. The long drive. The long tedious drive. I live in Barstow,Continue reading “The Long Drive”

When I walked into the Public Library for the first time at the age of six, I was stunned by the tonnage of books on the shelves. Everywhere I looked, books. Every nook and cranny filled with books. Books on everything. Football. Politics. History. Mysteries. Science Fiction. Basket-weaving. Fly fishing. Books about things I wasContinue reading “Too Many Books”

So the idea of getting a job is that you have a 9-to-5 existence and you come home at night not worried where the next dollar is coming from. You do your job during the day. You write at night. Not so, my friends. At least, not yet. I am enjoying working for the firm.Continue reading “Too Busy to Live”

That ol’ river keeps on rolling, no matter what you do to stop it. Uh, you wouldn’t really try to stop a river rolling, would you? Time is a river that also can’t seem to be stopped. Seems like you just finish a brilliant blog post and suddenly it’s a month later and those fewContinue reading “Falling Behind”

This is the time of year when writers and bloggers make fun of New Year’s resolutions. I know. I’ve done it myself in this very blog. It is human nature, of course, to think that an artificial border between one year and the next will provide us with a new start for our old habits.Continue reading “Irresolute”