The Writer’s Environs: What Crosses the Road?
The film version of The Descendants opens with this great monologue where the main character discusses the image people from the mainland have of people living in Hawaii, that it’s Paradise and everything is Mai Tais and surfing and easy living all the time. “Are they nuts?” he says. “How can they possibly think our families are less screwed up, our heart attacks and cancers less fatal, our grief less devastating? Hell, I haven’t been on a surfboard in fifteen years.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. Don’t get me wrong–I’m not complaining about where I live. It’s more that I’ve been struck by how Read more…
Want to Get Some Reading Done? Hire a Terrier
You may recall (That’s Why You Don’t Leave the House) that we have occasional issues with rodentia in our rural Big Island home. Also, everywhere else we’ve lived on the island. Our first stop in North Kohala, the rats lived in the ceiling space above our heads and rolled mac nuts across it at night like bowling balls. There was a small knothole in the ceiling near the kitchen, and occasionally you’d see a rat head peering out of it like a periscope. It took us a month or more to get the rat situation under control here the last Read more…
Cover Reveal for Sydney Brennan Book Five: Braving the Boneyard
Sorry for the late post today–our internet has been even spottier than usual lately. (I’d blame the wind, but I’m not sure that’s logically or scientifically defensible when you have satellite internet–maybe the dish is wobbling?) In any case, this post and the Book Five manuscript will be passing each other in internet space tonight. (Or maybe not; I’ll admit, I’m pretty fuzzy with most physics beyond Newton.) To be more precise, mobi files of Sydney Brennan Book Five, the novel Braving the Boneyard, are heading to beta reader devices today. (One beta reader might be distracted by the delivery of Read more…
And Now for Something Different… a Friday Five List!
As regular visitors to this space know, there’s a new Blog post every Friday. I usually write these on Thursday nights, but occasionally I’ll wing it on Friday. So here’s my dilemma. It’s currently Thursday night (as I’m writing), and most of the potential Blog Posts in my head are about rewrites, because that’s what I’m doing and—to be honest—that’s what I’m dying to get back to. But we have a contract—I deliver a weekly Blog Post and you pretend to read it—and I suspect by now you’re sick of hearing about editing. What’s a blog-blocked writer to do? Apparently Read more…
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