Posts by Peter Colt
Four Skills Everyone Should Have
Over on Substack I wrote about mood and atmosphere. The premise opened up with certain life rules I have. I started to write about the four skills that I think everyone should know. They are essential skills in life and they represent skills that are sadly going the way of the Stick Shift. And yes,…
Read MoreToo good to last.
In my early twenties I was restless. I had graduated from college and while I was commissioned in the Army I didn’t get put on Active Duty. The girl I dated in college moved on and I can’t blame her. I was working a job that I didn’t like and didn’t pay particularly well. The…
Read MoreCrime Bake!
So here I am in Dedham, doing one of the most writerly things I’ve ever done. I am attending a writers convention/conference. Mystery Writers of America’s North East chapter hosts an annual conference for writers and by writers. There are agents and a full spectrum of talented writers. This morning was a treat, in…
Read MoreOther Fall Rites of Passage
The Army was very generous in the twenty-four years I was in the Reserve. They gave me a lot of opportunities but the two they provided in in abundance were the chance to have someone stick a needle or multiple needles in my arms, and to stand in line. You can imagine that last…
Read MoreA Modest Beginning
Last night I was at a gathering at my friend Byron’s house. He had lured me down the opposite end of our tiny state with the promise of a firepit and good bourbon. Like most Rhode Islanders, I balk at driving more than twenty minutes anywhere, but my Long Suffering Wife pointed out that…
Read MoreGiving bad advice to a good friend.
I was flattered when a good friend of mine, a professor and a street brawler for democracy in strange foreign lands, made all the stranger in 1997, asked me to read his first manuscript. I can not adequately convey how difficult it is to write your first novel. They’re easy to start but they are…
Read MoreBVARS on the water.
The park ranger looked at me, she was trying to find a nice way of asking if we knew what we were doing. It was her first time dealing with the Blackstone Valley Aquatic Recreation Society, a collection made up almost entirely of men old enough to know better than to do the stupid…
Read MoreLen Deighton
I don’t read much new fiction anymore. Especially not stuff in the genre that I write. I live in mortal fear of unintentionally copying someone else’s work. I suspect that all mystery fiction is derivative at this point. When I need to scratch my fiction reading itch, I tend to favor things in different…
Read MoreEvery Fall
Last week I wrote that I don’t want my blogs here to be my just reposting my Substack. Unfortunately to stay viable int he Googleverse I have to post something here at least once a week. The stuff posted here, might be similar but it won’t be the same as the weekly Substack or…
Read MoreCreatures of Habbit
From today’s Substack. https://open.substack.com/pub/pcolt/p/creatures-of-habit?r=43bho8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
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