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 MoreThe 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 MoreI 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 MoreLast 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 MoreFrom today’s Substack. https://open.substack.com/pub/pcolt/p/creatures-of-habit?r=43bho8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Read MoreI have to admit that I have become kind of a Substack junky. I obsessively check my stats and try figure out if it indicates a growing audience or some other trend. Hey, I like validation as much as the next guy. I was going to repost last night’s Substack here but this morning…
Read MoreChances are if you are reading this here, you follow my Substack or have had it sent to your inbox or plastered on your social media. It’s all part of my effort to promote my books out in the vastness of internet land. That means posting the same thing on many platforms at the…
Read MoreMy grandmother used to say, “Actors Act and Writers Write”. It was usually in response to my pointing out a good actor in a bad role. I will confess that it took me years to fully understand what she meant. It has something to do with the compulsion that drives certain people. I suspect…
Read MoreNo matter what you write. No matter what genre, style or project, essay, novel or poem, it always starts with the same thing. The blank page in front of you. It doesn’t matter if that page is a sheet of actual paper or on a computer screen. They are equally daunting. If you don’t…
Read MoreWhy it’s easier to write an 80,000 word novel than a weekly 800 word blog. After my last post my friend Amy who’s known me since we were Freshmen at URI, said that she always felt like Blogging was like writing letters to friends. She should know, she’s done both and a lot better…
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