Galumphing – Carpenter, Cloud, Outer Space – SD

“Hard Hat Dreamer”

He stands on the corner amidst the sea
Watching the people flow down the street
With their tenacity and their gnashing teeth
Sniffing out a piece of Joe Don’s defeat

Hard hat yellow
Belt like espresso
Protruding blades and metal Continue reading “Galumphing – Carpenter, Cloud, Outer Space – SD”

Creativity Sessions: Cliffhangers as a Narrative Device

I enjoy cliffhangers in novels. As someone in the marketing profession, I also understand why they are often used at the ends of novels. I’ll be just finishing up the story when the author throws a curveball, making me go Oh shit, how can you leave me hanging like that?! And then Book 2 comes out and I buy it immediately, because obviously I have to see what happens. It’s good business.

But as a narrative device? I’m becoming more and more skeptical of the end-of-book cliffhanger. Continue reading “Creativity Sessions: Cliffhangers as a Narrative Device”

Fear and Mugging in Charm City

I watched an older man get mugged last night. A slightly graying evening sky hung over my friend and I as we were sitting at a red light, opposite a strip mall on the far corner. A young man was pulling on what looked like a wallet in the hands of an older man in front of one store. The younger man punched the older man in the face, took the wallet, and ran off. The old man fell to the ground, and we could not see if he was unconscious from where we were sitting. Someone finally got out of their car right next to the old man to help him. The light turned green, we drove passed, but the younger man had disappeared.

We continued on our way. Continue reading “Fear and Mugging in Charm City”

Actually Nearing the Finish Line

Ugh. The tying down of plots and characters continues.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, part of the delay on finishing Manuscript 1 of “Jaed and Aston” has been in trying to parse out the finishing plot points for each of my characters. The biggest difficulty I’ve found in this process has been in fitting the final pieces for each character together concisely, without jamming too much info/action into one section. Continue reading “Actually Nearing the Finish Line”

Audiobooks and Critical Listening: Shockwave by John Sandford

Do audiobooks count for my Goodreads reading goal? I feel like they should.

Future Father-in-law gave me a few audiobooks on CD for Christmas this year, and it took me a while to pop one into my car’s stereo. I was hesitant about this for a couple of reasons: Continue reading “Audiobooks and Critical Listening: Shockwave by John Sandford”