Looks like there was some unfinished business in last week’s piece…too much for a single additional blog, so let me take it one subject at a time.  Let’s settle, this week, on a relatively quick discussion regarding book reviews and their purported suppliers, the review purveyor. Anyone who publishes (whether through a NY Trade house, or via the self-published, POD route) comes to the realization that their book must be reviewed many times, and each time as well as possible.... Read Full Story

When a writer finishes writing his or her cherished piece of work - be it a poem; an essay; a memoir, popular, or paranormal novel; perhaps even a humorous work - at that very moment, the writer’s creative juices are sliding him or her to the very edge of a precipice. If he hasn’t already landed a book or magazine deal he’s either got to get an agent, or arrange to have the work printed and distributed independently. If so, let us then count the peddlers of provender waiting... Read Full Story

Hmm… I wanted to. And I did. And I’m now having second thoughts about what I did. Let me provide the final chapter to the “3 ACES Cover Story” as presented in my August 3rd, 2008 blog… Now that the book has been read by a good number of folks, gone through the hands of more than a few critics, contest judges, etc., the feedback cometh in strong (whether I welcome it, or not). THE most negative feedback has been centered around my vaunted 3 ACES front cover, which... Read Full Story

Your local writers group has already used you…”ha-ha, made you join didn’t we?” So why not use it - to the fullest?  It’s not just a place to socialize, it’s a way to glom onto the tools and techniques that will improve anything you write. I don’t care how far along you are in the craft of writing, there are lessons to be learned and relearned. No one’s writing is that sanctified that it can’t benefit from your local group’s collecti... Read Full Story

Simple…the key word here is FEEDBACK. You can sit in your room for hours, days, hammering away at a novel, article, or short story on your typewriter or computer keyboard (hopefully, you are using a computer!..) and acquire a major case of literary blindness. By that, I mean you are zeroed in so tightly on the task at hand that you lose the ability to stand back and view just what it is that you have finally hammered out. When fresh eyes hit your pages (that may look dandy to you) somet... Read Full Story

Last post, I promised we’d discuss my personal reactions to the psychiatric community regarding PTSD. I’ll cite two experiences: one from my childhood; the second from an attempted visit to a regional Veterans’ Hospital. I’m the first to admit that, in my teens, I began to have emotional problems - a delayed result from a traumatic accident to my feet as a three year old and the experience of subsequent multiple surgeries. My parents sent me to a respected  psychiatri... Read Full Story

When, at the age of three, you have your feet lopped off in a hayfield by a horse-drawn haymower and by some miracle a surgeon delicately reattaches them; then, over the next 14 years have one surgery after another that solidly fuses the fragmented ankle joints and prepares your feet for an active adult life - wouldn’t you think you qualify as some kind of an expert in survivial? And when the research for a trucking novel you are writing, concerning a recon vet suffering from PTSD, disc... Read Full Story

Who says a novel can’t be predictive? And if a novel about such things as trucking, salvation, and finding the truth is to save your financial skin, you’ve first got to PAY ATTENTION ! Last week, local and national TV newscasters were posting no notices. But if you happened to scour the financial pages, you’d have caught the price of an ounce of gold closing Friday, September 11, 2009 at a new all-time high of $1005. Why should you give a hoot? Does this means we’re in... Read Full Story

In 1865, when the Civil War ended, Thomas Spalding’s tabby mansion at the south end of Sapelo Island lay in ruins. Spalding had passed on some years earlier, in 1851, and was interred with his wife at Ashantilly near Darien. But through the war and the following period of Reconstruction, Spalding’s descendants had been unable to continue his success. By 1912 Thomas Spalding’s entire island kingdom had fallen into ruin. Enter Howard Coffin, Chief Engineer and a founder of the... Read Full Story

Forgive me for delaying the third part of “My Visit To Sapelo Island,” but I’m getting ready for a long flight tomorrow and running out of time. I’ll see if I can’t wrap up the Sapelo Island story for next weekend. Allow me, instead, to quickly recount an incident that occurred in the Boston Museum Of Fine Arts during a visit there last month with my daughter-in-law, Marci, and my two grandchildren - Max, four and a half, and Ruby, 17 months. Their daddy, Nichola... Read Full Story