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

I arrived at the Meridian, GA ferry dock fifteen minutes before the 8:00 a.m. departure time. My hurried breakfast had been a bit of last night’s leftover boiled shrimp and a fresh cup of coffee, but it seemed there’d been no need to rush. A trickle of State workers and a group of island residents - coming back from who knows where - were exchanging greetings with a uniformed Georgia State ferry Captain intent on his clipboard. I drew my lunch in close to me - the rest of the spic... Read Full Story

In my last blog I promised to tell you about my visit to Sapelo Island.  Several years ago, as a long haul trucker, I’d visited the shrimping port of Darien, Georgia and been intrigued with what I’d heard regarding Sapelo. A bit up the coast - and a ferry ride of another mile or so through tidewater channels and the marshes of Doboy Sound - lay a pristine barrier island. Here, in 1802, Thomas Spalding, a Scotsman, had begun a successful plantation of sea cotton and sugar cane with... Read Full Story