Another Draft Bites the Dust
A month ago, I finished the third draft of what I’m calling my “teen epic.” Between December 2023 and the end of April 2024, I…
Chris Orcutt’s Favorite Short Stories
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the backstory of my short story collection The Man, The Myth, The Legend, explaining what was happening in my…
Backstory: The Story Behind Chris Orcutt’s The Man, The Myth, The Legend
Between 2010 and 2011, I wrote over thirty short stories, many of which appeared in The Man, The Myth, The Legend or as chapters of…
Backstory: The Story Behind the Second Dakota Stevens mystery, The Rich Are Different — Part 2
Last week, in Part 1 of the story behind The Rich Are Different, I described my experiences during 9/11 in Manhattan and the months following, and…
Backstory: The Story Behind the First Dakota Stevens Mystery, A Real Piece of Work
A Real Piece of Work and the entire Dakota Stevens Mystery Series might never have happened were it not for a bad office chair. During…
Paying Attention as a Fiction Writer
I have been writing fiction since I was 13 years old, when I first read Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger and was swept away not only by the…
When Your Fetal Book Starts to Kick
Since mid-June, I’ve been earnestly at work on the third Dakota Stevens mystery novel, but it wasn’t until last week that I felt the fetus…
To All So-Called Authors: Stop Doing This; You Look Like Idiots
Maybe I shouldn’t be giving away my writing secrets. Maybe I should be like Ernest Hemingway, who, with the exception of a couple of Paris…