American Novelist
At 1:38 a.m. today, I turned 56 years old. The thing is, I don’t feel fifty-six. Maybe this is because, for the past ten years, I’ve been writing about characters 16–17 years old and some of their sense of invincibility has rubbed off on me. All I know is, it really doesn’t seem possible that … Read more
Greetings, Dear Reader. I’m dictating this blog entry while walking on my treadmill, so please excuse me if I ramble or my “smart” phone substitutes incorrect homophones (e.g., “there, their, they’re”). As you’ll soon read, I have a lot going on and need to multitask. I think it’s been over a year since I last … Read more
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 cut 175,817 words (or 11.4%) from the 1.5 million-word manuscript, trimming it down to 1,365,148 words. The epic novel is now actually 10 novels, and my aim is to cut … Read more
Last weekend, I attended a surprise party for my younger sister’s 50th birthday. The party, hosted by her husband and best friend, was a great success, mostly because she never had a clue about it. During the party, I found myself among some of my sister’s friends from high school. These women were a couple … Read more
Lately, more than ever, I’ve been thinking about a quote by the late, great playwright Sam Shepard: “Aloneness is a condition of writing. You look at all the writers that have come up with something worth its own salt, and they’re utterly alone.” “Aloneness is a condition of writing.” I’ve come not just to accept, … Read more
The novel that became The Rich Are Different was written during the winter of 2001–02, over a year before I even conceived of the Dakota Stevens Mystery Series. In order to give you a clear understanding of the backstory behind The Rich Are Different, I need to tell you about what I was doing on … Read more
I’m writing this blog entry in one of my favorite Asian restaurants: Momiji in Rhinebeck, NY. I’m not exactly sure why, but I’ve been writing in Asian restaurants for over 25 years. Maybe it’s that when Chinese or Japanese waitresses get talking in their native tongues, their voices take on a soothing quality, surrounding me … Read more
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 the winter of 2002-03, I was laid up in bed with an extremely painful herniated disc in my lower back. In addition to writing every day and submitting my stories … Read more
In the first installment of this piece, I described the first half of my writing process: Writing the first draft in longhand or on a typewriter Storing the completed draft in a drawer Editing the hand- or type-written manuscript with a blue pen Retyping the manuscript into a word processor Now, hold on to your … Read more
The opening sentence of Perpetuating Trouble is absolutely true: “I was told to write this book by a pair of alien girls.” That incident with the alien girls, along with everything else in my memoir about the writing life, really happened. Enter a Pair of Alien Girls On a glittering October morning in 2008, I … Read more
Back in December, after having completed the first draft of a 550,000-word, 1,600-page novel, I took a nearly month-long vacation (my first in years). For one week of the vacation, my wife and I explored Quebec, stayed at at a ski resort, and went cross-country skiing, swimming and hot-tubbing every day. One afternoon in the … Read more
I’m currently 250,000 words into a novel that looks like it will go to 300,000 words. It could go as long as one of my favorite novels, Anna Karenina. Since my longest published novel to date (A Truth Stranger Than Fiction) is only 90,000 words, the novel-in-progress will likely end up being three times as long. … Read more
I love writing. I love sitting down with half a dozen fresh Blackwing 602 pencils, sharpening them to a razor edge and filling up pages of a notebook with the words of a new novel. I love sitting in front of my Royal Quiet Deluxe typewriter and banging out pages. I love typing those pages … Read more
A New Year demands new writing projects and a new workspace. And since I’m a writer who is deeply inspired or discouraged by his environment, I need a workspace that has a lot of inspirational quotes, pictures and objects around me when I work. Look closely and you can find all of my talismans and inspirational … Read more
Forget any romantic images you might have of novel-writing: that it’s nothing but staring out big picture windows at the sea and autographing copies of your books. No, unfortunately novel-writing, even if you love it, is a draining, soul-sucking enterprise. While writing my novels, I strive so hard to make each one the very best it … Read more
Between January 2012 and this month (over 3 years), I sold my novels on Amazon exclusively. I did this under their KDP “Select” (Kindle Direct Publishing Select) program because I was convinced of the rumors: that if your books were in Select (making them ineligible to be sold on any other platforms), they would get … Read more
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 Review interviews in which he gave cryptic answers to questions about writing craft, was selfish with his knowledge throughout his life and shared very little of it. But there’s something that … Read more
In my blog post yesterday, I mentioned my upcoming internet radio interview with Pam Stack, host of Authors on the Air, on Wed., April 30 at 8:00 p.m. Well, as a corollary to that interview, Pam’s co-host, Lucie Dunn, does a written interview with authors appearing on Pam’s show and publishes them to her Authors … Read more