One Summer Season: R.W. and Juan Davalillo

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The Best Novels of 2013

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Right Image So Hard to Find

It's still not right. No, not my novel but my blog picture. Have ... to ... get ... it ... right ... soon. This one isn't bad. Neither was the previous one. I simply hasn't hit the perfect tone yet. It's like having a paragraph in a novel that needs work. I tweak here. I tweak there. Finally it all comes together. I'm sure it will happen one of these days. WHAT I'M READING NOW: "The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein. He's a Pacific Northwest writer, and that's my geographical background. He also works with one of my favorite agents, Jeff Kleinman, and Stein is creative and daring enough to make a dog the narrator and protagonist. I'm not sold on Stein's pacing, but I'm only a third of the way through the book. I eagerly await the later chapters. Of course, I keep Donald Maass' how-to guide about writing the breakout novel near me at all times. I also finished Jeffery Deaver's "The Cold Moon" and enjoye...
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Journalist vs. author: There is a battle

I am a veteran journalist and a fledgling author. Both tasks require a mastery of words. Both require creativity and intense devotion to proper grammar, spelling, etc. They differ, however, in how I use that creativity. And that can be the problem. Journalists are the short-order cooks of the writing world. They must tell a good story but get to the point. A reporter might have 20 inches of copy in which to tell that story. The requirements are simple: Write a good lead, establish the focus of the story quickly and follow with supporting facts and quotes. (Notice that I followed proper journalism style and dropped the Oxford comma.) Novelists are chefs who take a long time to prepare a proper menu. Writing a good lead is there, but it wears a disguise. Those of us who attended Don Maass' Breakout Novel Intensive workshop recently spent considerable time on the need to write a scintillating first sentence. You have to hook the reader, agent and editor. But from that point on, ...
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