Musings Of A New Southern Man

I am sitting in my home office and writing today. I am taking a trip back in time as I do it. Well, maybe only a small trip. I am dressed in pajamas, slippers and bathrobe. I dress this way for a good reason. I am absolutely comfortable as I write. That, to me, is a huge part of the experience. This used to be my "writing uniform" for almost every writing session, but that was back when I had swing shift hours. I would get up in the morning, read the newspaper, drink a couple of cups of coffee and adjourn to the home office. My uniform was pajamas, slippers and (in the colder months) bathrobe. I could write for hours dressed this way. My new schedule is basically 9-to-5, Monday through Friday. I can't settle into that old routine with those hours. But today is Sunday, and I am calling my own shots. Here is my guideline: Make yourself physically comfortable, but make yourself uncomfortable in what you are writing. My pajamas uniform meets the first criterion, my story ...

I had a great day writing earlier this week. Most writers judge success by how many words they add to a novel on a given day. I reversed that. I was happy that I subtracted more than 10,000 words. It had to be done. My novel took new directions after I attended Donald Maass' writing workshop (referred to as BONI) in September. I got great feedback on my work. I was told I write beautifully. I am great at using certain phrases and descriptions. But I also heard words authors don't like when they believe they have a completed novel. Cold. Predictable. You are capable of much better work. I don't have such a big ego that these criticisms sent me into a tirade. Exactly the opposite. The people who reviewed my work -- Maass, Lorin Oberweger, Jason Sitzes and Brenda Windberg -- are pros in the business. I listened, I internalized what they said and wrote, and I went home and started plotting ways to make my novel better. Part of that is addition. There are swat...

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, ...

Death is not a surprise. We know it is the physical end of our time. We learn of it as little kids, usually while attending the funeral of a grandparent. We know it is there. We spend too much time trying to avoid it. Eventually, we can't. My mother, Virginia, passed away in the early morning hours of Sept. 2. It was a wonderful death. We all say we want to die comfortably in our sleep. This is the way Mom passed on. She was at peace, with her husband of 72 years nearby, and soon there was a woman from hospice, and there was me. Those really were a special several minutes. There was no angst. Little sorrow. There was lots of appreciation for Mom and what she had been to so many people. She was one of those women who sewed a rich quilt of a life. She weaved little threads of existence into a wonderful and large treasure. She had a great life, and she made life better for countless people around her. She was gentle, loving, caring, devoted, funny, available to...

So many people have been grabbed by the shirt collar by movies like "Die Hard." It's non-stop action, and Bruce Willis' character is always ready for the next fight. Such is the thriller genre. I thought my novel fit into that category. The simple truth is, it doesn't. I came to that realization recently thanks to agent Donald Maass. I sent Maass a query, and I billed my novel as a thriller. Well, it has several aspects of a thriller so why not? My problem is that the genre requires much tighter guidelines than I want to follow. It isn't that I am a rebel. I just want to create a character with far more depth than the "Die Hard" profile. Sure, there are plenty of yippee-ki-yay moments, but there's much more. Maass replied that my first chapter didn't hook him and pull him from page to page as a good thriller should. Coming from any other agent, I would take it as good advice and nothing more. Maass is the master teacher among agents,...

Yes, that is a three-month gap since my last blog entry. Funny how time flies when you're tearing apart a novel. And, yes, I do blame James Scott Bell, whose Ten Commandments for Authors put me on my current route. OK, "blame" is inaccurate. "Bless" works better. Bell's exact words that triggered this? They are contained in the Seventh Commandment: "Thou shalt make everything contribute to the story." His statement is simply: "Stay as direct as a laser beam." The problem with my second draft was that it didn't have that laser-like quality. Oh, yes, there is a main storyline, but it is surrounded by lots of little side trips. I had secondary characters who became primary characters far too often. It was like getting on an expressway intending to go from Orlando to Tampa but taking dozens of auxiliary roads during the journey. So, I wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I tore out entire sections. I inserted new ones. What was the result? ...

Yes, I am up in the middle of the night to write and edit again. Nothing new there. It's just that the subject matter of my writing and editing has changed. I must explain. I served as editorial director of woodypaige.com since The Denver Post columnist and ESPN personality launched the website in the fall. Well, the title "editorial director" is a bit misleading. That implies I could actually edit copy that went onto the site. Maybe wire editor is a better title. I also said "was" because Woody decided to pull the plug on the .com venture on May 1 because we couldn't get a national advertiser to help pay the bills. But for all those months, we gave it a heckuva try. Our biggest problem: We just didn't have the right business model. We posted links to 28 to 30 sports-related stories every day. It was designed to entertain that valuable 18-to-34 age demographic, but we never entertained enough of them. That led to lower numbers than advertisers wanted...