Musings Of A New Southern Man

H.G. Wells captivated our minds with the story of The Time Machine , a device that allowed people to be transported into the future. It is a wonderful story, but authors don't need a tangible device. They already have one. It's called the creative mind. Even writers who concentrate on modern times take readers to other places and events, thanks to story line creation. I wondered where I would put myself in history if I had the choice. I found the answer while watching a PBS documentary on train travel in northern Italy, especially the arrival in Venice. The show's host used a old travel guide from the early 1900s to illustrate his points. That guide book told of the introduction travelers received in Venice. The most prominent visitors flocked to the city because it was a haven for the rich and entitled. It was a place of great villas and venues where the rich could enjoy the benefits of their status. British upper class loved to come here. The guide book welcomed visit...

I can't finish any commentary on my time as the editor of YourHub at The Denver Post without mentioning Kevin Vaughan. Those who watch Fox Sports these days see Kevin as a reporter who covers the big stories, most notably the Aaron Hernandez murder trial. But I knew him as the trusted supervisor who took YourHub under his wing. Kevin was my go-to guy when I needed to discuss ideas and problems. He had the managerial experience to know the tricky parts of leading people, everything from story creation and execution to personnel matters. I made sure to include Vaughan on any email I sent that involved my plans for the future of YourHub. Vaughan's involvement with YourHub began when he was still at the Rocky Mountain News, which was where YourHub got its start. He was very interested in the concept of hyperlocal news, and he played a part in making that idea work from the earliest days of YourHub. Vaughan and YourHub were brought on board by The Post after the Rocky ceased ope...

I was delusional when I started writing novels. I figured that because I could write good stories for journalism that I could take those lessons and make an easy transition to being a novelist who specializes in fiction. That didn't work. I knew how to write plot, but I suffered when it came to building character. I am refining that part of my abilities. Still, there are lessons from journalism that translate well to writing novels. Here are a few: 1. Be concise. A journalist takes a large volume of information and puts it into a compact package. Newspaper articles are 10 inches long, and a feature story can be 25 inches. Anything longer than that is rare. But that training in writing tight works well in crafting novels. 2. Edit tight. This is rule 1A in being concise. Even my journalism training didn't limit me to using just the words I needed to build a scene. I trimmed words and sentences that were extraneous on my first reading of my completed first draft, and I trimm...

April 24 marked the one-year anniversary of Kevin Dale calling me into his office and notifying me that my job at The Denver Post was being eliminated in a reduction of workforce. I won't write about that decision today. That is so last year. But I learned a lot in those intervening months, so it's time for an update. It is a situation in which there is good news and there's bad news. People given the option of what to hear always take the good news first. I will reverse that order. Those bad things sit deeper in my soul, as they should for anyone who put decades of effort into his or her craft or profession. So here are the three worst parts of leaving journalism. 1. I have so much to offer and no opportunity. I am a skilled journalist. I have numerous writing awards. I was a good copy editor who worked on some of the best newspapers not only in the West but in the world. What was that worth in the job market? Not a darned thing. I applied for any job that had the word...

You have to tip your cap to Daniel Pace. He was like so many veterans who came home from Iraq with nothing but hope and a stash of combat pay. He started a small company in the Seattle area, and success built on success. Now he lives in a million-dollar home with a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. He looks like a winner on every count. But there are signs that not everything is as it seems. He lives alone, and his social contact is limited once he lives his office. That beautiful home is surrounded by a high wrought iron fence, and no one gets in without knowing the proper access code. Is the fence there to keep threats out or secrets in? I have one Pace first draft done, but I need to revise that considerably. I am about a third of the way through a second Pace novel, but I won't forge ahead without getting the first novel completed to my satisfaction. There is a lot of good stuff in that first novel, in my humble opinion, but it's just not there yet as a br...

R.W. Clay is my least-challenged protagonist, but smaller challenges don't look that way when you are 17 years old. At the start of my novel, he has everything going his way. He is smart, has a great family, the perfect girlfriend, and he can hit a baseball a country mile. Colleges line up to give him free education, and pro scouts follow him on a regular basis. But perfect lives aren't that perfect once a kid has to grow up. I will give a few more details about R.W. He is from my old hometown, The Dalles, Oregon, which is a baseball town. He grew up on a wheat ranch, and he was forced to be responsible at an early age. He is a tough competitor, and there is nothing worse to him than losing. He doesn't have to lose often. He is all-league, all-state, all-academic, all-everything. Okay, that gives you the basic idea. So why do I go into this genre of new adult while all my other works are mainstream fiction? Every bit of advice tells an author not to juggle genres. The...

I said I would give glimpses of my protagonists, and this is the first of three such unveilings. Don't expect a lot of detail. I will keep these lean and mean in order to protect story lines and characters. I also won't give the working titles. I will start with the protagonists I believe are my most complex. Sean McNabb is on a losing streak. Everything he put his trust in disappears. He has a definite coping mechanism (sorry, no details, but I love working with the circumstances). The good news is that there are glimmers of hope. The bad news is that not everything is as it seems. His original set of problems would give anyone reason to worry. His new set of problems are simply earth-shaking. Can he overcome? Can he even survive? He has company in the person of Darrington Circe. His dilemma is that he faces problems that are even more daunting. Does he retreat into a shell? Does he boldly move forward to see where his strange set of circumstances leads? Can he overcome? C...