Life rocks for Facebook, Google and other high-income, high-tech geeky types in Silicon Valley. In Sparks, the same is true for those living in Crescent City, and it’s even more upscale coastal neighbor Skye Pointe. They work hard. They play hard. At the end of the day, they stagger home – or somewhere else – […]
Yep, here’s another one in my bait-n-switch meme. Not those kind of lines… The ones I’m talking about are storylines. Why are they called that? Lines are boring. Once drawn, they just sit there. Doing nothing. Whomever named them should change the name. Instead, I see story waves. Each made up of rising action, climax, falling […]
Just into my forties, mid-career; hotly pursued by footsteps. Closer, closer. Soon they’ll be upon me. Ascending the pyramid, I’m approaching the top. The climbing gets harder. Vertical musical chairs. Only in this game, failure to get a chair ends a career. The dilemma: reach for the next level or hold on to the chair at […]
Back when IBM ruled the southern tip of San Jose, California, there was a tiny deli that had one of the best sandwiches in the universe. The sandwich was called the Avocado Undecided, and was composed of two thick slices of white bread, hand-made sun-dried tomato mayonnaise, bay shrimp and a whole sliced avocado. It was served open-faced, […]
Embarrassing but true – I’m suffering through an identity crisis. Not in the sense of real name versus pen name, though that debate rages in some corners of the writing community. As much as I love to read, I don’t recall ever questioning the name on a book jacket. However, I have made sure to […]
Hello…hello…hellooo… Where are you…are you…yooou… Echoes resounded from the void in my timeline. I’d been so focused on tightly winding the action that I’d overlooked the leap from Sunday morning to Monday morning. Sunday afternoon and evening didn’t exist. Once I’d stumbled across the hole, I saw that it should have been painfully obvious. Having […]
Flying down the freeway one cool June morning, we laughed and talked, enjoying each other’s company. It was my first trip through the mountains to his favorite beach. He decided to take the scenic route and turned off onto a beautifully picturesque two lane road. It was charming – until we reached the mountains. Far […]
I’m very excited. I’ve figured out how to make the sometimes revered, sometimes scorned, always discussed writer’s tool work for me. You know the one – the outline. I’d only begun using it because my editor advised that it was the next step for revising the story he’d critiqued. Now I’m outlining because it is […]
