Reviews

Falls the Shadow has been reviewed a few times. It's fascinating to read others' impressions of what I've written.

I have an old friend from grade school who recently retired from the Air Force. His old boss is an Ambassador - recently assigned to Zimbabwe - who is also a writer, poet, reviewer, and all-around fun person. He was kind enough to review my book and I was pleasantly surprised by the result. Feel free to have a look:

A Review of Falls the Shadow

In addition, a reader/purchaser of my book from Amazon also posted a review. He's a high school English teacher from Connecticut. He posted it a while back and I've asked him to re-post to the new Amazon page. If it's not there yet, it soon will be:

Falls the Shadow on Amazon

All in all, a grand experience. I hope more readers post reviews. It can only help me with my next effort. Others' comments help me to see my writing style and the effect of certain aspects of the finished product in new and interesting ways. In addition, Eloquent Books, the publishers, are working toward more reviews. The more the merrier.

Last but not least, any and all comments from friends and readers are welcome. I'm not married to what I've written and hope to improve and put better and better prose out there. With this in mind, I don't cringe when someone doesn't like, or understand, what I've written. I try to learn from their comments. I've gotten a few, but more would be great. Feel free to send them along to me or post them to Amazon. Your input is important and never frowned upon.

In the meantime, I'm working on a new novel, working title "Sandman." Naturally (for anyone who knows me), it centers around events at the beach. The main character, like myself, grew up and experienced many of his life's important events at or near the beach. He returns there again and again as his now mid-life events unfold: divorce, cancer to someone near and dear to him, grown-up children, and more. There is plenty of humor, and a symmetry to the prose - as the past and present reflect one another and the sands of time sift through his toes and slip through his life. I'll try to provide occasional updates and perhaps a chunk of writing from time to time.

Til next time...

A Writing Life

A writing life... this one began in the seventies, in high school. I began writing poetry in high school, searching for the perfect words to win the heart of a girl. I ventured into short fiction not long after, primarily lurid, early teen vampire stories.

I carried my love of poetry and prose into college, where I edited the school literary magazine, contributed poetry and short fiction to it, and even participated in a series of professor/student poetry readings. Great experience. And fun. Laughing and talking with professors about what you and he/she wrote is a great way to get beyond their classroom demeanor and find out what makes them tick. One of my favorites turned out to be a fun person to play basketball with, discuss after-college life with, and generally get to know as a scholar, family man, and wonderful person. He has since passed away from cancer.

After undergraduate school, at which I double-majored in English and Communications, I tried hard to put both to work and entered the world of broadcast news. My internship at a high-powered radio news station/low-powered fledgling television station turned into a full-time reporting job after college. I loved the writing, the deadlines, the camaraderie with the old-time reporters, and the chance to try something new: working on the other side of the camera and in post-production.

This lead to my next endeavor, in corporate video. When I moved away from New England to Virginia (to be with my girlfriend, of course), I worked in video production. What began as videography, editing, and lighting turned into directing, producing, and scriptwriting for local DC corporations. Great fun. Here's the deal with working for a smallish company, which I found to be far more interesting than working for a larger one: if you work for the smaller company, you have to lug the equipment. That gets old fast. I don't shy away from physical labor, nor do I have a problem with working hard, but an educated person knows that lugging heavy equipment in and out of buildings, dealing with stairs, spending hours setting up and breaking down, well that just gets old fast... and your body doesn't really appreciate it after a while. During my time in video I had some great friends who were filmmakers. They really inspired me. While creative and proficient with the equipment end of things, they really turned on when telling a story. It was the story that mattered, that got the juices flowing, that showed their inner light. Needless to say, it was contagious. I tried my hand at scriptwriting. I produced a movie script that a friend hawked in Hollywood on a trip there. Frank Stallone read my script... that's my claim to fame there. As much as I enjoyed the video and filmmaking worlds, I really never caught fire for it. So I decided to try something new...

I went back to school, got my master's in English - Writing, and tried my hand at technical writing. This can be a good gig for a while. You learn new things about the high tech world in which we live, you meet lots of smart people, and the various company cultures you experience can be a real kick. But tech writing sucks your imagination after a while.

During my 10-year stint in tech writing I continued to write. I loved the short fiction. Not for publication, but for me. It was great. I attended a workshop in short fiction at the U of Iowa one summer, right after the Mississippi floods (which ran right up to the dorm in which I stayed for the week - unsettling to say the least). I continued to write poetry. And I began to think about longer fiction.

Since moving into Marketing & Communications I have explored long fiction more deeply. I finished my first novel recently and published through Eloquent Books. We'll just see where it goes. I have begun my next novel. I like the process of writing longer fiction, mostly because it gives me more of an opportunity to watch things unfold, do some intensive rewriting, see a bigger picture. That's where I am today. I still write for a living, but it's really changed since the early days...
But I wouldn't change a minute of it all. I've experienced some great variety and some interesting times along the way. I encourage anyone reading this to try everything and see what sticks.

Til next time...

Welcome! Jump Right In.

Welcome to the blog!
First and foremost, check out my book: http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/FallstheShadow.html

Okay, business out of the way... on to thoughts and ruminations.

Who am I? I'm a writer from Northern Virginia. I'm a husband and a parent. I'm a New Englander at heart, transplanted to this area more than twenty years ago. I miss the weather, believe it or not.

Northern Virginia really is a fascinating area. There are people from all over the world here. I know, nowadays there are people from all over the world everywhere you turn. It really is amazing. But in the Washington, DC suburbs we meet people from all over the world every day. Just walk into the local supermarket and you're liable to run into a neighbor from India; the cashier may be from Estonia; the manager may have just arrived from China... you get the point. It really is interesting.

The faces, the languages, the dress, the cultures all colliding daily in a colorful, sometimes cacophonic, suburban dance. The varied perspectives you can find from just talking to the parents from other countries is amazing. And it's good to shed our misconceptions and dispel the foundless rumors that float around out there. It's particularly good to step outside our comfort zone and experience something totally new now and again.

You want to experience something new right away? Go to a pot luck lunch at your place of business in Northern Virginia, particularly if it's a high tech business. The food is glorious! And it's from everywhere! And people are so proud to share these delights with everyone. It's fun and eye-opening, not to mention waist-expanding.

What's most interesting about this area is that we're close to lots of different things. Boating, skiing, hiking, beaches, museums, night life, theater, foliage, pro sports, you name it. If you're interested in something, chances are you can get to it fairly quickly from Northern Virginia. Sure, it might take a little longer to get to a beach at the height of summer. And sure, it's going to take you some time to get downtown during rush hour. But the stuff is there. It's all around you. I guess timing is the key there.

I've often heard folks from California say how they have everything - skiing, beaches, etc. etc. And I get that. It's beautiful. It is convenient. I have been amazed at all there is to see and do here, though. I'm not selling the place, just sharing the realization. In short, it's pretty handy.

Over the past few years I've been doing a fair amount of writing. I look out past my desk, through the window, into my back yard (covered in snow right now), and just drift off into another world. That's pretty much how the initial process goes for me. I go away. I brainstorm, mind dump, whatever you want to call it. Then I go back and rewrite. And rewrite. And rewrite.

Did I mention rewriting? Tons of it. I actually find the rewriting process more enjoyable than the initial writing process. It's like I have the clay in front of me and now I can mold it. In my experience, the writing and rewriting processes are different for everyone. I have a few friends who find the "emptying of the imagination," that opening salvo in the proverbial war against the page, to be the be-all and end-all. It is definitely exhilarating. You have the idea. (I've learned over the years not to trust my memory, so I write this stuff down at the oddest of times - honey, would you put away that notebook, the concert is about to start.) You let the idea germinate. You play around with the idea. You even talk about it with a close friend, just to make sure you're not going nuts or anything. Then you start formulating a structure. Sorry, I need to get some sort of structure in place. The only writer I know of who just leaps onto the page without knowing where he's going and has any success is Stephen King. And let's face it, there aren't many of him around. Anyway, once I have a structure in place I start dropping the pieces into it, moving them around, finding the good fit and flow. And then I start writing.

And if you're anything like me, once you get going, you don't want to stop.
So, I'll stop here. See you next time!