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Blog / Articles / Reviews
- It’s in the Cards
- Really Lost (Trail of the Lost by Andrea Lankford)
- Targeted Chaos (The Chaos Machine by Max Fisher)
- Nothing More (All That Is by James Salter)
- Beautiful (Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano)
- Winning Wager (The Wager by David Grann)
- Silent Reader (The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides)
- Not Too Good Night (Good Night, Irene: by Luis Alberto Urrea)
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*Finding Your Fiction: Concise Steps To Writing Successful Fiction
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Tag Archives: Pushcart Prize
Why I Stopped Revising My First Novel
Over a 35-years span, Roobala Take Me Home was rewritten, revised, reworked, and partly re-imagined so many times that I’ve lost count. Despite my best efforts to stay current and true to my ever developing self, Roobala Take Me Home inevitably, like all novels, turned into a historical document. Even “historical” novels are rooted in the imagination of the writer looking back. A historian from 1980 looking back at 1900 has a different perspective than … Continue reading
Posted in Write
Tagged dreams, Ficiton Writing, First Novel, Jeffrey Penn May, Pushcart Prize, Where the River Splits, Writing Ficiton
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Untitled and Unpublished – Marketing Basement Manuscripts
While cleaning out the basement, I found an unpublished and untitled manuscript, read the first page, and instantaneously launched into revision. But then I stopped and flipped through the 300-plus pages. Did I really want to do this to myself? Again! Wasn’t it just a few months ago when I had exhausted myself revising my last ms, a 30-year effort, Roobala Take Me Home, which lays dormant (again) while I try to figure out what … Continue reading
At What Age
At what age do you prefer sleep to wakefulness, prefer the dream— climbing the clouds atop a faraway mountain— To the step by step slog legs too heavy to move air too thin to breathe the dream a painful reality. At what age does the body prefer the mind asleep? Share on Facebook
Confessions of a Failed Fiction Writer
As I was hiking along the Meramec River (St. Louis, Castlewood State Park), I mulled over a sort of memoir concept that I’ve been thinking about for over a year now. The only thing stopping me is that I know I will expend lots of time, energy, hard work, getting it as perfect as I can and it will go nowhere. That is the crux of the story. As I near 60 (I’ll be 58 … Continue reading
Are We All Great Writers?
Warning: I’m going to act as if I were younger and full of braggadocio like most of you young writers who boast about your voice, your muse, your “work” and fearlessly market like crazy because you are full of yourselves, as I was. What a handicap age and experience is beyond the obvious! It’s a cliché of course but as we age we increasingly understand that we know very little. While young, we understand, theoretically, … Continue reading
Finding Your Fiction: Concise Steps to Writing Successful Fiction — Character
Establish Characterization Reveal Character Change character for good or bad If you become enamored with your plot twists and turns, you risk creating characters “beyond belief.” Your character can be a Terminator or a talking Sunfish and still be believable if their actions make sense. If our meek sunfish suddenly acts like a shark only to serve a plot twist, then Mr. Sunfish is no longer believable. On the other hand, if Mr. Sunfish has … Continue reading
Finding Your Fiction: Concise Steps to Writing Successful Fiction — Plot
Note: “Finding Your Fiction: Concise Steps to Writing Successful Fiction” – blog posts derived from my popular “Finding Your Fiction” workshop in association with St. Louis Writers Workshop and St. Louis Writers Guild. Completed guide will be available as an ebook, likely on Smashwords. (Feedback, incisive or otherwise, welcome.) Section I Choosing plot over character is dangerous. Plot is presented here first mainly because it might be “easier” to comprehend. On the other hand, characters … Continue reading
Why This Blog?
Why am I writing a blog? Aside from the usual cynical self-centered reasons, a significant part of me wants to help you. (My “other careers” were devoted to helping others also.) For almost 40 years I have been trying to become a paid fiction writer, and I wrote my first short story when I was about ten. (I was the goofball who volunteered to recite poetry in my eighth grade class. Sound familiar?) Becoming a … Continue reading
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Tagged askwritefish, blogging, delusions, dreams, fly fishing, Jeff May, Jeffrey Penn May, Pushcart Prize, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Where the River Splits, writing
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