What is it with people and their high horse?I have seen plenty of posts over the pas three or four days about the new movie "sensation." I don't think I need to say which movie because only one movie currently in theaters is gaining this kind of double edged attention.There are the fans of the book who are flocking in droves to see the movie. Some are so obsessed with the books and their, so-calle

As I read through the countless posts on a number of different writer-centric Facebook pages, I am amazed at the number of people who ask questions about how to write. Not technical questions and not plot questions, but "am I allowed to say" and then just fill in the blank.People, this is your story; your voice. You do not need the permission of anyone else to tell your story your way. That doesn'

Flaws. All but one in the history of the world have lived a life of flaws. There is none yet to escape life flawless. Well, at least not for the last two-thousand plus years.Yet, for some unknown reason, we as humans seem to revel in the flaws of others. Maybe we do this because it hides our own flaws. I mean, hell, no one wants to look in the mirror and see the asshole they have become. It is so

IS writing truly an art form. After all, the only thing we as writers do is put some words down on a piece of paper, or int he case of this, we put some little digibytes onto microchips that are then displayed as words. Rembrandt, Renoir, even Jackson Pollock, they were artists - and brilliant artists at that, they took an image in their head and spread it onto a canvas in a manner which no one el...

Once upon a time there was only a vision. I saw a future I could not know and slowly caught up to the picture in my mind. Moving through time in slow motion, it was suddenly ten years in the making.Time never stands still, but my memory is frozen in a moment. The picture I imagined was more clear and more beautiful than I could have hoped, and then it was gone in a flash. Was it me? Was it you? Or

Hardly.Just thinking today that it is an interesting world out there. Every once in a while, I wonder what it would be like to live in the heart of a big city. Sure, I drive through Portland every day on my way to work. Every once in a while, I even make it to a concert or pub downtown, but I pass through like an accidental tourist.I wonder what it would have been like to live in a city when i was

There was that famous line from Animal House that "fat, drunk and stupid' is no way to go through life. Well, let me tell you that ugly, poor and single might be worse. Yes, this is somewhat cynical, yes this is somewhat mean-spirited. After all, to write this, I have to refer to someone as ugly.Fear not all, the someone I refer to is none other than yours truly. Oh sure, I would love to pretend t

Today I saw a blurb about this book; with it's impending release into theaters this weekend (vomit), I read through the blurb out of curiosity. And, lo and behold, the story is set 9mostly) in Seattle. This irony struck a chord as my first novel, written last summer also happens to be set in Seattle. I found this ironic because my protagonist, while also happening to be an arrogant asshole, is dec

So, my next project is tentatively titled "All-American Linebacker"This is a story I came up with some time ago which I had originally thought of as something like "The Redemption of The Hammer" with "Hammer" being the nickname of the lead character. But I thought that a little too obscure in reference to what the book was about.Hammer is a linebacker; he goes through the trials and tribulations o

Is there ever a moment when a writer looks in the mirror completely content? Or is it some kind of pain, either real or imagined, which pushes us forward into the abyss of fiction? It is as if somehow, some way, we feel that our words will heal our soul, or maybe it is the other way around.This morning I wrote to another literary agent. I had originally intended on sending out the second novel to