Weekly Tales: The Fish in the Bucket

I sat at a round table, a lovely white silken tablecloth draped over it, and on top of that, centered perfectly a glass lazy susan with a myriad of colorful dishes ranging from some strange purple yam to chicken feet to soft green plants that tasted strangely like licorice.  We had ordered some time ago,

Weekly Tales: 11 Year Olds Have Literal Minds

We walked across the graveled parking lot toward the car after a long benefit dinner for troop 214, my son Conner tagging along behind, his brown shirt untucked and hanging down all disheveled.  “Dad,” he said, his wheezy athsmatic voice like soft music.  “Do you think I could camp out in the woods by our

Weekly Tales: The Terra Cotta Warrior

I stood inside of a massive structure the size of four football fields laying side by side in a quad.  Crowds of Chinese people meandered about speaking Mandarin, and I leaned against the cool metal railing and looked down on a sea of terra cotta men. My eyes stared a line to the gaze of

Pulling Back on the Reigns

I’ve never really ridden in a horse drawn carriage much in life, (but if these gas prices keep going up I may soon do so) but I think of the horse drawn carriage as a perfect metaphor for my writing process. Think of the horse as the wild animal of my imagination, the carriage as the finished product,

Top 10 Cool Things About Scrivener

I know I’ve written a great deal about Scrivener on my blog, but really, it is one of the best programs for writers out there, and has the potential to help any writer boost their skills through organization, ease of use, and production to multiple formats. First, get the program here.  It costs $49, which

How To Use Scrivener to Format a Createspace PDF Interior for Publication

So you’ve written your masterpiece and you want to publish to Amazon Createspace because you just can’t stand another rejection notice and want to see it in print, or you want your friends to buy the book so you can have the satisfaction of becoming a published author.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with this,

First Person and Suspense

Probably one of the biggest hurdles I have had to jump writing my latest novel is point of view. I thought of writing it in first person but then if I were to put my hero in peril (and I will several times) the reader has the happy place of knowing that the hero is