by | August 31, 2011 · 12:07 am

Diamonds and Stones: a Metaphor for Life

This probably won’t be my most popular post.

Typically, I want to entertain you and make you laugh—or at least get a smile out of you.  Today I can’t do that.  Sometimes you get a string of unwelcome news you just can’t ignore and what’s on my mind is no laughing matter.

Sunday I was in a local watering hole called Hannover’s on Main Street in the small town of Pflugerville just outside of Austin.  Before you ask, yes; that’s the actual name of the street.  It’s called that because at one time it was the actual main street through town.  I suppose they should change the name to Side Street, but they don’t really cotton to change in Pflugerville. Continue reading →

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by | August 29, 2011 · 12:08 am

My Hiatus from Western Civilization

All I want to do is to sell a damned book.

I mean why does everything have to be so freaking complicated?  Seriously.  Some days everything feels as difficult to navigate as a marriage.  I spent three-and-a-half years writing a book in my “spare time”—as if I even have any of that.  OK, actually, I do.  I wrote it while I was drinking at various and sundry sports bars, but you get the idea.

I finished the book.  I researched how to get an agent.  I put together a book proposal.  I developed a promotional platform proposal.  I started following agent blogs.  And the pièce de résistance: I attended a writers’ conference that gave me the opportunity to pitch my book to literary agents. Continue reading →

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by | August 25, 2011 · 12:10 am

The Verdict

Long ago in a galaxy far, far away I began writing a book…

—a book, which if you ever read, will no-doubt inspire great laughter when you read the author’s assessment of it as “literature”.  Now to be clear, this literary Holy Grail is intended to, among other things, inspire laughter, but for reasons other than a convenient platform for mocking me.

I have a friend, who has been very supportive of me throughout the development of this book, suggesting at one point soon after its inception that she was addicted to the content.  She was so supportive, in fact, that after I completed it, she bought me a book about how to become published. Continue reading →

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Filed under Writerly Travails