UNPUBLISHEDNOTDEAD!

A couple weeks ago a friend of mine told me that she was declaring bankruptcy. I didn’t think too much about this since I knew her finances were messy since her divorce, and just shrugged it off, but it was foreshadowing, I assure you. The other Read the rest of this entry »

During my stint at the writer’s conference, I learned a great many things about literary fiction. First off, these conferences, classes, and the like ARE the market for literary fiction. There is no other market, and trust me those kids at Powell Book store aren’t buying your quality novel, they’re hanging out drinking coffee and reading it there. I kept hearing over and over Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been a bit late on the podcast this week, but here’s a story I’ve been working on … thanks Kael

ABBY by Kael

I don’t remember ordering them, but they came in the mail today. A nondescript gray envelope, addressed to me, lying on my porch. It Read the rest of this entry »

You know I promised this would never be a political ranting blog, and I will continue that thread to my death (I’ll change my mind soon enough, trust me). You see I don’t blame this economic situation the country is in or the Democrats or the Republicans, I blame it on the people who have been screwing me since day one. I put the blame dead square on the fucking YUPPIES! Yeah if you read Generation X by Douglas Coupland (which you should, because it’s brilliant!), you’d know all about those dirty little pie hoarders. We know who you are Read the rest of this entry »

When I started to do this podcast / blog I sent out a couple emails to people just to let them know what I was doing, and mostly because I knew they would probably be interested in the content, being that they were writers as well (unpublished or not). A couple of the emails when out to people in my writers workshop group at Squaw Valley, and to be quite Read the rest of this entry »

Go ahead and leave one if you have one … comment that is. Next week a short story from another unpublished writer, and although I’m sending this laptop off to get a new and improved hard-drive next week, look for another podcast on wednesday. Kael

I (will) write a lot in this blog how important it is to get to know yourself, and who you are before fiction is a real thing, and not just something you make up. Last year I took a writing class online, for twenty weeks given by the Writer’s Workshop in NYC. My friend Wayne (I bring Wayne’s name up a lot, because he’s the guy who keeps telling me to write even when I Read the rest of this entry »

I tend to write stories that use names of people I know. Dana Thomas is an actual person, although she’s not a tall blond white guy, she’s a BEAUTIFUL (inside and out of course), not so tall African-American woman with whom I went to college with, and have kept in touch via email for the past … well I’m not going to give up either of our ages, but it’s been a while. We have a couple friends in common, and we’ve seen each other from time to time at weddings and what have you. When I wrote this story using her name, I didn’t think it was anything but a small tribute to a pretty cool person, but she later wrote me that she’s a lot like the Dana Thomas in the story, in that she gives to people so freely, and it often seems to go unappreciated. She had actually related to the character in the story … which was odd for me, and really cool. So besides writing the story using her name, I dedicate it to her as well.

I know this is old news, but I had Saturday Night Live in my TIVO, and being that it’s Sunday night, and there is shit on, I decided to watch it. The reason I bring this up at all is that I just wrote a rant about writing for art (and I hate to use the word love here, but you get the general idea) as opposed to writing for money. SNL just proved to me that there is a different aspect on which to write for … and that’s writing for some point; propaganda if you will. And even if you agree with SNL’s brand of opinion (which often times I do), it is what it is. Propaganda is writing Read the rest of this entry »

Rejection. Talk to any agent (or publisher), and they’ll tell you the easiest answer they can give is a no. It’s kind of a hard thing to swallow isn’t it? It was hard for me to hear, and when it was said to me, it was so completely matter of fact, that it was almost offensive in it’s cavalier. I used to write movie trailers (yeah really, someone Read the rest of this entry »