Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
Here's an excerpt from the manuscript. It's from a story titled "Truck-Driving Tales." This is from the first "human readable" draft. It still has a long way to go. Comments welcome.. . . it was a scorcher, and I remember Mom was making lunch. For so...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
I started thinking this morning about the Sisyphusian role of the writer to push the burden of your work to the top of the hill only to have it come crashing back down. Then, at any number of given points during the writing process, you must pick it back...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
I'm the big one.Yes, that's KITT from Knight Rider. This picture is from the Prairie Capital Convention Center in Springfield, and I must have been about nine years old. My dad was really into hot rods back then, and we were at a car show. At the time...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
Did Lincoln Love Ann Rutledge or NotThis is a question that everyone interested in Lincoln has wondered about time and time again. I'd encourage anyone interested in Lincoln's early life to read this article and then read the rest of this post.Ann Rutle...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
As I mentioned a couple days ago, I've been working on trying to spin one of my stories out like a piece of hardboiled detective fiction. I've been reading some Dashiell Hammett and a few other hardboiled stories, but I don't have a lot of experience in ...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
I just discovered the blogs of Savas Beatie Publishing today, and I immediately stumbled into a blog post on selling books. The ideas described seem so simple, but you'd be amazed how many writers feel like getting a publisher to publish a book is the la...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
As a young boy, I spent a lot of time with Grandpa. We made trips to Springfield two or three times a week to go shopping. We went to little country cafes and diners for breakfast and lunch. We stopped in at Great Uncle Walter's or Jim's to "shoot the...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
Today was a rough day all around. I didn't get much sleep last night for a variety of reasons, so I was really tired all day. I was up around 3:30 AM, and I couldn't get back to sleep. I read some of Annie Dillard's The Writing Life and tried to get th...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
I've always loved stories that weave together two or three different narrative threads. To me, it gives a book depth to follow a couple of threads through and see how they come together. You can find this type of threading throughout literature. One bo...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
Here's an excerpt from Annie Dillard's wonderful book, The Writing Life:I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. During visiting hours, I enter its room with dread and sympathy for its many disorders. I hold its hand and ...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
"baseball. This sport, the boys of Oakford excelled in. For many years great teams were fielded at different diamonds around the outskirts of town. The first team was known as the Oakford Reindeers. Later, Reds, Merchants and Grays. For many years a salar...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
I used to take Bible School classes here, although I really can't imagine why. We weren't Methodist. We were barely Catholic. Mom and I, every 6 months or so would drive to Chandlerville for their speedy Saturday afternoon service . . . in and out in 2...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
Elizabeth Rose Murray, at her blog, Elizabeth Rose Murray: getting published poses the following question: "Is it just me or are all writers (artists) driven by a need for experience, understanding and change"Any comments I'm really interested to see w...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
Here's an excerpt from one of the stories in the manuscript. It's from a story titled "The Mad Scientist." The story describes a period in my childhood in which I became obsessed with time and timing things. I spent a lot of my childhood obsessed with ...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
I was just browsing creative nonfiction blogs, and I stumbled across a blog post about narrative arc at Brevity's Creative Nonfiction Blog. In it, Gary Presley describes his frustration with a memoir about polio that he has spent three years developing. ...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
This is the text from a pointer card that guests would find in their rooms when they stayed at Weaver's Hotel in Oakford. I thought it was kind of interesting. From roughly 1925. Transcribed:A Few Pointers!When you rent a room, you come to sleep,And n...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
Below, I'm posting a comment I left on the Kenyon Review blog in response to a post by Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky titled, "On Writing Badly." I agree with most of what Sergei says. As a writer, writing badly is one of the most difficult things to deal with...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
Yesterday, Aubrey and I spent the afternoon going through old family photographs. I'm going to scan the photographs for family archiving purposes, but I also think a lot of the images will work nicely here on the blog as I spin tales and sketches of my c...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
It's winter. Although it's still early upon us this year, its weight is already overwhelming, intolerable. The darkness that forces your spirit to crouch low inside of you. The wind that pricks your skin even through layers of coat and sweatshirt and un...
Posted by An Embarrassment of Riches 8 months ago.
As I collect quotes, I will store them here in this post. These, mostly, will come from the Quote of the Day link to the left.Writing is to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose dubious brightness fals...
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Springfield's public access station.
See Springfield before and afterwards. Rollover snapshots of what used to be Springfield.
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