From the category archives:

Ye Olde Writing Life

Too pooped out to party

October 21, 2009

I’m happy to report (as I should have done sooner) that my surgery a couple of weeks ago went well, with no surprises, dramas, or complications. Discomfort has been more of a problem than pain, but the biggest issue has been an inability to get a decent night’s sleep—which over a couple of nights wouldn’t [...]

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Diagnosis: Your writing has a tumor

October 5, 2009

A swollen, unnecessary mass of words has invaded your otherwise healthy body of text.
It’s subtle. It’s small. You might not even feel it. But it’s there, and it has to go.
“But it’s not cancerous,” you say. “It’s benign.”
Cancerous prose is so much easier, isn’t it? Easy to spot, easy to remove, no doubts or rationalizations: [...]

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10,000 words, 65 writers, 1 exquisite corpse

September 29, 2009

(What’s an exquisite corpse?)
Sixty-four raging renegades and I will be pulling together to write a story over the next few weeks to be published in No Colony and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Maybe. Who knows. The whole thing could go down in a blaze of bullets and grey smoke.
No matter: for $10 and 150 [...]

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Strange Things Happen: The Green Flag

September 29, 2009

Today is my eighth wedding anniversary. (Hi, honey.)
Today is also the official U.S. release of Stewart Copeland’s Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies. (Hi, Mr. Copeland.)
Which means that today is also the official U.S. in-print debut of the Green Flag. (Hi, Flag.)
I’ve known this day would come for months. I’ve had evidence [...]

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New article at PopMatters: “My Love-Hate Relationship with River Phoenix”

September 22, 2009

Have to run out the door for much of the day, but I’m excited to share my new byline over at PopMatters (despite my inelegant cropping):

Please feel welcome to leave a comment over there. Comments good.

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“You lie!”: Why lying in nonfiction is a bad thing

September 14, 2009

How many times do you fudge the truth in a week? To the spouse, to the kids, to the boss, to the dog.
I called them yesterday.
Don’t worry: no one will notice.
Love your new hair.
I’ll be done soon.
It was this big.
When is the true answer to “how are you” ever actually “fine”?
Try getting through just one [...]

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Housekeeping, in bullet points

August 26, 2009

A few stray bullets:

I’m going to be published in an anthology of food haiku. And no, I can’t believe any of that sentence either.

The essay that I submitted to an online pop culture magazine that I felt was a Fail was deemed a Win by the editor; it is scheduled to be published in September.

At present [...]

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