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How Do You Overcome Resistance in Your Creative Life?
(This was originally written in 2022, but this is a perennial reminder that Resistance is always present and we need to keep it at bay.) Where has this book been all my writing life? Well, right in front of me, the entire time. I’ve known about Steven Pressfield for a good number of years. In fact, I have his blog feed in my Feedly app and I am a subscriber to his email. But in all that time, I had never sat down and read his most famous non-fiction book: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. I guess I just wasn’t ready for…
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A Maverick Pathologist (Mostly) Seeks the Truth: Harrow Season 1
I actually laughed when I watched the first fifteen minutes of the pilot episode of the Australian TV show, Harrow, that ran for three seasons from 2018 to 2021. I then chuckled at the last minute as well. Why? Because the script did exactly what a pilot is supposed to do: Introduce you to the character(s) and then hook you good enough to watch the next episode. Done and done. The Characters Daniel Harrow (Ioan Gruffudd) is a forensic pathologist based in Queensland. He is a maverick in the department, brilliant of course, lives on a boat, and always rankling the higher-ups and his more uptight peers. He always wants…
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When Reacher Did the Sherlock Holmes Thing, I Was Hooked
It took a pair of podcast hosts and Sherlock Holmes to finally get me to watch Season 1 of Reacher. By the time I finished the first episode, I wondered why it had taken so long. Setting the Hook Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin host the Fatman Beyond podcast and in the first episode of this year, Smith discusses Season 2 of Reacher. He was his usual ecstatic self when he loves something and that finally tipped the needle. Granted, when Bernardin mentioned it last year, that should have been been my cue to watch because Bernardin is one of the brightest guys I listen to, and his understanding of…
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Duane Swierczynski Talks Moving Backstory of New Novel in Return to Houston’s Murder by the Book
It’s been nine years since Philadelphia native Duane Swierczynski had a book signing at Houston’s Murder by the Book. In fact, as he told the folks who turned out last Friday night, this store was the site of his first book signing. What he appreciated, he told us, was how much the store had not changed. He, on the other hand, has. Swierczynski is the author of over a dozen novels, numerous short stories, and quite a few comics. He is married and is the father of two children. One, however, his daughter, Evelyn, was diagnosed with leukemia back in 2018. Swierczynski and his wife took turns spending the night…
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Lion and Lamb: The Book With the Wittiest Banter This Side of Nick and Nora
“They can catch a killer—if they don’t kill each other first.” That’s the tagline for LION & LAMB, the new novel by James Patterson and Duane Swierczynski, released just a couple of weeks ago and I downloaded the audiobook that very day. Yet I had to finish another book before I pushed play on Lion & Lamb, but as soon as it started, I wondered why it took me so long. Okay, fine, it was only a week. Quarterback Archie Hughes of the Philadelphia Eagles is a week away from starting in the NFC Championship Game, the last step before the Super Bowl. And he’s found dead in his car.…
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When a Show is Cancelled, You Get to Write the Rest of the Story
Well, that sucks. Whenever my wife and I start watching an older show on streaming, I don’t look the show up on the internet. I don’t want to be spoiled about things the world already knows. For example, when I started watching “Brothers and Sisters,” my wife did look up the show and discovered Rob Lowe departed the series before its end. I just like to keep the watching as pure as possible. Which can make for a great viewing experience. It can also lead to heartbreak. We recently watched the Hulu series, “Reboot.” It follows the cast and crew of a fictional 1990s TV show that was cancelled and…
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Recharging the Excitement by Talking Shop About Writing
It is rare that we constantly sustain the excitement of what we do. We writers can love the writing process, but after, say, you hit 50,000 words, sometimes the work is more like work than magic. The same thing applies to the publishing side of things. When we’ve finished a manuscript, now comes the more mundane aspects of our jobs: editing, copy editing, proofing, cover design, and uploading files for publication and distribution. After you’ve done it enough times, it becomes routine. A little rote. You know you need to do it, but you might look forward to it the least. That is until you get to talk to someone…
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What Are You Going To Do With the 99 Days of Summer 2023?
Veteran writer Dean Wesley Smith dubs the summer months the Time of the Great Forgetting. It’s that point in the year when the good intentions of New Year’s Resolutions made in the depths of winter fall by the wayside in bright light of hot summer days when the pull to do just about anything other than writing draws writers away from their keyboards. It’s only in later summer and early fall when writers remember their annual goals and either charge full-stream ahead and barrel to the end of the year, desperately hoping to achieve their milestones, or just give up and do something else. He speaks the truth. But I’ve…
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Two-a-Day Writing Sessions to Speed Up Your Writing
For those of us with a day job that is not fiction writing, we have to choose to carve out time in our day to write our stories. But there’s never enough time, is there? Optimizing one’s time becomes crucial in our day-to-day writing experiences. You want to ensure you are making visible progress despite wanting more time to write and not having any. I’m pretty sure most of us know what a writing sprint is. You set a timer for any length of time and then you go, go, go and write until the timer sounds. Fifteen minutes is cited as a good number, and, depending on how fast…
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When You’re Down in the Dumps, Be Open to the World Helping You
Sometimes, creativity is hard, discouraging, and challenging. In every creative project, there is always a moment (or moments) when you question what you’re doing. It’s an inevitable part of the process. What do you do? Be open to the signs the world is sending you. By the way, I’m using “creative” here because this applies to any type of creative thing you do, whether it be writing, painting, composing, researching, or building something. The Challenge of the Tedious Work I experienced a couple of challenging days earlier this week. They were days in which I began to question why I do the writing stuff and all the surrounding things an…