A quick note...if you need an example of an evil character, I recommend the person in charge of the TV here in the waiting room filled with people waiting for their colonoscopy. After what they’ve been through over the past 24 hours, and now seeing the TV showing commercials for Steak and Shake milkshakes on [...]
Question: Your characters seem like real people. How do you create your characters? Are they based on real people? First, thanks for the question and comment, I'm glad to hear those folks feel to you, too. I don't think there is one secret to creating characters. If there is, no one has told me about [...]
I have always believed in the power of story. That's one of the reasons I've spent most of my life as a storyteller and now story-writer. I've been thinking more about that over the past few weeks as I have talked with friends about the holidays they are celebrating based on their faith stories. I [...]
I stumbled across another example of where the ideas come from for the stories I create, so I thought I would write a "Part 2" to yesterday's post answering that question asked by folks who still believe there is some super-secret source writers use. I'll just add that I read this morning that when Theodore [...]
I often get that question about where the ideas come from for the things I write. Well, I've got a great example of how it works right now! I am not responding to a question in this post, but want to share something I stumbled across today that I plan to spend a lot more [...]
Question: What is your favorite quote? "I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult." - E. B. White A short one for today. Hey, it's almost Friday. How are you going to change the world this weekend?
Question: I've always wanted to write a book, but when I go to a bookstore and see all of the books that are already out there, I just wonder how I could ever compete with all of those and give up. How do you get yourself to keep writing? I did a book signing in [...]
Question: Since you've been going out and doing things to promote your books, what has been the most interesting or memorable experience you have had doing that promotion? This one is easy, unfortunately. And, it gives a great example of just how dumb I can be sometimes when my mind is just focused on my [...]
Question: I see that you write children's books, suspense/thriller novels, and have written faith-based books and educational things as well. Are there other genres you would like to write in sometime? Before writing this I took a quick look at my "Big Writing List", the list I keep with all of the ideas I would [...]
Question: If you could have dinner with two authors (dead or alive), who would they be, and what would you hope to learn from them? My knee-jerk response to this question is to always think of James Thurber just because I really enjoy his stories. But, I understand that, personally, he wasn't always the nicest [...]
