Satire at Sunset

Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, April 18, 2020, 8:37 a.m. Back when I traveled most of the country, writing about race cars that went ’round and ’round and the mostly white men who drove them, my favorite device was not a shock absorber but its literary equivalent, satire. Once -- it was in Dover, Delaware, I …

Pick My Fiction Up on Your Way Down

Clinton, South Carolina, Tuesday, May 7, 2019, 12:23 p.m. It would probably be easier to write a song. A song can be quick and clever. A blog requires a bit more wisdom. It has to be more than clever. It’s not as complicated, but there’s more heft in its thoughts. Not that I’m an expert …

Words and Lyrics and Titles and Tunes

Clinton, South Carolina, Sunday, August 26, 2018, 2:42 p.m. I listened to a Johnny Cash song that had slipped my mind. “See Ruby Fall.” I feel I know exactly how Cash wrote it. He was in his tour bus, heading through the country, probably in the mountains of the Appalachian chain, and he saw an …

Torn between Tales

Clinton, South Carolina, Friday, September 8, 2017, 12:03 p.m. I’ve shaved nearly 10,000 words out of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which has become an on-again, off-again, long-term project. At the beginning of the year, I mostly set it aside to write two related auto-racing novels, Lightning in a Bottle and Life Gets Complicated, a sequel. …

It Is What It Is at the End of the Weekend

Clinton, South Carolina, Sunday, September 3, 2017, 3:34 p.m. I’ve drawn no conclusions from the past few days. They’ve been good experiences, I guess. Character building. Not altogether good. Not altogether bad. Clouds with silver linings still glistening. Greer clobbered Clinton, 41-0, in the local home opener. Chapman clobbered Laurens, 61-24, on its home field. …

Clinton and Laurens … and Life

Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, August 26, 2017, 10:58 a.m. There are those who believe I waste my talents tramping around small-town football stadiums writing about what I see. They are so wrong. Last night Laurens held off Clinton, 24-18. In a small tract of land known as Laurens County, named after a statesman from the …

Cowboys Cheap as French Fries

Clinton, South Carolina, Tuesday, August 1, 2017, 12:36 p.m. Hey, there. Hi, there. Ho, there. I wrote a western last fall. It’s not just any western. It’s a modern western, set at the end of World War II, when a couple Marines return home to Texas, looking for peace, love, and understanding even though they’d …

Different Except for the Same

Clinton, South Carolina, Friday, July 28, 2017, 11:01 a.m. As I have recently realized, my novels have some recurring incidences, and several incidents. Over the course of writing six novels and dozens of short stories, my protagonists have characteristics I applied to more than one. I didn’t really realize the extent until I started hyping …

The Annual Clash of Emotions about Daddy

Clinton, South Carolina, Sunday, June 18, 2017, 10:15 a.m. In a way, Father’s Day is empty. I’m not one, though a niece, nephews, a great-niece, and great-nephews pretend I am. This I appreciate. In another, it makes me ever more mindful of how I remain affected by my father, who died in 1993. Over the …

I’ve Still Got My Guitar and the Red Sox Going for Me

Clinton, South Carolina, Wednesday, May 17, 2017, 8:54 a.m. Middle of the week. Last night traded one kind of music for another. A trip to Charlotte to see my favorite band, Reckless Kelly, fell through, but I visited my nephew’s lovely children – held them, made faces, sound effects, tossed the older lightly in the …