My Blog

Someone who recently read my still unpublished novel Beyond Bethlehem asked me how I did this – actually write a whole novel? My answer was there is only one way to write a novel and that’s to sit down and start writing. It won’t happen until then. My novel started with a turkey hunt gone good. I had played with the idea of writing a novel for years, making occasional notes, scribbling down ideas, and daydreaming various scenes. But I never quite got around to taking that al

When I shared a short story with my writers’ group, one of the comments I received was a compliment on the names of the two characters—writer Adrian Hackett and literary agent Fredrick Thurston. One member told me the names sounded “real life” and he was right, they were taken from real life in a way. Adrian was the first name of the father of my boyhood friend, who drove a Kaiser sedan he was quite proud of. The last name Hackett came from my Great-great Grandfather’s Civil

“Over and out:” someone coined this alleged radio communication phrase back in the early days of moviemaking and it’s been with us ever since. It’s not what people say over the radio, though. It’s one or the other—over or out—putting the two together doesn’t make sense. “Over” means you’re done speaking and you’re inviting the other person to talk. “Out” means you’re all done talking and you’re terminating the conversation. Radio communication buffs cringe when they hear this