Caravaggio | Caravaggio
May.19.2013
John Constable (above) Image below courtesy of Chris Ceaser
Imagine an English country lane, in an era before articulated transported, when to own a car is the privilege of a few and tractors are the size of an average 4 x 4. It doesn't matter where you are going, the venue isn't that...
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Jul.08.2011
Photo 1: Elmsgrove Cemetery, NH. Notice the doorknob on the upper left. And think: What if something were to suddenly peer at you from the hole?
Photo 2: Weeping willow, or tree, or fountain design. Cemetery in the middle of a gravel road in the...
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May.13.2011
Damn, I’ve done it again. Finished a novel, sent it to my publisher…Oh, dear. What’s next?
If I write that this is THE authorial dilemma, I’m sure I’ll get emails from writers who just can’t finish their book, or from readers who’d like to be writers telling me that I shouldn’t be complaining about...
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Apr.21.2011
In the Royal Navy, there’s only one kind of facial hair allowed. British Tars are either clean shaven or they sport a beard, known in the service as a “full set.” The antipathy to the mustache is no doubt because of its predominance among the rival landlubber officer class (although it could’ve...
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Apr.07.2011
I’ve written here in the past about how I use meditation techniques to get into the zone for writing every day. But now meditation seems to have helped me come up with the idea for my next novel.Last week I was in a rotten mood. My son woke up too early. I hadn’t slept well. The boy was whiny and...
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Dec.09.2010
There are many theories as to why Scandinavian crime writers prosper in the bestseller lists. But I know why it is. Ikea.
I just bought a new set of Ikea shelves for my office. I’ll get into exactly how that has altered the configuration of my workspace, but at this point let me just note that it...
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Nov.04.2010
One of the great pleasures of novel-writing is the research which, for almost every book, ought to bring the writer to investigate different areas of inquiry. To become a swift expert in something others might spend all their lives studying.That’s why I’ve taken up my sword.I’m working on a...
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Sep.01.2010
Writing of the disdain expressed for genre novels by critics, Raymond Chandler said that there were just as many bad “literary novels” of the type favored by critics as there were bad genre stories – except that the bad literary novels didn’t get published. In other words, there’s nothing inherent...
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Aug.13.2010
Rock musicians like to note that, had they not discovered their talents for destroying ear-drums, they’d have been criminals. It adds some edge to their pampered personae. Here’s my claim to edge: had I not been a writer, I’d have been locked up long ago, but not in a jail. At best I’d have been...
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Jul.22.2010
A book takes a long time to write, and then it takes a while to sell. And another while to sell in another country, and another after that. So a writer’s smile spreads across time.My long-term grin widened this weekend, when I signed with my UK publisher for my next two books. Not only because...
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