15 June 2015

Writing effectively is like using artillery effectively.

"It is the same with strategy as with the siege of a fortress: Concentrate your fire against a single point, and once the wall is breached, all of the rest becomes worthless and the fortress is captured."

-- Napoleon Bonaparte

11 June 2015

Tricked by jelly beans.

What I hate is when I pick three black jelly beans out of the Jelly Belly jar in the mailroom, and the last one turns out to be coffee flavored. Gaah!

Happy rainy Thursday to you. And now, back to deadline work.

18 May 2015

Getting close to deadline.

Less than one month until deadline! On that day the book must be delivered to the publisher -- photos, stories, source notes, bibliography, glossary, front and back matter, and intros. ALL of it.

It's getting done, slowly but surely. I keep printing out finished stories to add to my stack o' manuscript, which is slowly growing into a complete draft. I've been marking it up a little as I go, but will save the lion's share of the work for when I get the WHOLE THING written. Which will be cutting it pretty close to deadline, admittedly. But this is not the time to panic about that.


Just cultivating a sense of slow and steady purpose -- and a lot of hard work. I'm trying to maintain that sense of urgency and I hope I don't get to where I burn myself out. I keep thinking of how good it will feel to have the last story printed and added to that stack. I can do it. It is going to get done.

And I have to remember that it will not be perfect. There will be a lot of dumb spots in there. It can't be helped. I can't let that paralyze me.

Just breathe. One of the writing bosses I worked with at Hamline told me, "Persevere." I think that's damned good advice.

15 May 2015


"I stepped out of Mississippi when I was ten years old
With a suit cut sharp as a razor and a heart made of gold
I had a guitar hanging just about waist high
And I'm gonna play this thing until the day I die."