"A mind is a terrible thing to waste."I received word this week that one of the anthologies to which I had submitted a short story had been canceled, and that made me think of the United Negro College Fund commercial from the 70s which ended with the...

--because of a glitch with my email sender many of you did not get this email on the second when it was sent. The correction is still in the works, but a temporary fix is letting me send this email to you a littler latter than usual. My apologies if...

The subject line was taken from the next paragraph of our collaborative story. I'll get to that in a bit.This week I was smitten with the plague--the flu, most likely. That's why this letter is a day late. I was not in a condition to write it yesterd...

The subject line was taken from the chosen submission for the second paragraph of our collaborative story.Here is the link to our collaborative story, showing two paragraphs so far.The submissions for the proposed 2nd paragraph were fabulous, and I e...

Give me your best proposed second paragraph to follow this first paragraph below for a short story:The clouds in the summer sky burned in the red-orange rage of a dispossessed sun crashing below the horizon. The dark hills--recumbent silhouette--shie...

I attended the Writers Cantina in Utah last week. If you're interested in a hasty report of that experience, you can read about that here.One of the sessions at the cantina dealt with tropes. What are your favorite tropes to read? What tropes turn up...

In celebration of the 4th of July (which is a big deal to some folks in the United States) I'm throwing the tea into the harbor and declaring a huge discount on 2 great books in the Tomahawks and Dragon Fire series -- Books 3 and 4:Clamorous Harbinge...

There are chains that lift us and chains that bind us. The fault lies not in the chains but in how we employ them. We forge the links ourselves and determine their use. I suppose some chains also drive, propel, or hurtle us. The chain I have on my mi...

I finally changed the spark plug in the F650GS. I've had the plug for a couple years or more, but I've been afraid of doing the job. That sounds silly, but I had read the experiences and watched the videos of others who had done it. The task seemed d...

I finally changed the spark plug in the F650GS. I've had the plug for a couple years or more, but I've been afraid of doing the job. That sounds silly, but I had read the experiences and watched the videos of others who had done it. The task seemed d...