Category: novels
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A Writer’s Story, Abridged
From September 2009 to November 2021, I published eight books of fiction: five novels, a collection of poems/stories, and two screenplays. It was a productive time before and during those 12 years. In 1971, at age 22, upon graduating from college, I started writing my first novel. The working title was The Center’s Edge. During…
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3 Tips for Writing Novels
1) Ask yourself: Why am I writing this novel? To quote Robertson Davies: “There is absolutely no point in sitting down to write a book unless you feel that you must write that book, or else go mad, or die.” An extreme statement, but that is the passion I feel when I embark on writing…
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Triptych
God, Sex & Psychosis (GSP) presents many questions. Among them, this: How do we develop our sense of self – the perception of our internal image? Within the novel, the protagonists – Egon and Mira – are depicted as exceptionally handsome and beautiful, yet neither is fully described. We only receive glimpses of their physical…
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Identity Disorder
When criminal psychologist Mira Skyles is assigned by a court order to evaluate Egon Norwood, a person of interest in a serial murder investigation, she recognizes both a man with a dissociative identity disorder and the boy who once saved her life, with whom she shares a secret history. Dissociative identity disorder, also known as…
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Pandora
Excerpt from the novel Exploits of the Satyr “What about Pandora?” said Slater. Cy roared drunkenly, “What about the pretty damsel? I would have liked to have made her! Ha—I did! She was a gift from Zeus! To punish man for stealing his fire! He—” CyBorg9 hiccuped, then sputtered into silence. Slater expressed concern. “Cy,…
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The Wonderland Syndrome
The genre of heretofore, my latest novel, is magic realism. A literary style defined as 1) a combination of reality and fantasy, 2) the transformation of the commonplace and every day into the awesome and unreal, 3) a story of surprises, in which time and space are distorted, and 4) art depicting aesthetic subtleties and…
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En route to somewhere…
The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. Thereabouts. And through the predominately dark vacuum of space surrounding us, light travels 6 trillion miles in one year. A light-year. A unit of distance, and time. On average, our planet orbits the Sun at a speed of 67,000 mph. Our star circles the galaxy at…
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Zen and the Art of Literary Maintenance
Navigating through life as a writer you will, at times, feel crushed like roadkill on the superhighway. It’s unavoidable. My advice, when this happens, is to take a deep breath, chant the philosophical mumbo jumbo (i.e., the pabulum of gurus) “life is a journey…not a destination…life is a journey…” And voila! You magically rise above…
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AI… Therefore, I Think.
Our intelligence defines us. Right? It’s what distinguishes humans from other life forms. Our ability to create things: modifying fibers, furs and feathers for clothing to protect us from extreme temperatures (and, yes, to make fashion statements); redistributing fire to light and warm our dwellings during the sun’s cold shadow; harnessing energy to propel us…