The Chronicles of Charlie: The Assassin Who’s Not Very Good At His Job
Dan | March 31, 2008
This is the first Monday of 2008 that I don’t have an inordinate number of things to do. I mean, I do have an article to write and some novel to work on, paper topics to outline, a meeting at six to prepare for and lunch to make, but none of that (meeting aside) [...]
Dan | March 26, 2008
That’s right, there are 833 posts on this site now. That’s a few.
Writing continues - I kind of need to rejigger the ending again, and introduce a character earlier in the story, and figure out what the main guy is really trying to do, and, and, and…
So yeah, that’s what I’ve been working [...]
Dan | March 20, 2008
Beware of any article that uses the words “my generation is…” because that means the author is about to make a massive generalization based upon his/her circumstances. This article came out in Newsweek, and here’s the premise:
Like many young professionals (I’m 36), I embraced the lessons of my seniors about hard work. Yet my [...]
Dan | March 18, 2008
This morning, Golden Gate Park:
Dozens of black-clad punks gathered on a hill, one patch-jacketed hippie.
A four-man multiracial tennis game, the server swearing in Chinese when the ball goes by.
Tai Chi at Stow Lake
A balding businessman in a black Miata, blasting “Everybody Dance Now” by C&C Music Factory.
Dan | March 13, 2008
I took a look at the American Book Review’s 100 Greatest Last Lines to Novels and…well, there are probably many better last lines to novels, if the lines themselves were to be read individually. This is really more like a list of last lines to books that critics, in general, think everyone else should [...]
Dan | March 6, 2008
Second draft = done. 291 pages, 1.5 spacing, 11 point font, including chapter breaks. Nineteen chapters plus an intro and an epilogue, if you’re counting.
And, I really wish that I had written it as well as the quotes from this John D. MacDonald archive. He could write, that man.
Dan | March 5, 2008
Lost in all of the hubbub about the American election is the little border problem that’s going on between Ecuador and Colombia, with Hugo Chavez’s predictable inflammation.
Unlike most people who pontificate on this kind of thing, I’ve actually spent some time in the are in question. The problem appears to be that somebody from FARC [...]
Dan | March 3, 2008
Honestly, I’m not. I haven’t been writing here because I’ve been writing everywhere else, where “everywhere else” means into a Word file on my battered Ibook. I’m 15 chapters (out of 22) into a chapter map and timeline for the Toilet Story (that’s what I’m calling it - this is a working title) and [...]
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