Today is my wife’s 60th birthday, and it’s quite possible she’ll kill me just for spreading that news. But since it is such a momentous occasion, I thought I’d dedicate today’s blog to her. Why I Hate My Wife I realize this sounds like a horrible title for a blog post, especially when I have […]
Dante and Luigi Have you ever been reading the book and you wondered why a particular character was in there? One of the most important things in writing is to make sure that each character has a purpose. You can’t just put characters in to fill space; they have to have a reason for being […]
Substance Abuse Addiction and substance abuse affect almost every family in the country. If you don’t have someone in your family afflicted, or a relative, chances are you know someone. Growing up I didn’t realize this. Back then it was the kind of thing that was kept hidden. That uncle who was so hilarious was […]
Life is Full of Surprises My mother wasn’t the smartest person in the world. Don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t stupid, she wasn’t even “not intelligent,” but she would never wow anyone with her fierce intelligence. She wasn’t the funniest person either. She had a sense of humor, but in our family her humor always […]
Wrongful Thoughts Have you ever had one of those thoughts where you judge somebody before you get to know them? Maybe because of their skin color, sexual persuasion, the way they dress or where they live—or their religion? On any given day you can search the news and find horrible stories of prejudice, hate crimes, […]
Why My Characters Drink Coffee I had a few readers write to me and ask why my characters drink so much coffee. The first email I got, I brushed off. Maybe they’re not a coffee drinker, I thought. But then I got another, and yet one more. At that point I was forced to give […]
Creating Characters to Die For I wanted to dedicate this post to Stephenie Meyer, the wonder-woman mom who kicked off an unbelievable surge in young-adult reading. In the process she sold a gazillion copies of her books to teenagers and women all over the world. Some guys too (hand raised). A lot has been written […]
My wife and I celebrated our 43rd anniversary yesterday. That’s what all the fireworks were about. Because of that, I didn’t have time for a long post, so I threw something together about marriage. What Makes a Marriage Work? Since I’ve started writing, a lot of people have asked questions about my background. Once […]
Early memories The other day I thought of a fond memory from back when I was ten years old. I was helping my Aunt Rose tend to her rose garden, and we were chatting about a lot of things, then, out of the blue, she said, “Life is like a rosebush, Jibbo.” (She always called […]
