
The story is about honesty. It’s about trust. It’s about redemption and finding strength within oneself, both physical and emotional. It’s about how people sometimes get sucked down into life’s wild and random undertow…and how some of them can still get up again even when they do. But most of all, the story is about love: the love that exists between friends who support each other and are willing to call one another on their shit; the love between family who are willing to protect each other even to the point of blindness; and – especially – the love that exists between lovers who are searching for someone to hold onto, both in the cold, clutching night and the warm, bright day.
I’ve written many stories over my life. Some of them were just for the fun, others were for the challenge, still others were because I wanted to make an impression. None of them have I enjoyed imagining and writing so much as this one, though. It might not end up being my most powerful, my most popular, or even my best work. But it’s been the most true, in its people and their feelings, their failures and their successes.
And that’s made it worth it.
Looking Back (Fearless)
It's been a rough start to the new year. Work has been busy, yes, and social media has become a larger part of my job. Between that and homework home life, some things just need to get pushed to the side. When life gets me down, I enjoy revisiting the stories that...
Nev, revisited
One of my recent Timehop memories was a #TBT / #ThrowBackThursday to my very first 100 Word Challenge for Grown-Ups, from February 2012. At the time, I was deeply entrenched in writing the first draft of "Fearless," which remains one of my hope-for novels. (It's...
Out of Decline
Earlier this week, I updated the main header image on this blog. The last image was a photo I'd taken a few years ago in La Jolla, and its setting sun scene was pretty, but, over time, I came to associate it too much with decline. Decline of readers, decline of...
I Really Did Love My Father
...but, for some reason, many of my characters have difficult relationships with their own fathers. It's the reverse of the Disney Princess situation, where it's the mothers who are missing (seriously: many Disney Princesses just seem to not have had mothers at all!)....
A little breathing room
September seems to be a popular birthday month. It must have something to do with cuddling together when it's cold outside during the traditional winter. I celebrated my birthday this past week, too. While I may not have been able to celebrate with everyone I would...
First Choices [includes yet another "Finding Mister Wright" free write]
Writing has a lot to do with first choices. We write from the tips of our fingers, trying to get down all the words running in our heads. When we sit back and take a read through what's on the paper or screen, we can start to second-guess those words. I've written...
My May writing recap
My “No Sex with Ax and Hal” 30-day writing challenge is officially finished! Only 1 or 2 people read most of it, but that’s okay. I accomplished what I set out to do, which was to write - and post - a complete vignette/chapter/scene every day for 30 days straight. (It...
January 2015 (writing) recap
I figured I'd better put something up here so folks haven't think I've died or otherwise slipped off the planet. While it may seem - from the non-existence of posts on this blog since the end of 2014 - that I haven't been doing any writing, I've actually been doing a...
Third Time Charmed
Today, I posted the final chapter of my sci-fi western romance, "From Hell: A Love Story." It's the third story I've finished this year, "Finding Mister Wright" and Fearless being the other two. I always get a rush of mixed feelings whenever I write the last words to...
That whispering in my ear….
I got a question about my writing the other day: Do you picture your characters in your head, do you hear their voices? Do they flesh out the more you entertain them and actually write about them? … Do you even start out with distinct picture of a character/situation...