Imade a lot of memories during my recent sojourn in Montana. I climbed a couple of mountains, had a couple of longish alpine hikes, enjoyed a few sunlit days on the shore of Flathead Lake. I also canoed a stretch of the Yellowstone River near Springdale, which is where I almost drowned. I’m not kidding. On August 31, I came pretty close to shuffling off to Buffalo. […]
Speaking of luck …
Today I’m writing from the Virginia home of my daughter Jessie, who writes the blog Rurally Screwed and who has emerged as a pretty good example of how one does the whole blog thing correctly. (Step 1: Make it about something, and update it every day, instead of just when you feel like it.) Jessie has also co-written the well-received cookbook Tart and Sweet and her humorous […]
The goodness that is ‘Breaking Bad’
OK, I won’t review the season four premiere of Breaking Bad, except to say that the writing is stronger than ever and those two memorable characters, Jessie and Walt, are becoming unforgettable. Looks like they’re in for a very tough ride in the weeks ahead. Note to Walt: Next time you see Gus Fring getting into a chemical suit, you might want to don one too. I’m […]
Farewell to the last of the cowboys
I never get too maudlin around Father’s Day. My own dad died when I was 9 years old and I have only a few memories of him. Mom later married a rancher named Glen P. Wood. We all knew him as him Pat. He died yesterday at the age of 88. I do have a lot of memories of Pat, so maybe this year I’ll make an […]
Where I’m writing from
I stayed up too late last night reading some stories by Raymond Carver. They’re so short you decide to go on to the next one, and then the next. Then it’s 2 a.m. and you realize that a person who is slightly prone to depression should probably not read so many of them in a single session. Not that they are all inherently depressing. “Cathedral,” for example, […]
It’s a thankless task
I'm rewriting my novel. Well, technically I’ve been rewriting it for about as long as I’ve been writing it, but this is different. The other day I dusted off the flash drive where I stored the entire reeking mess 18 months ago, and now I am going through it with a bad attitude and a hostile eye. Rewriting is different than writing. The writer is a naive […]
The blog about nothing much
A proper blog needs a theme, doesn’t it? I’ve been doing this one for about three and a half years now, and have yet to decide what it’s about. When I started out back in June of 2007, it was going to be all about crime writing. Then I realized there were a lot of other blogs doing the same thing and doing it better. So the […]
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