I’m reading the entire manuscript aloud in my garage. This is my last chance to get it right before I send it back to my publisher on Sunday to leave it forever unchanged. Here is a little excerpt, a couple sentences, that I would like to share. This is the first night that Sanch is sleeping in his tent in Costa Rica, only two months … Continue reading An Excerpt from Native Moments
Native Moments is with the final editor. This is the stage I’ve been dreading. This means it is over. All the hard work I’ve put into this leads up to this moment. No more changes. My worst fear is opening the book for the first time and seeing a mistake. Or if I ever decide to read it again, thinking I should’ve had a different ending. … Continue reading Final Edits
On this day in 1962 an alright dude was born. I never met him, so I can only assume by his writing that he was an alright dude. But to write as he did, he had to be alright. Here is a great profile of David Foster Wallace written by Bill Katovsky published in McSweeney’s http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/david-foster-wallace-a-profile Continue reading Happy Birthday DFW
The world needs more Harry Crews fans. “You have to go to considerable trouble to live differently from the way the world wants you to live.” Continue reading You know what the world needs more of?
I finished the 150 pages of edit suggestions from editor #1. I agreed with about 99% of them. Amazing what I missed. I thought I knew every word of that manuscript. I left out words, misspelled words, misused words and had some jumbled sentences that she helped me clarify. On top of her suggestions, I had some really great and brutally honest feedback from a respected … Continue reading First Round of Edits are Finished.
Printed out over 100 pages of suggestions sent to me from my editor. Amazed by how many simple errors I had. An omitted word here or there, a single quotation mark instead of double, a few misspellings, etc. Having those extra set of eyes comb over your manuscript is imperative. If I were to ever self publish, I would definitely invest in an editor. Working … Continue reading Editing Native Moments
I’ve been doing a lot of starting and stopping when it comes to reading lately. Can’t seem to get fully invested into a book the last few weeks. A buddy of mine has been telling for a while now that I must read Stoner (New York Review Books Classics) by John Williams. It arrived in the mail yesterday. I skipped the introduction because I felt it … Continue reading Stoner, Preorder Contest and The End
You ever get stuck reading the Art of Fiction? Sometimes, I can’t enough. Even if I’ve read them before. Here is one I read today. John Gardner’s #73 from 1979. Enjoy. INTERVIEWER You have been called a “philosophical novelist.” What do you think of the label? GARDNER I’m not sure that being a philosophical novelist is better than being some other kind, but I guess … Continue reading Paris Review Interview with John Gardner
At some point, the satisfaction I felt from reading a well written story crossed over to wanting to be able to write a well written story. I wanted to learn the craft of storytelling to see if I could tell a compelling story, one that stuck with the readers after they finished it. I wrote a story that I thought would be fun to read. … Continue reading Overcoming self doubt and criticism
It’s a good feeling to see Native Moments rise in the ranks with the presale orders. Yesterday it climbed to #17 in the surfing category. Today is back down to #61. But it is staying at #2 so far on the Hottest New Releases list. Thank you to all who have already placed orders. Can’t wait until you actually get to read it. Eight months … Continue reading Amazon Rankings, BEA and Writing a Synopsis
Nic Schuck 