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The Last Chapter: Done! (Well, Drafted at least)
Finally! Chapter 44 of my compilation of Uncle Joe’s Stories just rolled out of my printer. That’s not to say the book is “done.” But it’s starting to be done. And if it never gets published, at least my children and grandchildren will have a big slice of family history (and entertainment) to pass along….
from writer to author
It wasn’t until I finished writing a book that I discovered the big challenge was not—as I had assumed—the planning, the research, and the writing. No. The biggest barrier to becoming a published author was finding a publisher. I had been getting paid for writing all my adult life. But always, the writing was on…
“There are a million stories out there.”
I always knew I was a writer. That I would spend my life writing. I started with the nonsensical curlicues that precede writing (and reading)–filling line after line in the kind of small bound notebook the could easily be had for a few pennies at “the Five and Ten.” By the time I was in…
I just sent away for another “Day-at-a-Glance” calendar. Don’t ask me why. I always start a new year with the best of intentions. I will keep a diary…of sorts. Why do I continue to entertain the delusion that I can…or should… or will…do this? Faithfully writing down what happened each day and my thoughts (which,…
Writing “The Battalion Artist” – What was Nat Thinking?
On June 21, 2012, Nat Bellantoni, age 91, told his daughter Nancy he wanted to write a book. “Well, you better hurry up!” Nancy said. Even now, even as he neared death, it was possible to joke with Nat. But he was serious. “I want a book about my paintings.” The eyes of father and…
Pry open the skull of anyone who has spent a lifetime writing for hire, as I have, and inside you’ll find an infinite jumble of half-written creative pieces that would look like “magnetic poetry” on steroids if they could be attached somehow to a gigantic cosmic refrigerator. A journal is one way to capture, contain,…
When my two daughters were young, I read to them every night. When they were very young they loved Richard Scarry’s Big Book of Nursery Tales. They each requested different stories on different nights. Over the years, my own favorite became the story of the Little Red Hen. I realized why, of course. The Little Red…