Confession time

 I have a confession.

Two actually.

Let's deal with the second, smaller one first. For those who know me, this hardly qualifies as a confession -- some might say it's been painfully evident for years.

I'm not all that tech-savvy.

It's been a tad more than six weeks since my last blog posting, and it's entirely because I thought I had lost access to my blog. I logged on one day, went to the dashboard, and my blog -- at least this one, my Dark Scribblings, was not there. I could see the blog on the front end, like you do, as a reader, but when I went to the dashboard, it wasn't there. A few older blogs I haven't used in years were there, but no Dark Scribblings. 

I poked around, closed it out and re-opened, tried to look up trouble-shooting guidelines, but nothing. For two or three weeks I tried multiple times, to no avail.

This past weekend I made one more attempt, with the idea I'd just have to scrap Dark Scribblings and start an entirely new blog, and it still didn't work. Then I clicked on my profile, then clicked on my picture and voila! I was in.

It's still not right -- when I go to the dashboard like I should there's no option to open the back end of my blog, but at least for now this double-clicking of other links seem to work. So for now, I'll keep blogging.

Now for my main confession.

I'm not a very good reader.

Well, that's not entirely accurate. Let's say I'm a lazy reader.

No, that's not right, either. Maybe we can just say I've not been a diligent reader.

Two of the main tenets of being a writer are to write a lot (as in every day), and to read even more. Read voraciously -- in the genre you're writing, in other genres, non-genre fiction, even non-fiction work, just anything you can get your hands on.

I was once that voracious reader. All during my childhood years, well, at least since third grade, I loved reading. I'd always get the maximum number of books allowed on weekly trips to the school library. I thought the public library was the most magical place on Earth. I'd read novels, non-fiction, short stories, magazines (Reader's Digest was a particular favorite in our household), cereal boxes, clothing tags, anything I could get my hands on. 

My reading appetite continued well into adulthood. I remember once, and I guess it's safe to say this now, 30 years after the fact, but I once called out of work "sick" because I was so engrossed in reading a novel.

Well, okay, maybe twice.

In recent years it's been a struggle to read at night, or in the morning. Or most any time.

I suppose a little context might be in order. I'm a daily newspaper editor, in a world of shrinking newsroom staffs and higher demands on newsrooms. I edit, revise, and rewrite somewhere between 10 and 30 articles and press releases a day. Sometimes more. I peruse wire stories, look over work from other editors in the company, read other papers and make my way through close to 100 emails a day (that doesn't count the ones I trash on sight or after glancing over the first couple of lines). 

Some days, the word count of all my reading might equal close to half a novel's worth of words, not to mention the time I spend editing and rewriting.

When I come home most nights the last thing I want to do is read.

I don't mean to suggest I've totally sworn off of reading fiction. Over the past eight months or so I've reread a couple of old Robert B. Parker mysteries, read THE LOOK-A-LIKE by Erica Spindler (an enjoyable murder mystery), devoured THE HOLLOW KIND by Andy Davidson (one of the better horror novels I've read in a long time), made my way through Eric LaRocca's novella and short story collection THINGS HAVE ONLY GOTTEN WORSE SINCE WE LAST SPOKE, and I just finished the paranormal romance DO YOUR WORST by Rosie Danan, which was a fun read.

But that's only a half-dozen novels or novel-length works in eight months. My wife, who might be accurately described as the MAD READER, can devour nearly that many in a week, while holding a full-time teaching position.

Truth is, I miss reading a lot. There's nothing quite like getting wrapped up in a good story, losing a half-hour (or more) of sleep simply because you can't put down the book, or pausing just to think "wow" and then going back to reread a page because the writing is so sterling.

Not to mention I should be reading more to sharpen my writing skills.

So here's my plan -- starting this week, I'm going to  spend at least 30 minutes a day, at least five days a week, reading from a novel or short story collection. For now it doesn't matter much about genre, just so I'm doing the work. 

My first selection will be the one pictured a little higher in this blog -- the anthology DEATHREALM SPIRITS. I bought this last October, when it was first published, because I loved the old Deathrealm magazine. It w as quite possibly my favorite, or at least among my two favorite, magazines from back in the day.

Yet it's set on my desk since last autumn, cracked only long enough for me to read the introduction by editor extraordinaire Stephen Mark Rainey, and to look over a most promising table of comments. 

Tonight, that ends, and I'll be diving in to the first tale of the collection, GHOST IN THE CELLS by Joe R. Lansdale.

I'll keep you all posted on how the reading goes. For now, thanks for stopping by!

Like a slow, lumbering vampire rising from a damp, moldy grave...I'm back!

For those of you who have been anxiously awaiting my return, counting the days until my next blog, that day has finally arrived – just eight years, 11 months and five days since my last posting.

No, I haven't struck it rich, written a series of best-sellers and gone off to some secret mountain hideaway. I've just been muddling along – working, getting older, getting fatter, and every once in a great while still reading and writing a bit.

Let me qualify that. I'm still editor of a small daily (well, we're supposed to call it a daily, with three print days a week and two additional e-editions each week, down from the heady days of big print editions 7 days a week), and I'm editor of a now-quarterly magazine (devoted to all things Mayberry!). So I get plenty of writing done as a journalist, and more than my share of reading with editing articles, reading wire copy, proofing pages, writing headlines, etc.

But I suppose the demands of life, along with a lack of focus on my part, has resulted in me drifting away from what I always really wanted – to write fiction. I've continued writing over these past 9 or so years – more than 400 short stories and novellas and even four full-length novels, none under my own name or my chosen pen names. They are essentially ghost-written contract pieces. They make some decent side money for the amount of time and effort, so I've done that periodically over the years.

But the real writing I always aspired to? The horror, the suspense and crime thrillers and the spooky children's tales?

They kind of fell by the wayside. But I always intended to get back to them – next week, next month, maybe next year. Some day.

In recent months various events have reminded me that time just keeps marching along, and it's far too easy to let the things one really wants to do get shoved aside for the things that have to be done, or that are easier to do. Then, suddenly, you wake up one day and it's too late – you've missed your chance, or you're no longer able to do what you've always wanted. Some day never came.

No, that hasn't yet happened to me, but I've seen it far too often over the past year – people felled by illness or accident, people no longer able to do what they love (or in the worst cases, no longer with us at all).

So a few weeks ago I decided it was now or never – time to get back to doing what I love (even if there are times I hate it while in the midst of it – but isn't that the quandary of writing?)

Rather than just jump in and start trying to write short stories or novels again, I figured I'd go back and read a few novels I enjoyed, get back into enjoying fiction and, as a writer, seeing what works and what doesn't, how good writing and story telling is constructed.

So, the first thing I did was pick up a few novels by one of my all-time favorite writers, the late Robert B. Parker. If you don't recognize the name, perhaps you know his chief characters – he originated and wrote several dozen of the Spenser novels; originated and wrote the Jesse Stone novels (perhaps my favorite series), and he wrote a handful of Sunny Randall novels. The Randall novels are of particular interest to me, because I have the rough outline of a couple of thriller novels that feature a female lead/crime solver who is neither cop nor detective, so I figured I'd just jump in and read a few of those before writing.

I read through Family Honor and Perish Twice. Both are excellent books – I know Hemingway is known for his sparse, direct plot-driven works, but sometimes Parker makes Hemingway look almost verbose, even Dickensonian, by comparison. I don't know that I've read a writer who can tell and show more, who can convey more emotions and actions, with so few words as Parker. His works make for quick, enjoyable reads, as well as a great study in story telling.

While I was reading these two novels, I also began listening to interviews with writers, watching Vlogs and listening to podcasts. The world of publishing has changed dramatically over the past decade (and just for the record, I'm pursuing traditionally published success at present, not self-publishing).

Heck, it's an entirely new world since I was actively writing and trying to get my work published, so I figured I could spend my daily commute learning from podcasts rather than listening to music. One of those is a podcast and Youtube video series from Alexa Donne. She has a ton of videos about writing and the writing life. Most are, unfortunately three or more years old, but she is updating the series every once in a great while.

One thing she said that was so startlingly simple yet was something I had not considered was this: If you want to publish in a given genre, read what is hot right now. Read the top selling books.

Duh. She is absolutely right, yet I was still caught up in reading older books, with characters and settings I was more familiar with. So I have now set off on a quest to read modern thrillers, horror, and supernatural fiction.

I'll keep you all posted on my progress, on my modern reading selection as well as posting updates on my writing. I may even be asking for a bit of help, asking for test readers for some of my upcoming fiction.

My first two sojourns into reading more modern top-selling work was The Look Alike by Erica Spindler and The Hollow Kind by Andy Davidson. And let me tell you...well, let me tell you about those in my next blog!

For now, thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll have much more to share with you in coming weeks and months about my own writing.