Updates! RSS

I recently read a note online from a friend who was given a book by an author who wanted her to give her some pre-publishing feedback. She noted that she was enjoying the read, but immediately found herself taken away from the story because despite the fact that the book was set in her backyard of central Florida, the author obviously had never been there or even taken a look at a map. Most readers might not have thought twice about this slight to central Florida geography, but for a local it can prove to be an affront to their...

Call it procrastination. Call it deviation…digression…distraction. No matter how driven a creative person is, there comes that time when there’s something else, anything else you’d rather do. It’s a strange phenomenon when you literally feel bad if you aren’t writing, but at the same time would rather do anything else in the world. And here I am, technically I am writing this post, but in reality I’m not working on my next piece. In a few minutes, I’ll tell myself it’s too late to work on it tonight, so I’ll just go watch TV in bed. What is one to...

James Mortimer Phillips is the main character in Shady Place. He just wants to be left alone and eventually die in peace. Since his wife passed, he’s been a solitary man, one who just wanted to wallow in self-pity in his suburban Philadelphia home, but his daughters wouldn’t have it. They forced him to move to Florida, to the 55+ community he and his wife had picked out several years before: Shady Place. Jim is a candidate for the class superlative of “Most Likely to Yell: Hey you kids, get off my lawn!” just before turning the hose on them....

I'll delve deeper into what exactly pickleball is in a future post, but I got an interesting email this afternoon. Daytona Beach is the future site of a 55 and better community with a Jimmy Buffett theme called Latitude Margaritaville, so of course I registered for updates. This will be the premiere 55+ community in the area exactly the kind of community Shady Place was modeled after. Wouldn't you know it, the developer, Minto, is holding the second annual US Open Pickleball Championships later this month in Naples, FL. In the novel Shady Place, the neighborhood actually plays host to...

On occasion I’ll be throwing up a few posts about why I chose to use specific elements in my writings and what significance they have to me. The first one I’m going to talk about is the poker scene in Shady Place. Don’t worry, no spoilers. The scene serves a few purposes in the overall plotting of the narrative, but the reason I chose to make the setting a poker game goes back to my youth and even my mother’s youth. She was taught at a very young age to play cards by her grandfather and in turn taught me...