Craig Terlson's Blog, page 11
November 26, 2012
The Risky Review
All authors want to be reviewed - if only by their friends, family, other writers, or their cat. My cat thinks I'm great - yet her views are more based on food in the dish and a lap to fold into. Scratches behind her ears get extra stars.
But when you throw your work into the publishing ring (self-pub or otherwise), you will start to get reviews from people you don't know. Sure, whenever you ask your friends and family to review your work, you tell them, "now, be honest." - well... shocker......
November 23, 2012
Bent Highway: Chapter Nineteen
Living Room
Door chimes morphed into Kraftwerk-esque electronica, underpinned by a pulsing bass and a stick hitting the edge of a snare. Figures walked out of the glowing walls, in perfect time with the music. Two, maybe three dozen, all males, all different ages. A few of them looked similar to my grunge wearing guide. No, they didn’t look similar - they were exact replicas. I scanned the room - a group of kids with short haircuts, more teens next to them, and then a group of twenty-year olds...
November 16, 2012
Bent Highway: Chapter Eighteen
Hole
“Hang on.”
“To what?” I yelled.
“Everything.”
A couple of seconds ago I had dived into Walt’s sedan - a wide black hellhole opened up behind us.
Walt gunned it and I finally knew what those fighter pilots meant when they were always going on about G-force. It was if some evil aunt had taken both cheeks and smooshed them hard enough to pop out my eyeballs. A roar of wind came from the pit.
“What the hell is it?” I yelled louder.
Chalk Girl was pressed hard against the back seat. She mouthed the...
November 12, 2012
Write Like Your Hair is On Fire
... and only words can put it out.
I can't recall where I first came across that quote about writing - but right away, I loved it.
It refers more to getting first drafts down in this explosive and energetic fashion, always moving forward - rather than the slower, brain-stretching activity of editing a story into shape. The editing I am referring to is not copy-editing, making sure you kill unneeded gerunds (adverbs almost always die on sight) or when I have forgotten, again, to put the apostrop...
November 9, 2012
Bent Highway: Chapter Seventeen
Line
Every damn scientist, theologian, mathematician, and super-funked out guru since forever ago has been trying to figure out time. Is it a line, a circle, an inverted cone, or a can of silly string? I’ve seen it every which way these past days, hours, moments. For the most part, one thing follows another - or at least that is how my brain tries to make sense of it. For instance, when the bad-ass I know as Harold got out of his car, he walked with purpose to the Charger, where I sat with the...
November 2, 2012
Bent Highway: Chapter Sixteen
8-Track
The inside of the Charger vibrated with the bass beat of a honky-tonk old-timey western band blaring over the 8-track, jammed with two match covers to help the warbly sound - and I mean it made the ancient bleached tape warble even more. The boys in the back nodded in time, the ends of their cigarettes dangles in perfect beat, somehow the ashes didn’t drop. I started to say something to Mr. Nascar, who was holding it at a steady 83 mph, but was silenced by him reaching over to turn up...
October 26, 2012
Bent Highway: Chapter Fifteen
Milk
Walt looked even bigger than his usual gigantic self. Maybe it was how he was tucked in behind the corner table in one of the darkest bars I’ve been in – and that’s saying something. I expected to see a line of shot glasses splitting the table, so the tall glasses of white liquid threw me.
“Milk? Are you kidding?”
“Drink up. Good for your bones.” Walt drained the last of his glass, leaving a mustache that made him look more regal than silly.
“I thought the whole reason—”
Walt slid the glass i...
October 24, 2012
Crucial Conversations
Tangential to what I usually write about in this blog, but I wanted to mention this book. I have been leading a class in the art of Crucial Conversations (I say, art, because I have some to see it that way). About a year ago my wife told me about the book Crucial Conversations, subtitled: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High.
Now you gotta know that any book that even smells of self-help improvement profundity makes me run for the hills (or gag, as the case may be.) But hey, I love my wi...
October 19, 2012
Bent Highway: Chapter Fourteen
Screech
“Well, look who woke up.” Harold jammed his hands into the Levis and rocked back on a pair of black boots that would have given Uncle Lester a hard-on. “That genetic mutation hyper-thyroid man give you some memory pills or what?”
“Who are you?”
“Hey, you’re the one that recognized me, Rumpelstiltskin.”
“But who are you?”
“You’re old buddy Harold, you remember. Drinking colds ones on the porch, watching the ladies go by, shooting the shit.”
“I don’t know you.”
“Well make up your fucking mind,...
October 16, 2012
Promo redux - How it went.
Off the top I have to admit my fondness for the word redux - I dunno, it's just so European or something.
Now, if you popped by the blog, or follow me on twitter (or even live near me, or work with me, or, you get the picture) you know I had Correction Line on it's final promo event this weekend. I say final because the promotion achieved what I want - to gain some more readers for the book. Some sales have been trickling in, a definite bump, but nothing majorly substantial. Still, I am very p...
