Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 717

Answers and coincidences

A while back, I wrote about running into a person reading SOMETHING MISSING my book at the gym and not knowing what to do. 

The post received quite a response on the blog and especially through Twitter and Facebook, and today someone brought me an answer.

Sort of. 

Blogger Simcha Lazarus found my post and sought out the opinions of several authors, one of which happened to be Jasper Fforde, a favorite writer of mine who I just happened to exchange emails with yesterday. 

An odd...

The Man

As you may know, I cannot stand needless ceremony.

In keeping with this belief, I have begun signing all credit card receipts with the words:

The Man

Since no one ever examines these signatures, I'm not sure why I'm even required to sign the damn things anymore? If I'm going to be forced into this meaningless task, I'm at least going to have some fun with it.

Doubting myself

I learned today that The Bookworm, my local, independent bookstore is going out of business. A year ago, Barnes and Noble moved into the neighborhood, and as expected, our indie didn't last long.

While I'm sad to see the bookshop go, the store didn't even have its own website and almost never hosted authors or any other meaningful events.  The store owners discouraged the browsing of magazines and refused to allow food or drink into the store, even though it is located in a town center full...

White snow, black swan

It looks like there is a good chance that I will be home tomorrow, enjoying our first snow day of the winter season.  Though my students will be turning their pajamas inside out and placing spoons under their pillows in hopes for a foot of snow, many of my friends and colleagues are hoping that this does not happen.  With a week of vacation just a few days away and the prospect of summer vacation beginning earlier in June than ever before, many don't want this extra day off and would rather...

Ten minutes at a time

"What the writer needs is an empty day ahead."  CATHERINE DRINKER BOWEN

I saw this quote in my Twitter feed recently and thought, "No, No! No!"

A couple weeks ago, I was in Vermont with a handful of other authors, speaking about our books and writing.  During the question-and-answer session, an audience  member asked about when we write.  Specifically, do we write on a regular schedule, or do we write in bursts of creativity?  It's a question commonly asked by readers, but it was the first...

Galleys arrived!

The galleys for UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO arrived today.  Though they undoubtedly contain errors, it's still thrilling to see the story that you made up in your head bound and nearly ready for sale. 

I wasn't the only one excited to see the galleys.  My little one loves books and seemed to like this one a lot.

Too bad I won't let her read it until she's at least eighteen years old.

Spare me the agony of your self-righteousness, please.

I have a birthday coming up this month.

In the spirit of giving, if your intention is to gossip about me behind my back to anyone if you give me a gift and I fail to reciprocate with a thank you note, then please DON'T GIVE ME A GIFT. 

Regardless of my reason for failing to reciprocate, I find the need for people to gossip about the social faux-pas of others to be eminently more disgusting and despicable than the faux-pas itself.  Even if I fully intend on sending you a thank you note...

Bestseller list

I've made the bestseller list for the first time in my career. 

No, not the Times or The Washington Post.  Not quite yet.   

The Seattle Mystery Bookshop's list of January 2010 Bestsellers.

SOMETHING MISSING is ranked sixth on their list of trade paperbacks, which is great news considering the book has been out for six months.  It seems to still have decent traction in the bookselling world. 

And one of my European readers emailed me earlier this week to let me know that SOMETHING...

Where to?

When the location of the light switch requires this much direction, you have to ask yourself what the electrician was thinking. 

And even more perplexing, who puts the furnace room next to the Toddler Room?

Searching for a new dream

I was reading Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker piece Dangerous Minds and came upon this paragraph dealing with how psychics can appear to be so accurate in so many of their statements:

The Jacques Statement, named for the character in 'As You Like It' who gives the Seven Ages of Man speech, tailors the prediction to the age of the subject. To someone in his late thirties or early forties, for example, the psychic says, "If you are honest about it, you often get to wondering what happened to...