Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 741

Uncles can apparently sell books, too.

Not to be outdone by my mother-in-law…

My Uncle Bob recently sent me some copies of SOMETHING MISSING to sign and return to him so that he could give them out as gifts.  He also provided me with a FedEx shipping label to cover the cost of their return, and I assumed that his address and other information was contained within the barcode.  It was not, and so the package went out without an address.

Fortunately, the FedEx label did contain the name and contact information of the purchaser, so t

The best of all booksellers

I have some amazing people working to promote my book: my agent, my editor, my publicist, and all of the booksellers working for my publisher and staffing fine bookstores everywhere.   

But sometimes I wonder if my mother-in-law might not be the best of the bunch.  I received this email today:

So I went into Posner's Bookstore at Grand Central Station and asked why the book was not on the front table of the store. The man looked it up and discovered that they had one copy.

"So where is it?"

In the wild

Yesterday my wife and I brought our daughter to the pediatrician for a quick checkup. As I walked through the waiting room, baby in tow, I noticed a woman sitting on the far side of the room, reading SOMETHING MISSING.

It was thrilling.  Someone was sitting there, reading my book.

Now it turns out that this woman is a friend, a former student-teacher, but I didn't realize this initially, as her head was buried deep within the pages. Even so, I was pretty excited.

My first SOMETHING MISSING

Republican or Democrat, its bad, bad writing

I have no intention of becoming political on this blog, but just in terms of writing, did you see or hear Sarah Palin's farewell speech from yesterday?  In terms of the writing, which is what I typically deal with here, take a look at these two paragraphs, the second and third from her ten minute address:

And getting up here I say it is the best road trip in America soaring through nature's finest show. Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun. And then the extremes. In the winter

How my writing was interrupted today

A local lawn company sent a solicitor to my door today.

TruGreen man:  Hello, I was treating your neighbors lawn today and was wondering if you might be interested in our lawn care service.

Me:  No, thank you.  We're all set.

TruGreen man:  Are you sure?

Me: Yes.

TruGreen man:  Can I ask what you're currently doing for the lawn to keep it healthy?

Me:  Keeping TruGreen employees off it.  Now leave.  

It should also be noted that TruGreen ChemLawn dropped the second half of its name abou

Another review

Writer and teacher Jim Cullen recently reviewed SOMETHING MISSING for his blog and was kind enough to contact me and let me know that he had done so.  While I'm admittedly biased (especially considering the review is quite favorable), I found his comments about the book to be extremely insightful.  And it's always an honor when someone takes the time to read and write about your book.   

I've also been asked by a couple readers if there have been any negative reviews that I have avoided postin

SOMETHING MISSING miscellany

The Hartford Courant reprinted last week's front page article about SOMETHING MISSING in their i-Town magazine in the Sunday paper today.  The article also appeared on the Chicago Tribune's website. 

I also found out that Bunch of Grapes, the independent bookstore on Martha's Vineyard, has chosen SOMETHING MISSING as one of their staff picks.  very exciting.   

Since the book first appeared in stores a little more than a week ago and the article was published in the Courant last Sunday, I've

Proposed deletions from the canon

The Second Pass, an online publication devoted to reviews, essays, and blog posts about books new and old, recently proposed ten novels that should be removed from the canon. Of the ten, I have read five of them.

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, which I enjoyed but agree that it should not be included in the canon. I've read many other post-apocalyptic novels at least on par with The Road.

One the Road, by Jack Kerouac. I've read this book twice, in two different decades, and I have yet to grasp

First sentences, now with ultraviolent zombie mayhem!

Back in March, I wrote about the first sentences in books.  I'm expanding on that post a bit here as the topic has recently been tickling my brain cells again:

I like the first sentence of THE CHICKEN SHACK, the book I'm currently writing, a lot. 

They tried not to receive corpses on the same day as chicken, but since it was impossible to predict when a logger might fall from his bucket truck and break his neck, the two deliveries occasionally coincided.

I like to think that it works becaus

Tool of the trade

Since I spend a good portion of my day on a keyboard, its design is important to me, and especially important is the specific placement of the keys. I have five laptops in my home right now, three that I no longer use because the hard drive is too small, the screen is cracked, or some other issue, one Mac Book Pro that I use only for video editing, and my current machine, a Dell Studio XPS.

All of these machines have served me well and have offered me a variety of excellent features, but for me