Kurt R.A. Giambastiani's Blog, page 65

A Guilty Pleasure

You all know I’m a Browncoat and a fan of “Castle,” as well. I may have also mentioned that one of my guilty pleasures is reading the “Richard Castle Mysteries,” the series of novels ghost written under the Richard Castle nom de plume. I’m generally not a fan of mystery novels. I find them too […]

The Creativity Paradox

I was not your usual kid. I was a mass of contradictions. I would spend hours on something, working a task over and over until I got it right, but couldn’t be bothered with homework. I spent a great deal of time by myself, readingand imagining, but could also spend long afternoons and evenings playing […]

Sergeant Pepper

It’s been an interesting ten days…and while this isn’t strictly “writing-related,” give me a minute and I’lltry to wrap it back around to the topic. During the past week or so, while I was working on “Antelope Hunting with Sir John,” I was also going around looking at cars. Cars? you say. Yes. Cars. Remember […]

Antelope Hunting with Sir John — Conclusion

(…continued from Part 3…) At eleven o’clock, I retired for the night. At one o’clock I was tossing in frustration. By half-past two, I was in the kitchen, sitting at the little pinewood table, a large yellow-paged book before me. Tea water was heating in the kettle. John came in, complaining that among civilized folk, […]

Antelope Hunting with Sir John — Part 3

(…continued from Part 2…) Elin disappeared through the portal known as “early graduation.” That she had the credits was no surprise; it was a given, really. But her sudden departure struck hard and deep. There had been no hints, no warning signs. We said no good-byes and threw no farewell soirée. She was just there […]

Antelope Hunting with Sir John — Part 2

(…continued from Part 1…) You really haven’t heard from her? Alice’s disbelief was understandable. Our quartet was Elin, me, and our longtime friends Simon and Zander. The last time Alice saw us we were likely all heads down, noses in books, or playing pinochle across a picnic table in the quad. She would never have […]

Antelope Hunting with Sir John — Part 1

It was May, 1995, a rainy spring in Seattle, when Sir John Gielgud told me—all right, he wasn’t speaking to me personally, but I heard his words as if they were meant for me alone—that there is nothing so remarkable as friendship. For friends, we often do things with no expectation of return. He imparted […]

Two Early Results

Monday was a bit of crazy around our house, so we missed the two premieres we were waiting for. To be fair, we were going to miss one of them, anyway, since they were both on at 10PM and I was not staying up until midnite…not on a school night. But last night, we caught […]

A Bowl of Red

Something tells me that Americans have lost touch with what chili really is. Go down to the supermarket and you’ll find your choice of chili, chili con carne, and the mind-boggling “chili con carne with beans.” All of them are stultifying assaults to any palate and not worth the label of “chili.” Red–a hearty meat […]

Emily is GO for Launch

We are live. “The Revitalization of Emily” is live on Amazon, and available for Kindle readers and apps. Formatting went well, but there’s one new lesson I learned. Fonts that work well on the printed page are often too big for the Kindles. I had a couple of iterations before the headers worked properly. Overall, […]