Musings from the basement...

Lost – On Locke and faith

WARNING: The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the television show Lost. If you have not caught up through season 5, do not read this. It will spoil your enjoyment of the show. Indulge me for a moment while I write about Lost, in my estimation one of television’s greatest dramas and something with which I am currently obsessed. Of all the overriding themes of Lost, one of the most powerful is that of faith. Or more accurately, the struggle between faith and reason. The belief in fate and external forces beyond our comprehension, and the disregard of those concepts in favor of accepting only that which we can see and touch. Representative of this is the sometimes overt, sometimes spiritual conflict between John Locke, a…
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Balancing enjoyment and WORK

I write because I love to write. But sometimes I write because it provides a check. I don’t apologize for that. We all need to eat. Still, taking assignments you don’t love can be a slog. You take a freelance assignment because it will make you a few extra bucks — always welcome in this economy — but if it saps all the joy out of being in front of the keyboard, is it worth it? I don’t have an answer to that. I still throw my all into each project, even if it bores me to tears. I always strive to do my best work. And hey, I must be doing something right or I wouldn’t get hired for this stuff, right? But let…
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Keep going, keep going, keep going

When it comes to writing, I obsess a lot about keeping productive. I do this because at heart I am a lazy, unmotivated person. People who see my list o’ projects might think otherwise, but believe me, if I could lounge around all day I would. That, and I am a horrible, horrible procrastinator. It’s not that I don’t love writing — I’m absolutely passionate about it — it’s that I’m allergic to work and obligation. I can jump into something with great vigor and tear through a project like it’s the only thing in the world, but once I decide it’s a Real Project and not a Fun Distraction it becomes work, and I don’t like to work. So needless to say, I struggle…
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My short fiction at Boston Literary Magazine

I penned a flash fiction piece last year called “Storms,” a brief war story about a man’s experience on the front lines of World War I. The story is now available at Boston Literary Magazine. Surf over here and give it a read. It’s short. Won’t take you but a few minutes to read. My thanks to editor Robin Stratton, who forced me to take a hard look at the story and pare it back to its most essential elements.

Check out this artwork while I relax

Been a bit busy lately with this, that, and the other thing, so I’ve had to set aside my little distraction of a blog for a while. Keeping up with family and work and writing projects and podcasts is a killer … and now that summer is here, well, a man needs his relaxing time in the backyard, damnit. What’s the sense of a backyard if you never use it? So while I continue to chug through my projects (now 10 chapters into my dystopian science fiction novel), have another preview of my upcoming comic anthology. Artist Rich Hannah adapted a short story I wrote called “The Last Shot”. This is a sneak peek. My part will be adapting my own story, rewriting it for…
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