What do you do when you start hating your job? When I first started my last job, I was excited. I loved it because I went out into the world and built relationships with people. I connected with them and talked about their goals and the pressures they faced. Then the job changed. The organization…
Should I Be A Writer? A Retrospective
I sit here at the ripe old age of 31 years. I've done fairly well in my career so far. I've been a regional manager who spearheaded an international business expansion. I've been a recruiter who helped secure federal contracts by recruiting people who speak rare languages. Yet, despite the breezy paychecks, I find myself…
The Train as Temple
It's been nearly two years since I've written anything here. And it took a long subway ride to get me to return. The extremely long hiatus was due in large part to the fact that I was focused on creating fiction. That is, I was directing all my creative energy to writing long tracts of…
The First-Person Novel: Why You Shouldn’t Write One
I've wondered about whether to use the first or the third person voice in my own novel, and I've come to conclude that I personally cannot stand to read most first-person novels. More often than not, they're a break from what John Gardener calls the fictive dream. You see, more often than not, you end…
Surviving The Workshop: Gauging Reactions
I recently had workshopped a piece that I had intended to be the ending chapter of the first arc in my novel. In it, the protagonist Mark ends up talking to a young fellow just a year or two younger than he is. The character's name is Giovanni, and he is largely a mouthpiece for…
