What if? What if I had super powers, could fly, and bullets would bounce off of me? What if I solved crimes that stumped the police? What if I had a lavish expense account, stayed at the top hotels, had a lot of hot sex, and a license to kill? What if I was on a spaceship full of people who traveled faster than light and every week I encountered a new civilization and boldly went where no one had gone before?...
In 1961, author Irving Stone wrote a fictionalized biography of Michelangelo called The Agony and the Ecstasy. He was making the circuit to promote his book. He appeared on an afternoon talk show where he described his research into the life of Michelangelo. His aim, he said, was to be as historically accurate as possible and he wanted the setting to be correct. He said: I want to know the color of the bedspread in Michelangelo’s bedroom....
A genre is an expectation. Certain things are supposed to happen. Take the romance genre–there’s suppose to be love, lust, and seduction, and a happy ending. Won’t work if at the end a bunch of vampires appear on the scene and kill the happy couple. “The end.” Some friends suggested I join them at a “healthy” restaurant in Santa Fe. I ordered a pizza. What arrived was a flattened bed (crushed) of lettuce covered with fresh tomatoes slices and a few flakes of shredded cheese....
There are lots of “F” words out there–some used more often than others–some might say overused. The first is find. Finding the book. We’ve all been there—looking for that special book. You know, the one with the cool characters, with the compelling plot, and the captivating setting—that’s story we were hoping to find on the shelf of the bookstore, or available on Amazon, but which we never quite ended up seeing—a story that half-formed in our mind’s eye....
“E” could be for English, which is a language of elegance. In one sense, English is my third language, as it was the third language I learned, but it is my primary language now, so it is my first language. Over the years I have come to appreciate the elegance of English–rich in shades of meaning. Roots that draw deep from other languages. A tapestry. The language of Shakespeare. As I write the Yamabuki saga, ~1200 C....