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  • A New World

    Ten years ago I lived in Boone, in the mountains of North Carolina. Boone has an interesting mix of the political spectrum. There are good old boys mixed in with flower children. It’s a bit of a hippie enclave amid a sea of conservatism. In one day, you hear a very wide range of what’s-wrong-with-the-world.… Continue reading

  • Tomorrow is too Late

    I used to take some chances with my bad guys. I’ve written my fair share of them. But if I wrote a scene where cops teargassed clergy off the stoop of their own church, so a president who has never believed in any god for a day in his life could get his photo taken… Continue reading

  • World Building

    When we sit down to write a novel, we start with a blank page. The world we create can take any shape we like. It doesn’t need to have our rules. It doesn’t need to have our history. The only constraint is our lack of imagination. Oh, but what a constraint this is. Our imaginations… Continue reading

  • Sincerity and Song

    Do you remember the first time you went outside in the blackness of night? The first time you walked away from all light and felt darkness surround you, wrapping itself across your shoulders like a blanket of shadow? I was seven or eight years old before I ventured into the deep black. It was different… Continue reading

  • Changing the World

    Zoom out with your mind for a moment and picture planet Earth from a distance. Note the clusters of light at major cities on the night side. Picture the airplanes and container ships slowly creeping vast distances. Cars like ants along their sugar highways. Everyone jostling and bustling and hustling. When I do this, I… Continue reading