The Author Guy Blog

25th September 2024 Hello out there, Welcome back. Not too long ago, I delivered a eulogy for a high school classmate. I ended it with a poem I included in my award-winning book Blue by You . If found it in a tiny newspaper clipping tucked into my father’s Bible after his death twenty-five years ago. I’ve never been able to determine the author, and many have asked for a copy because it speaks to one person’s wish to their beloved when the inevitability of death comes calling. I wanted to share it with you. When Twilight Comes When twilight comes across the quiet land, I crave your presence, you who understand. The comradeship of word and look and smile; the gentle talk and laughter after a while, and homeward walk across the wave-worn sand. How will it be, I wonder, when the grand full midday glow of life has vanished, and the sun’s last rays fall coldly on the dial, when twilight comes? Oh, that we two together still may stand; undone, perchance, the deeds we hoped and planned, tired...

 18 th September 2024 Hello out there, Welcome back. I think we’ve all experienced the low hanging fruit of sports analogies to explain or justify all manner of unrelated activity. I heard an interesting one just the other day from a friend of mine – one I thought was worth sharing. We met for coffee because he wanted my input on his first effort at writing then publishing a work of fiction. The conversation, and reading the first draft of his manuscript, took me back eleven years to when I was where he is now before I published four novels and have completed a fifth one yet-to-be-published. The conversation inevitably turned to where he could get help marketing and selling his book. I was as candid as I could be about the frustrations encountered in this area by virtually every author, whether indie or mainstream, novice or established. And I confessed significant commercial success for me remains elusive. He responded with a sports analogy, saying that likely tens of thousands of...

13th September 2024 Hello out there, Welcome back. I’ve long admired the late Robert B. Parker and was even more drawn to his books when I began my own author journey eleven years ago. I’ve emulated two hallmarks of his writing – short chapters that are dialogue-driven. Parker is best known as the prolific author of bestselling crime novels separately featuring the protagonists Spenser, Jesse Stone and Sunny Randell. This past weekend, I re-read Parker’s 1983 novel  Love and Glory , a departure from most of his other works because it is, in fact, a love story, and here are a few things I rediscovered. The novel is set in the 1950s and 1960s when I was growing up, and the protagonist, like me, went to college intending to be a writer before life, like me, took him far away from that destination. The protagonist “Boone or Boonie” loved F. Scott Fitzgerald’s iconic 1925 book  “The Great Gatsby ” and, no lie, that book is near the top of my upcoming vacation to-be-read stack. The ...

5th September 2024 Hello out there, Welcome back. We’ve all heard the expression “Six degrees of separation,” meaning that between us and another individual there are most likely no more than six other people that a daisy chain of acquaintance will enable a connection. A Hollywood twist on the expression is “Six degrees of Kevin Bacon” whereby he can be connected to virtually any actor solely through roles they’ve portrayed in movies. Well, it happened to me this week when I read about the musical  The Queen of Versailles  that debuted recently in Boston with actress Kristin Chenoweth in the lead role and is headed to Broadway later this year or early next year. You see, there is now only one degree of separation between me and the Tony and Emmy award-winning actress because “the queen” upon which the true life play is based – Jackie Siegel – is married to someone I’ve known for forty-five years who is also portrayed in the musical. Speaking of Hollywood in the “six degrees” c...