I did a thing that I’ve been working toward, despite a few life interruptions, since 2005. My first novel, The Tunguska Deception, is available on Amazon in both print and kindle versions. And I’m at a loss for words. There are four other novels, in various states, sitting in folders, unfinished. You learn from each effort. A couple of them may find their way back to life. All will need a page one rewrite. I want to thank my writers group for their support all these years, friends and family as well, and Bonnie and her daughter who connected dots…
Rick Shaw Posts
– a guest posting to SBWC’s Blog There is something magical in validation from peers. For most of us, our lives are a quest, in some form, for exactly that. Validation that our efforts, beliefs, values, talents, friendships, are not in vain. If we’re lucky we find our tribe, and within that larger group, a select collection of lunatics that will invest in us for that journey. Here’s the result of one such quest: I have attended the Santa Barbara Writers Conference off and on since 2005. The how and why I ended up there involves being dragged by my…
The following was a guest blog posting for the Santa Barbara Writers Conference (sbwriters.com) Writers come in all shapes and sizes, physically and metaphorically. Weaving simple words into verse of such striking beauty to bring a tear, or dark imagery leaving you unable to sleep without a light on for weeks at a time. For some, stringing words and conjuring images comes easy, like breathing. For others each word, phrase, sentence, paragraph is a struggle of epic proportion. But we as writers are all bound by a single objective – we must tell stories. Though writers are often introverts, and…
Just a brief post. Looking for an update on The Lost Fedora? The Santa Barbara Literary Journal’s anthology The Fifth Fedora dropped on September 14th. You can find it at the SB Literary Journal’s online Bookstore, or on Amazon. I’m truly humbled to be included among this community of authors to honor our friend, Stephen T. Vessels. Life provides us two families, the one you’re born into, and the one you gather along the way. We lost my brother Stephen all too soon to cancer last year. The Lost Fedora was inspired by Stephen, and was a lot of fun…
It is one of those things… you know the things that fall into that what authors do list of expectations. In this case that thing was a public speaking event, coupled with a question & answer, and reading of an excerpt from a recent work. You know… pimping your work! As a professional geek, and chief information officer, I’m frequently in front of a room full of folks doing a Q&A, or exploring some issue. I do this all the time – MEH! Tuesday was different, this was about me as an author, my journey, and exposing my work in…
It’s that time of year again – NaNoWriMo. And I find myself, tush in seat, fingers to the keyboard, wracking my brain for a story. My adoring wife wants me to build one to a worst-first sentence I once crafted. That’s not fair, it actually won that particular competition. But it was a throw away line. One intended to illicit a giggle and little more. But now, almost fifteen years later, I find myself trying to find the story in twenty-eight words and a crushed lawn flamingo. Worse yet, procrastinating here, throwing up a blog post, because I haven’t done…
I had the coolest thing happen to me a couple of days ago, and I’m still buzzing from it. Back in June, I had a short story accepted for an anthology; my first short story sale. At the time I thought cool. I found a home for Fiddler (the story’s title). I did a little happy dance, and then moved on. Earlier this week, the publisher of the anthology, Bayonet Books, published the collection of shorts on Amazon for pre-sale. One of those also ‘cool things’. And I did my part, posted links, let folks know, etc. Now the cool…
One of the hardest aspects of crafting a novel, for me, is the motivation to plow through the middle. I write what I see in my head. In that, I’ll see scenes that drive a story to the conclusion I know is coming. There is, however, and equally essential need for the connective tissue that weaves or bonds all the parts, the foreshadowing, the red herrings, and the ‘oh shit I didn’t see that coming’ moments that make turning the page not only compelling but emotionally mandatory. I have, among the folders and odd scraps within my drives, five novels…
Imagine, if you will, two stories. With a common premise. Interdependent upon one another. Authored a year apart. The second, done as a challenge by my well-intentioned band of lunatics. The Tunguska Deception has been my personal insanity since December, with the successful completion of 2016’s NaNoWriMo. My current challenge is stitching together these two stories, each approximately 50,000 words. The first never intending to have the second timeline as a companion/partner. Add to this, the mounting pressure of a small, but mighty and vocal, fan base clamoring for more since the publication of the first two chapters in the…
The Fervid Imagination and Writing Process of Rick Shaw – by M. Talley Rick Shaw has been part of the Southern California writing community for over a decade. Though I have known him for roughly five years, we both attended the Santa Barbara Writers Conference for the first time in 2005, when it was held at Westmont College in Montecito. When I read Rick’s work, I think, this is a guy who could actually make money off his books. His genre writing (sci-fi, horror, crime/mystery, etc.) is commercial, not in the sense of watered-down, generic speculative fiction, but in the…