Ridgewood Living

When I was at college years ago, I studied playwriting. I learned about stage and theater, the differences between three-act, four-act, and five-act play structure, and Aristotle’s Rising Action, Climax, and Denouement. I took what I learned to become a better writer when writing my books. While I wrote, I imagined my characters on stage … Continue reading Ridgewood Living

Ridgewood Growth

I started writing fiction when I was nine. They were baseball stories about the struggles, triumphs, and defeats of the game. During my early teens, I transitioned from writing stories about ballgames to writing stories about haunted houses and graveyards, supernatural creatures, and even aliens from other planets. I kept notebooks filled with plot ideas. … Continue reading Ridgewood Growth

Check Out My Book of Short Stories

Check out my volume of fantasy short stories centered on the eerie town, Ridgewood, available in electronic and paperback formats. Get the ebook here: Night of the Hell Hounds and Other Stories from the Ridgewood Chronicles. Get the paperback here: Night of the Hell Hounds and Other Stories from the Ridgewood Chronicles. You can read … Continue reading Check Out My Book of Short Stories

Ridgewood Places

Last week, I celebrated my dad’s 90th birthday with him at his cozy one-bedroom apartment. We talked about current and past events, which led us to comparing now to then. He lives in the town he and I grew up in, so we talked a lot about the town’s scenic changes. The question “Do you … Continue reading Ridgewood Places

Ridgewood Beginnings

I was 13 when I created a fictional rural town that became Ridgewood, Pennsylvania. I was an eighth-grade high school student who owned a portable Remington typewriter. That instrument and my imagination allowed me to escape from the ordinary world. I’m not saying my life was boring or difficult, but like the child who turns … Continue reading Ridgewood Beginnings

Girl on a Train, Poem 2024-0831

Below is a poem I wrote in 1977, a year after I met the girl featured in the poem. I kept it to myself until April 6, 2016, when I published it on my Art ~ Writing ~ Life blog. Enjoy. I awoke this morning to voices on the wind, Echoes of past, present, and … Continue reading Girl on a Train, Poem 2024-0831

2011.12.13 Writing: Fictional Characters

Thank you for joining me today for another post from the past with reflections about writing and my life as a writer. If you’re a writer of fiction, you likely subscribe to the newsstand magazines that publish articles on how to write better fiction. Lately, I’ve seen articles that claim story characters react more to … Continue reading 2011.12.13 Writing: Fictional Characters