Okay, enough with the questions for now. I’e2’80’99ve answered some of your questions here, and will do another batch later in the week. If I don’e2’80’99t get to yours, save it for next month’e2’80’99s ‘e2’80’9cAsk LRK’e2’80’9d. Or you could look at the web site’s Frequently Asked Questions page. Q. MYNINKI SAYS: After a chapter or…

Happy New Year! Here in the Santa Cruz Mountains, some of my neighbors seem to have made a raid on Chinatown’e2’80’99s less licit businesses and come away with huge booming firecrackers. I suppose it’e2’80’99s an improvement on the shooting off of handguns–at least the only people in danger are the idiots lighting the fuses, not…

Those of you who get the newsletter already know this, but there’e2’80’99s now an excerpt from THE ART OF DETECTION THE ART OF DETECTIONon the web site, along with the cover art for the book and for the new short story, ‘e2’80’9cCat’e2’80’99s Paw’e2’80’9d. I’e2’80’99ll be posting more on THE ART OF DETECTION later in the…

Two bits of news to tuck under your Christmas tree or Hanukkah bush. One, following the example of JK Rowling, sometime after Christmas I’e2’80’99m going to post the first chapter of THE ART OF DETECTION on the web site. If you get the newsletter, you’e2’80’99ll know when. And second, as of the first of the…

The problem with writing a book around characters is that eventually, they have to have something to do. TOUCHSTONE’s protagonist is very clear to me, and has been for the eighteen months that I’ve been thinking about the book. I know his character, his history, his setting, but the events in which I shall immerse…

The more authority a person has, the greater the impact of his or her passing by. Young singers tossed into huge fame take a while to realize the consequences of their every act; Bill Gates took a long time before he woke up to his money and began to commit some of it to good…

The following is an excerpt from Harold Pinter’e2’80’99s acceptance speech at the Nobel Prizes, as an illustration of how one can make use of fame: I was present at a meeting at the US embassy in London in the late 1980s. The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give more money to…

There is an interesting discussion about fame in the writing world going on over at the new blog site, Contemporary Nomad (and thanks to the ever-excellent Sarah Weinman at Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind for bringing the site to my attention.) I’e2’80’99m comfortable with my own mild level of fame. I get recognized at conventions,…

Okay, so I’e2’80’99m 53 years old and just the other day realized why garbanzo beans are also known as ‘e2’80’9cchickpeas.’e2’80’9d I was picking over some French lentils and found this larger pale object nestled among the dark green dots, and suddenly noticed that it is precisely the shape of a neatly tucked-together chicken ready for…

Thank you Chris, and Mr or Ms Bookworm, for remindimg me that I’d asked for feedback concerning the comment. I thought Chris’s remarks referred to my post, not my comment on the comment on the post, which now has a post of its own to comment on…. I really shouldn’t do this before I have…