Adverbs and Adjectives are NOT Your Friends

Okay, maybe they are friends, but let’s agree to classify them as the kind of friends you invite to your house and after a half-hour spend the rest of the night hatching different plans to get them to leave. Seriously. Too many writers, particularly when starting out, think that the more they sprinkle their prose […]

 

When Reviews Are Negative (Or Worse)

I almost never blog about reviews (especially poor ones). Truth is, I try not to read reviews very often. Every once in a while a top reviewer who requested a book copy will let me know they posted a review and I will go out and read it. But while I’m there, I can’t help […]

 

John Wayne, Actor; Clint Eastwood, Motion Picture Genius

I’ve made it no secret: I am a huge movie buff and were I forced to decide on my top twenty-five or fifty movies, half would have some connection to Clint Eastwood. He’d either be in them, have directed them, written them, or all of the above. And that would be excluding all the classic […]

 

Should All Lawyers Really Be Sacked (Or, Can Words Make A Difference)?

On January 7, 2014, in Uncategorized, by rsguthrie

I recently read an article about a Starbucks attorney sending a Cease-and-Desist letter to a small brewpub in Bumfish, U.S.A. It seems the brewmaster/owner splashed one stout beer (Founders Breakfast Stout) on top of the brewery’s vanilla crème ale and, voila!, some customers claimed it reminded them of a Frappuccino™. The owner then listed the beer combination […]

 

Thank You. It’s Not Just For Breakfast Anymore.

Have you thanked a soldier lately? Yes? Yeah, most of us have fallen into an appropriate habit of doing that (whereas we should have been doing it all along). I thanked a Sheriff’s Deputy the other day for his service. I realized as I was talking to him (after having called the police for the […]

 

The Power Of (The “N”) Word(s)

My wife and I were recently watching Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. Whether or not you are a huge sports fan, it is a tremendous show because of the serious world issues, questions, etc. it addresses, albeit from a sporting angle. One of the stories had to do with the fairly recent usage, umbrage, and […]

 

Post-Turkey, Black Friday, Gobble-Gobble-to-Write-Better Blog

I intended to blog on Thanksgiving—any excuse in the eye of the blog storm, where there are NO POSTS—but when my Dallas Cowboys finally pulled their collective heads out of the Devil’s…I mean, primo narcissist, Jerry Jones’ arsehole, and started putting away the lowly Raiders, I became too involved with watching that and stuffing my […]

Television: It Does A Writer GOOD.

On November 2, 2013, in Uncategorized, by rsguthrie

I remember a time when I truly believed that the television sucked brain cells from my head and spat them on the floor where they eventually dried up like only so many dust mites. And I’m not saying it wasn’t true (or that my parents were completely wrong). But it’s not the case any longer, […]

 

Halloweiner (Or: Does Scrooge Hate Halloween, Too?)

Wow. Well, this is a record for a dearth of blogging. I could’ve crossed the Sahara and back again, sans water, and the vultures would have been blogging more than yours truly. I’d say “sorry”, but that seems capricious; I’d say you never missed me, but that hurts my feelings too much. So I’ll just […]

 

BookBub: Indie Savior Or Donald Trump In Sheep’s Clothing?

A while ago (over a year) a writer friend turned me on to an advertising site that was not cheap, but had an extraordinarily large email list of readers in myriad genres. In other words, a bit of the Fountain of Find-the-Readers into which to bathe one’s books and come out the other side better-known […]