The Crotchety Old Man

Category: Becoming a Writer

  • A Writer’s Temperament

    Anything I’ve done — whether writing a novel, losing fifty pounds, becoming a runner, or whatever — I tend to believe anyone can do. On the other hand, just about everyone I know does something I could never do.  I’m not smart enough, don’t think that way, or lack the talent. I’m an ordinary guy…

  • The Serious Writer

    The first advice aspiring authors get is to write every day.  Jobs and other responsibilities are just excuses. The serious writer should get out of bed several hours before anyone else, or stay up after they’ve gone to bed. Whatever it takes to meet the daily requirement. Writing time, when I can find it, has always…

  • Two at Once

    For me, writing a novel is a lot like a relationship. Managing more than one at a time is just too complicated for my simple mind. Yet, despite my usual single-mindedness of purpose, I’m currently working on two novels. After writing the first two books in the holiday series, I wanted to try something different. Adventures…

  • What’s In A Name?

    One of the first critiques of an early draft of my debut novel was that the names of the characters seemed random, like they’d been pulled from a hat. The comment surprised me. You mean there’s another way? The right name is a beautiful thing. That’s why parents spend so much time thinking about what…

  • Keep Getting Better

    I hear from a lot of people, gay guys mostly, who write and hope to be published one day. When they ask for my advice, I always reply with the same question: What are you doing to improve your writing? No matter how good you are, you can always get better. A wealth of excellent…

  • The Evolution of a Writer

    I wrote my first novel using a technique known as pantsing — as in, flying by the seat of my pants. With nary an outline nor character sketch, I wrote chapter one of Until Thanksgiving — then known as Addicted — with no idea what chapter two would be about, and so on, until I’d…

  • More Change

    Like being gay, writing has always been a big part of who I am. In both cases, I was among the last to know what had long been obvious to just about everyone who knew me. Guess maybe I’m a little slow. “How could Michael Rupured be gay?” said nobody, ever. But I didn’t figure it…

  • Coming Soon: After Christmas Eve

    The folks at Dreamspinner Press, publisher of Until Thanksgiving, have been wonderful. When I finished After Christmas Eve (the prequel), I sent it to them, ignoring the part in their submission guidelines about the story having to be a romance. By ignoring, I don’t mean that I read and then disregarded the words. I never…

  • So Now I’m an Author

    Since my first novel came out back in December, my perception of the life of a published author has been about the only thing to change. The vast distance between my expectations and the reality makes me wonder what else I believe to be true that’s just wrong. I suspect quite a lot. Some things…

  • Birth of a Catch Phrase

    For the first fifty years of my life, becoming a published author wasn’t something I dreamed about. In truth, I never even considered the possibility. To younger me, authors were like movie stars, professional athletes, and rock stars — ethereal creatures blessed with a sublime talent. Aspiring to something so lofty just wasn’t practical. Now…