Category Archives: Writing

Kaya basking on a fine summer day in January

Ava the Crocodile Head

Married to Reptile Night?  Is my wife also married to reptile night? No, that’s just a writer’s blip. Grandpa Jim invited the gang over to his club to check out some snakes, lizards, turtles, and other cold-blooded critters, a show put on courtesy of the Reptile Zoo in nearby Monroe.

Married to a writer:  This month saw the launch of I Think You’re Totally Wrong:  A Quarrel, and this sent me to Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, the first time my wife’s stayed home. So what’s it like for her supporting a stay-at-home father/writer?

Gia and the snake

Glass half-full:  I like riffing on glass half full/empty analogies. Take the way my wife looks at my writing career. My wife sees writing as a half full glass – namely, half empty, half full of piss. Or she sees a half full glass as ninety percent empty. She’s had to put up with my distractions and absent-mindedness as I focus on writing, sometimes at the expense of family, so I’ll give her that. Writing can be empty.

Move over Sanjay, Tracy’s found a more handsome reptile

The Profits of Writing:  Over the last five plus years my biggest writing victories have been publication in the small press. When I get something accepted, my wife often asks, “How much do they pay?” And I say, “Well, I’ll get a couple contributor copies, maybe a subscription, and a discount on additional copies.” My wife says, “So let’s see, when you go to the supermarket and fill up your basket with food and check out, what does the clerk say when you hand him contributor copies?”

A Page Half Full:  Okay, so I can’t say I have a literary career yet, but we do have a movie premiering this spring (more later).

Preview Video:  From the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Gettin’ ready for reptiles