Roy M. Griffis

Roy M. Griffis

Storyteller

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Confessions of a Very Minor Author

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Confessions of very minor author

Okay, I know I’m not a household name.  A few folks, though, have read my books, and from time to time drop a nice comment at my Facebook page or on my website.

But, as a vma (very minor author) who doesn’t receive any press attention worth mentioning, I have to tell ya, sometimes a review just makes a brother’s day.

See, writing the stuff isn’t the struggle.  I’ve been doing it since I was ten (and nobody needs know how long ago that was).  I wrote when it was free, I composed when I was underway (aboard a ship at sea, for you lubbers), I’ve written divorced, jobless, and heartbroken.  I’ll keep writing, I

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Gotta Be Honest…

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Gotta Be Honest...

Coming soon, by the way.

I just realized that a writer who was savvy about marketing would have already pumped out a couple of newsletters pimping his upcoming book.

It’s pretty clear I’m not that guy.  I have subscribed to some newsletters, usually as the result of attending some online seminar about the bidness of writing.  And more often than not, I’ve learned useful stuff at those seminars.

But, man…most of those folks, once they have a brother’s email, they will cyberstalk you, with their special offers showing up anywhere from once a week to every other day.

I get that we all have to advertise ourselves, our art and our commerce.  But I really get annoyed

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The Good Stuff Du Jour – Delbert McClinton

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Good Stuff Du Jour

As part of my random pimping of good creative work, allow me to present Mr. Delbert McClinton. 

I knew the name, but really nothing about the artist.  After hearing this, I’ll have to give him another look.

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Tech, New and Old

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Tech, Old and New

Here’s a writing confession:  I really like to write to music.  Have ever since I started working on my first short stories in the last century.  My wife, as a singer, has more sensitivity to sound than I do, so she finds doing creative work with music in the background maddening.

Me, I think it creates a kind of aural wall inside of which I huddle with the waking dreams.  When I’m on a roll, I rarely hear the music, but sometimes, when I lift my head from the keyboard, it’s kind of a refreshing surprise to remember how much I like that soundtrack (can’t go wrong with “Last of the Mohicians”) or that  old

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ON BEING A PECULIAR SORT OF PERSON

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On being a peculiar sort of person

My son’s mother, my second wife…yes, I’ve been married three times.  I’m either terrible husband material or a serial optimist.  Don’t judge.

Not the author, exactly

As I was saying, my second wife found fault with some of my reading choices.  For a while, I was reading a great deal about UFOs and folks who believed they had interactions with aliens.  The contacts ranged from variations of “turn your head and cough” type exams, to very distressing reproductive procedures (including “and here’s your hybrid offspring, say hello to mummy, darling”), along with occasional tours of other worlds or galaxies, often polished off with warnings about the impeding global disaster.  Note that none of …

Some Good Writing Here

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Some Good Writing Here

It’s spare and powerful.  As a writer myself, sometimes I am captivated by the way songs can encapsulate emotion using a very simple presentation.  Someday, I hope to write something as starkly emotional and as cleanly presented as Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia.”

That may not be possible in a novel.  I think Hemingway pulled it off once or twice before it became a parody of itself.  

File this under “things writers ponder early in the morning.”

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How the research goes with me…

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How the research tends to go with me

When writing a novel, there is a place where you brain is going “Only 20 pages? Are you nuts? You have to write 40 times that to finish the book!”

I also run into that when researching the places and times for the next novel.  Pick up a source you think will be great, read 80 or 90 pages before you realize the author is only interested in relaying nominally interesting anecdotes about high-level goings on, with none of the detail of daily life I’m looking for.  So I’ll put that aside, grumbling about the lost time, and pick up another.

This is a very small sample, with all of the random
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The Curse of Research

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The Curse of Research

As I’ve mentioned before, my research takes me in odd directions and inspires new ambitions in me.

Now I want to learn how to do this.  If only I didn’t have 15 novels to write, the day job to maintain, and various human relationships to nuture.

But, still, it’s awfully cool to watch.

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