Monthly Archives: May 2014

Write with your Heart

Should you write what you know? Have you frozen to a stop when facing a topic or story because you realize how little you know? Do you fear that writing only what you know will limit your writing? A recent blog post by a fellow writer caused me to consider these questions anew. You can […]

The 4 Cs of Storytelling

I used to ask what made a great storytelling photograph. Now I ask a similar question about written stories, and the answer keeps coming back with 4 Cs: Concept, Characters, Conflict and Context. I’ve heard a lot of broad arguments for what makes a great story, what makes it real and relatable, but for me […]

About taxi rides and character discovery

How do you discover interesting characters for your fiction? They’re everywhere! For instance… I had an awesome taxi ride last night. I sat in the front seat and chatted up this amazingly gregarious Lebanese guy. We traded immigrant stories, but it was mostly him talking a mile a minute, his franctic speech a perfect match […]

Introducing the “Our Cyber World” series of parallelequels

Now that Pink Ballerina has hit the beach, I wanted to let you know that along with DEAD BEEF and soon-to-be-released Decisive Moment, and a couple of other stories and novels I’m still developing, they will portray Our Cyber World, a series of parallelequels. To see how this is going to work out, let’s talk […]

Pink Ballerina dancing at a beach near you

If you’ve been looking for a novel about a photographer, a pink ballerina, a lesbian art agent and a white supremacist with a barrio accent, you’re in luck. My latest novel is now available at the Amazon Kindle store. Pink Ballerina is the second novel in the Our Cyber world series of “paralleleuquels” (thinking about […]

Pink Ballerina, putting on the final touches

I am super pleased to report that Pink Ballerina is almost ready for release. This novel about a photographer who by happenstance takes a series of photos of a woman doing impromptu ballet moves on a beach, came about when after taking a similar set of photographes, I asked what-if. What if this photographer tries […]

Beisbol Libre: inspiration came in words and pictures

Sometimes when you’re finishing a novel it’s tough because you keep getting ideas for other stories you want to start, like, right now! This bout of inspiration for a novel I’ve tentatively titled Beisbol Libre came hard and fast — and a little high and inside. I went ahead and sketched out a rough outline, […]

Chapter and scene beats: when to keep it fast, when to slow down

Most of my fiction fits in the suspense/thriller genre. This means I keep my chapters short, to the point and for the most part, fast. Still, I slow things down to give the reader a breather and my characters space to develop. Whether I’m writing my own work or reading someone else’s a certain level […]

Voice of the Mute Tales, Volume 2 now out

Though I know I didn’t announce it, I decided to release Voice of the Mute Tales, Volume 2, a collection of 3 short stories portraying slices and vignettes from the life of a boy growing up in Cuba. Semi-autobiographical in nature, these episodes relay some of my experiences as a young Cuban boy making my […]

Beauty’s where you find it; grab it when it calls

During my pursuit of photography and writing, I’ve come face to face with how superficial my life — and dare I say modern life in general — can be. In short, I’ve relearned what I used to know intuitively as a child: that I live in a wonderful world full of beauty I can only […]