Ask me about raising children, the meaning of life, religion, how to deal with PTSD, of how to train a dog. Let’s just discuss anything because everything in life affects our writing.

Remedy for Writer’s Block?

16 March 2026

   Sooner or later, a writer, any writer, no, all writers come up with writer’s block. If you haven’t yet experienced that gut-wrenching, heart-stopping feeling, then sit back and buckle up because if you keep writing, you will eventually come down with it. When you do, with any luck at all, it will only last a few days or a few weeks. But this thing we call Writer’s Block is a real career stopper.  That is if you are depending upon the payment of royalties from readers that will come in the form of a check from your publisher or agent.

   So, the question is not when you will get it; the question is what do you do about it and how do you get rid of it? Even though I will give you the benefit of my experience, if you ask a thousand writers/authors how to get rid of it, you will get about a thousand and ten answers, that is after they stop smiling. That smile will not be one of derision or mockery. It will be one of the author having been there, having asked the same question of more senior authors, and having discovering, you will have to deal with it by yourself.

   As far as I know, it is the one thing that you cannot learn in any writing class or be awarded with any college degree. Try comparing it to learning how to ride a bicycle. Yes, someone else must help you (most of the time) but in the end, you must learn how to balance, use the pedals, put on and take off the brakes, turn, and then all the traffic regulations that are there for your safety. You will ultimately have to handle the issue or problem, or challenge on your own.

   The last time I got a bad case of writer’s block it lasted nearly one year. Thank goodness my bills were not screaming at me for money because I already had enough in the bank to cover it. But it was no fun answering questions from well-meaning friends and family how my writing was going. That seemed to add stress to whatever else was bothering me, and only seemed to make it worse.

   I went to my writer’s group and asked them to get through it. Their advice was to try writing in a different genre than I normally write. So, I tried to write a fairy tale. But it did not help. But that might work for you. If you have any other ideas or advice on how to overcome writer’s block, post your ideas here. Let me know how you did it or how you might envision doing it if and when you feel blocked.

‘Til later, take care and keep writing.

The Most Hateful Part of Writing

FEB 24, 2026

   I have been suffering a kind of writer’s block for the past year, but it is not because I have become bored or dissatisfied with my work. It is because I have been dealing with website design (isn’t this great?!), the mechanics of the business after I have completed my art of creation, hiring, and working with the people I need to help me with all of that and more. I cannot believe how complicated it is to get my product out to the readers, out to you! So, you can read my books and stories. At times, it can be so frustrating that I feel demoralized and discouraged; it almost makes me want to throw up my hands, run into the darkness screaming, and quit in disgust.

   But I enjoy the art of creation; the art of using my understanding of language enough to design a story with believable characters that you either love to love or love to hate. I hope I have done that for you because fiction is a great way to decompress, to get away from our own problems, get into the problems of my characters, and follow their path that leads to resolution. Sometimes, I find ways to solve my own problems by reading books from other authors. In fact, I have found that I have become a better writer because of the works of Tom Clancy, Mark Greaney, Clive Cussler, Lee Child, David Baldacci, Dan Brown, and Joel Rosenberg. I love all their books. But I have to confess that sometimes I learn how NOT to do something by reading (or listening to) their books. That does not mean they have done anything wrong. On the contrary, I can only hope to get my books to the level of correctness their books are in/at.

   I did not want to write books in the same genre as those authors because that market is pretty well covered. I wanted to write books that readers who loved reading the adventures of Jack Reacher, Robert Langdon, and Jack Ryan but hated the inclusion of sex scenes, unnecessary and graphic violence, and swearing, cursing, or whatever you want to call the language of the street. I know all those things are a part of the action/adventure genre. That is why I feel my books have created a new genre.

   BTW: If you can avoid it, DO NOT write books that force the bookstores and book websites to find shelf space for your books of another, different, or new genre. Your readers will not be able to find your books and you will not sell as many as your good work deserves. It is more of a hassle than you want to add to your life. Write in a genre that is already established and perspective readers will be able to find and enjoy your books easier. I have learned my lesson the hard way. You don’t have to if you will take heed of my mistakes.

   ANYWAY, I will try to be regular in making additional posts for your reading pleasure and I hope you will spread the word of the fact that I am here and that I would enjoy reading and answering your questions or thoughts about my books. There will be more adventures of NJ Farnsworth and Orson Kincaid in the future, but not in the same story. I haven’t figured out how to do that yet. Until then, take care and happy reading.

2-Part BLOG for 24 August

PART 1

How does a writer’s faith in God and religious beliefs affect their product? Does a strong faith in God demand that a person not write at all? Or write only about God in their stories/books? I have a personal answer to those questions because I have been living them for the past 40 years. You may come up with a totally different answer for yourself. The Holy Spirit whispers the answers to our prayers in a very personal and tailored manner according  to our own progression along our path back to God. So, this post is directed at young writers or older people who are new to writing and are still trying to find their way in the sometimes convoluted field of writing novels for publication (whether indie, self, or traditional publishing).

I had heard that wanna-be authors (which was what I was back then) should write about what they knew best. For me, that was not a difficult decision because all I knew was the military. When I wrote my first book, I had 18 years in the military, having enlisted the first time right after high school. The story in the first book I ever wrote was placed in a military setting and was one that blossomed from my personal experience—dating and marrying my wife.

My wife had two sisters and the three sisters all ended up marrying men early in their military careers. It ended up being the perfect setting for a novel and all I had to do was change the perspective of their story and write about those three men. In my story, the sisters all played vital supporting roles but I wanted to tell the story of the men. So, the story developed with the three of them in Vietnam where they fought in some of the covert missions into North Vietnam and neighboring countries.

When the men returned home, one went into military intelligence, one spent his career in units like Delta Force, and the third one left the military, joined a police force and after several years in uniform, went undercover in an anti-narcotics unit. They each became the best in their field, but they did not ever seem to have time to get together.

As they reached the twilight of their careers, the drug wars lit up and the Colombian drug cartels were running more of their product into the United States than our government could keep up with and the US president finally said he’d had enough. He directed the formation of a special task force targeted against the Colombian drug cartel to stop them since the Colombian government seemed to be unwilling or unable to do so.

I have probably reached the limit of eyestrain you can handle, so I will continue with more in my next post.

More about action and faith next time. Take care. Stay alert to stay alive.

Dusty

BLOG for 4 August 2025

Hello, one and all! If you have already been with me for a few months, you are familiar with my style of writing and discussing controversial topics. If you are new to this BLOG, you should know I do not shy away from controversy. Rather, I will try to answer questions and address topics of concern to everyone, whether they are about the craft of writing, ethics, spiritual beliefs, or even raising children. I have done it all, and I have developed an opinion on just about everything.

Today, I would like to talk about sharing our ideas with other writers.

Sharing is always a risky business because you never know for sure whether the others, whom you probably trust, might take your ideas, and plug them into their own stories. So, I would recommend that you do not share major ideas. But there is a lot to be gained by sharing writing techniques and methods of overcoming obstacles like writer’s block. If you are so secretive in your writing that you never discuss it with others, you will miss out on a rich resource of information and ideas for yourself. I merely suggest you select a small group (maybe even just one or two people) who might be willing and able to help you.

Writers do not always make for the best source of ideas. But talking to readers and finding out what readers enjoy and what they think of your ideas can be very helpful. I am a firm believer in becoming part of a book club so you can read and discuss the books you read with other readers. That is the best way to get new ideas that are viable for your stories.

When Lee Child came up with the character Jack Reacher, he decided to create the perfect hero. If you read any of the Jack Reacher novels, you know what I mean. No matter where Reacher ends up going, he always overcomes the odds and defeats the villain. I find it a pleasure to read Lee Child’s books and I always learn more about my chosen craft of writing novels.

As you may already know, my choice of genres is LDS/Christian, action/adventure thrillers. Orson Kincaid is my version of Jack Reacher. But I have included a spiritual side of Kincaid which Reacher does not have. That does not make my character any better than Reacher. Rather, it makes him different—just different. Of course, Lee Child is a better writer than I am. I won’t ever lose sight of that, and he has a great following whereas I have a paltry following of fantastic readers/fans who choose to read my books because they too are sick of all the swearing and sex/nudity in the books of most other authors.

Those are some of the ideas that have been ruminating around inside my head and I wanted to share them with you. Until next time, take care and keep writing.

Dusty

BLOG for 25 July 2025

What makes a story worth reading? Or what must a story include for you to enjoy it? If you think it takes away the enjoyment of reading a good book to analyze what you like about a book, then you should probably not consider a career as a writer/author of fiction. It is only by identifying the elements of a good story and knowing why you enjoyed it (or missed it) that you can include those items in your own stories.

There is an age-old battle going on among writers about whether it is more important to start with solid characters and develop a story around them, while to begin with a good story and plug your characters into the story to make it enjoyable reading. I hope no one out there considers my stand a coward’s position, because I believe there is a middle ground on which all authors must find their own style.

When we were in school, whether elementary, middle, or high school, or even college, when you took classes in writing fiction, you had to show your work. It was much like math classes where the teacher/instructor could only evaluate the students’ understanding of any math principle by requiring them to show their work leading up to the correct answer. Then, if you got the wrong answer, the instructor knew where you went wrong and could coach the class on those specific points of instruction.

Only by turning in each draft of the assignment that a writing instructor may understand where to strengthen class instruction on the parts of writing students missed so they may improve their writing ability.

BUT NOW… You aren’t in school any longer. If you chose writing of any sort for your career, then the only thing you have to turn in (publish) is your final product. Your readers do not care how you achieved your final product. They only care that your characters are engaging, and your story is gripping and kept them awake all night reading because they could not put the book down. That is the kind of story and characters you want to create and share with the world.

Will you create your characters first then plug them into a great story? Or will you create your story first and then add characters who make your story engaging? It does not matter!! Write the way that feels most comfortable and the way that is most productive to you.

Do you want to write your stories by hand? In a manual typewriter? In your computer?

Do you want to plan and outline your stories in advance and fill in the details according to your outline (called Outliners)? Or do you want to be totally creative, loyal to your creative juices and write what comes from your inspiration (called Pantsers i.e. writing by the seat of your pants or on the fly)?

But those are all conversations for a future blog.

If you have any questions, feel free to send them to me and I promise they will not get lost amidst all my fan mail.

Take care and keep writing,

Dusty

BLOG for 10 July 2025

Do you believe in demons? Devils? Evil spirits? Psychotic episodes? Brain tumors? Road rage? Anger issues? Abuse? Bad influence? Hormones that make us want to engage in murder or sex? Music that makes us feel angry or relaxed? Places or people who give you the creeps? Somewhere along that line of questions you began affirming that you do believe in some of those items. Or in other words, you believe you can be influenced by forces outside your control to do something you might not ordinarily do. Right?

Life is about being influenced by both good and bad factors and our learning how to choose which ones we to incorporate into our lives. Without those items I listed and many, many others, we would not have any free will. Think about that for a moment. God kicked out of heaven all the people/spirits who tried to rebel against him and overthrow heaven, and he put them here on Earth where they can influence and torment us. Does that seem fair? Of course it does. It has to be fair. God would never do anything that was not fair and even for our own good, in the eternal view of life. We just have to trust God and do our best in this life.

When I sit down at my computer to write, I am tempted by all kinds of websites on the internet to keep me away from my writing. I have to choose which of those temptations to allow to influence me. Some days I end up wasting a lot of time doing absolutely nothing. At least, that is what TikTok, Facebook, and all social media ends up doing for me. I mean, listening to farts in public places, watching people pull pranks on their friends and pets, playing mindless games, and listening to stand-up comedians for hours does not make me a better person, nor does it help me accomplish my work for the day.

I was talking about me, but I know I am not alone. We are all tempted by more choices than people in any age or era of the past have ever before been tempted. The choices we make will ultimately decide what kind of person we will become.

What we think about will ultimately become a topic of conversation with others whether spoken or written. What we speak/write about determines what we will do, our actions may eventually become habits, which in turn mold our character, and determine our eternal destiny.

The kinds of books you and I write demonstrate to the world the kind of character we are developing, which makes our writings pretty important. Not only will they show our true colors to the world, but they will also influence our readers and they will have to choose whether to incorporate our perspectives into their lives. That makes our job as writers very important.

The next time you sit down at your computer and choose which activity to fill the hours of your day, remember that you are influencing members of your family and friends, even our society to either become better people or more dangerous and unstable people. Then, write from your heart and show the world how much you appreciate the opportunity to share your talents, your passions, your life with others.

Until next time, take care.

21 June 2025

It’s been about one month since my first post on my website, so I thought I would write to tell you how a writer can take advantage of technology. In fact, I think it is easier to use today’s technology than it is to not. For some reason, some of the young writers I have spoken to tell me it is easier for them to put out a quality story if they use pen/pencil and paper, or a manual typewriter to draft out their stories. The problem I see with that is that they will eventually have to type the story into the computer because publishing companies are no longer accepting hard copies (paper) of any manuscripts.

I wrote my first book on an Apple Amiga computer that was mostly developed for gaming. But it was all I could afford to have at home at the time. When I finished, I discovered that getting a powerful word processing program would be a good idea. So, I typed the entire manuscript again, this time on a Wang computer. Then, when Wang went out of style, I had to type it again into Microsoft Word. That’s right, I typed my first book three times before I had a usable manuscript to send by email to publishers. By then, there were some publishers that would take manuscripts by email but there wasn’t yet an industry standard for everyone. I am so glad our current system is as easy as it is. Never in the history of humans has it been easier for any writer and wanna-be author to write/type their book with hopes and dreams of getting it published.

But it was even more difficult to get a traditional publisher to accept your work because they received so many manuscripts each week. They could pick and choose the very best, so it became more important for authors to get their manuscripts letter perfect. Professional readers in publishing offices do not have enough time to carefully read all of the manuscripts that get tossed into their In Box every day. So, they use any excuse to toss one into the trash. Too many misspelled words, poor grammar, even incorrect punctuation. But they continued to get more and more, making for depressed and overworked manuscript readers.

Now, when you send your manuscript to a publisher that takes your genre of story, they all have websites with specific instructions on how unsolicited manuscripts must be submitted according to their rules. They will tell you which font and font size to use, how to space your manuscripts, where to place the margins, and on and on and on.

I am certainly not criticizing traditional publishers in the least. They can tell a lot about a new author by the way they follow instructions and how well they can understand and send in their manuscripts. It is all about money. Traditional publishers will not charge their authors any fees for submitting a manuscript. They expect to make their money from publishing a best seller. Self-publishers (or vanity press) will charge authors money because they do not care about how many books any given book sells. You are most likely to pay self-publishing companies upward of $1,000 for their work. They will take out all of the worry and work for the author by editing the book, formatting it to fit e-book and paperback versions. They will even market the books for you. But it is all for a price. After all, they need to make money to stay in business. And that is from the authors rather than from the consumers.

That’s all I have for now, and I hope to make my next post in less than one month from now. If you have any questions or personal experiences you want to share with other authors, send them in. I have an opinion on just about everything and I would be more than happy to share them with you.

Take care,

Dusty

May 2025

This is my first blog post for my new website. Although I am primarily a novelist, I also enjoy answering questions from readers who may be interested in writing their own books. I am also a fully convinced/converted member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I went to college at Brigham Young University (BYU) and completed careers as a soldier and intelligence officer, a schoolteacher at a high school in Baltimore City, Maryland, and a civil servant, working for the US Army as a civilian. So, I have a lot of experience in multiple career fields, which gives me much to offer readers who have questions.

I am also husband of 54 years and a father of 4 children, grandfather to 7 grandchildren, and great-grandfather to 4 great-grands (at last count). My wife and I reside in north Florida and both of us enjoy the weather, the people, and our status of retirement. Since I was a military person, we moved a lot. So, from the time we were married to now, we have moved 38 times. I am tired of moving and look forward to my time without counting the days until our next move.

I look forward to hearing from you, my readers, and any other interested people who might have discovered me, my books, or just my posts. You can expect to get insights and advice (totally unsolicited) on marriage, raising children, choosing, and living a religion, writing, and almost any other subject as it applies to enjoying life in the 21^st century.

Take care and keep writing.