The disarray of moving across the country this month has thrown some chaos into my writing routines. Getting used to a new city, unpacking the boxes we brought, and the sights of the capital, have been surreal. There has not been enough time until the day before the thirteenth—my self-imposed deadline—to write a blog. I have decided the best course is to link to another spot on my website where the first few chapters of Wild Boys - A Peculiar Western Novel are free by subscri

Time passes so fast in its fleeting ways. It is the reason I only write for this blog once a month. Other commitments always pull and tear at time. I have quite a few posts now waiting to be discovered on this site, which is finally coalescing after trial and error as Punk Fiction. I feel my writing has a foundation with my first wave of books and an identity now that I have named it. In the spirit of these thoughts, I am proud to reach another milestone. This year, 2019, mar

Life is in constant flux. Right now I am writing the final part of my Rebel’s Edge series, Over the Edge. I started on it right after finishing the second one last summer and, with work and other commitments, it has taken longer than I had originally planned. The important thing is that it is almost done and will mark an end to a period of my writing that started ten years ago with Where the Road Roams. My first wave of books on my own imprint, DS, was released in 2017. I am

Autumn is my favorite time of the year. Shortly after the equinox, it truly began in the town of Naperville, Illinois. I felt it with the moon rising as I waited in line for an event on the campus of North Central College. Only a little warm outside, yet the falling leaves and wind brought a welcome psychological chill. The town felt like Haddonfield, the fictional one from the Halloween film, and I could picture Laurie Strode babysitting Tommy Doyle in one of the nearby hous

The Evolution of a Story On the streets there are sharks and dolphins. The sharks are street punks of different sorts, dangerous and aggressive in form. The dolphins are runaways who play in the street surf — carefree and unaware that sometimes sharks eat dolphins. So begins the story of Escape from Dolphin Street. Revisiting the past can be difficult. When I write a story it is, on some level, of the time it was written. Life changes everything from perception of genre to st

Wild Boys was influenced by pulp western paperbacks and Italian westerns as there should be beauty in the lurid details and a sense of fun in the shootouts. Some westerns forgo that and come across as dour and depressing which is fine, but those are the stories I don’t want to reread. I feel there needs to be a feeling of being on a roller coaster, of having suspense and action take a reader on a ride, crossing the line of camp to bring humor and back to the seriousness of th

Wild Boys was a turning point in my writing. Prior, I had used a vanity publisher, Wasteland Press to publish my first novella, Where the Road Roams, in 2009. All in all, it was a good experience for a first time writer as there is nothing like that feeling of getting your book printed and to hold it in hand. Chaos had enveloped my changing world at that time after taking care of my mother till she passed away. I found an outlet in creativity in writing. Strangely enough, it