Brilliant

Box Office

Thr3e by Ted Dekker

Not long after I started elementary school, my mom took me to the Columbus County Library to get my first library card. I loved going to the library. It was quiet and orderly. And I could feel the potential brilliance seeping out of the books that surrounded me while I was there. The only thing I disliked about the library was the sign on the librarian’s desk: LIMIT 5 BOOKS PER VISIT. Oh, how could they expect me to survive on five books at a time?

For Writers

Impossible Dream

When I began writing my first novel back in 2003/04, I thought for sure it would not only publish but likely be a best seller. I thought that of the second as well. And the third. And the fourth.

Making A Scene

A Burning Cigarette In A Couch

It’s amazing the factoids I’ve gathered, writing as a full-time novelist for the last ten years. I know tidbits on all kinds of things. Sometimes the weirdest of things. All because at one point or another, I’ve needed them in a book. If I had to list every piece of data I’ve researched, the list would take me a week to type. Here are just a few questions for which I’ve had to find answers.

Author By Night

Writer By Night

How do you write in your “spare time” if you’re retired? Well, to begin with, I wasn’t retired when I started my nonmedical writing. I was working full time as a professor in the Otolaryngology (that’s “ear, nose, and throat”) Department of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. And like most faculty members in a clinical department, my time was filled with seeing patients, doing surgery, teaching residents, and putting together research studies.

Short Stories

I had been wanting to quit my job for the past year and a half, but the timing was never right. But fortunately, that is no longer an issue.

Large tears rolled over the chubby apples of my four-year-old daughter’s cheeks. One of her little hands smeared them across her face, while the other hand clung to mine. Her watery, blue eyes peered up at me.