Thomas McAuley's Better Writing Blog:: Dedicated to Writing Better Fiction

In these lean times, it's all about discipline

We've all -- okay, most of us have -- been swept up in the frenzied pace of modern life. We're pulled in a million directions trying to do the right thing, improve ourselves, buy a little quiet, save for the future. It never seems to end. I find myself in a particularly difficult time right now. The company I work for is in transition. Each of my growing sons' need and deserve my time, money and other assistance. My wife is recovering from surgery -- no matter that some would describ

Kindle cover for a friend and fellow author Lisa Compton

I was pleased to have the opportunity to design a friend's book cover recently. It's a self-pubbed title by Lisa Compton, an author who has written a Star Trek novel, a number of TV scrips among other projects. "Epiphany" is a novel about a woman who sees her husband, a former rock star, knifed to death in front of her outside the revolving door of a NYC hotel. It deals with her confusion and grief over the event and the tribulations of finding the man who committed the murder. Everyone

Early Thomas McAuley caught in the act of old-school writing

While I was cropping, aligning and color-correcting some old pictures of my sister and myself for this year's Mother's Day, I ran across the picture to the right. It's me in sixth grade in Tennessee during the fleeting two month period an Optometrist convinced my folks I needed to wear glasses. But the cool part is that my folks caught me writing some early story or other on the living room floor in front of my sister's cello. I used to write ALL the time during certain stages o