Noticed in the Los Angeles Times that California Secretary of State Debra Bowen has authorized a divorce ban initiative to gather signatures to qualify for the 2010 ballot.  California is often regarded as the social laboratory for the rest of the country: movie star governors, the anti-tax revolt, a dysfunctional state government with a budget process teetering [...]

This week I received two contributor copies for my short story, “The World’s Greatest Coffee,” that appears in The MacGuffin (Fall 2009 / 25th Anniversary Issue).  This is my second published short story but the first one I have seen in print.   (My first published short story, “The Uninvited Spook,” appeared in The Storyteller that paid a [...]

The blogging community got stirred into a tempest this week with the announcement that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will updated the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials to apply to bloggers on December 1, 2009.  If a blogger writes a book review, has a Amazon or Google paid advertising link for the book, and doesn’t properly disclose [...]

Four years ago when I decided to become a writer after putting it off for 20 years, I wanted to become a full time writer in five years.  That was an ambitious but unrealistic goal.  Establishing myself as a writer is taking five years.  I think another five years will be need to entrenched myself [...]

Last night on the “Late Show,” David Letterman told a story about finding a strange package in his car at 6:00AM three weeks ago, where someone wanted to produce a screenplay about “the terrible things” he had done in his life and would happily sell him the screenplay for $2 million USD.  After bringing his attorney and [...]