FANDEMONIUM by John M. Floyd Fan·de·mo'·ni·um (noun): Wild and disorderly conduct by those who enjoy your fiction. Okay, so it’s not a real word. It is, though, what we as authors would like to create — or at least we think we would. Writer rooters Who are our fans? Certainly our mothers, hopefully our other […]

ADVENTURES IN PARADISE by John M. Floyd Some of you might recall that my title for this column was also a TV series years ago, adapted from James Michener’s fiction. (I still hum the theme music now and then, when I’m in a tropical mood.) My topic today, though, isn’t sailing the South Pacific; it’s […]

COLONIZATION by John M. Floyd One thing I try to do is read while thinking like a writer and write while thinking like a reader. It doesn’t always work, but I try. And one of the things I’ve noticed is that most of us writers seem to use too much punctuation in our fiction. Some […]

WRITE WHAT YOU LIKE by John M. Floyd Throughout the sixteen years of my so-called career as a writer, one of the pieces of advice I’ve heard most often is write what you know. And I agree with that, at least in theory. The more familiar you are with a subject, the more believable you’re […]

STRIKE UP THE BAND by John M. Floyd I’ve always loved music. My mother says when I was a little squirt I used to go around humming or singing or whistling all the time, and even now — unless I’m writing, at which time I like it quiet — I usually have some kind of […]

INSIDE INFO by John M. Floyd I like trivia. I always have. I think it’s fun, somehow, to discover little-known and often useless facts about the people and places and things that share this world of ours. Who knows, maybe it’s fun because it is useless: the pursuit of meaningless information is of course more […]

IN GOD’S COUNTRY by John M. Floyd Years ago, while taking an IBM class at Princeton University, I went with a friend one night to see a movie at nearby Quaker Bridge Mall (one of Stephanie Plum’s hangouts, if you’re an Evanovich fan). All we wanted was a little diversion, a few hours’ escape from […]