Larry Benjamin. Wordsmith. Writer. Author.

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook , you know I’ve been working on a new book—a novella actually. This new book is probably my most ambitious work to date and may surprise readers who think they know my work. Though, if you’re one of the seven people who’ve read Damaged Angels , my collection of short stories, you probably won’t be surprised. At any rate, for my novella which isn’t in my usual genre, I had to do a fair of research to create the world in the story. I researched everything from epidemics of the late 19th century to mockingbirds . One main character is a painter, but being a writer I really had no idea how a painter thought, so I turned to one of my best friends from college who is an artist. Not only is she a friend but she is a truly talented artist whose work I admire very much. I emailed her to ask if she’d be willing to talk to me about her art, and her creative process. In short, I wanted to be let into the mind of an artist. Her response was a brief, “of...

This weekend I faced a dilemma. My dilemma was perhaps common to all writers: Should I write or do X? In my case I could work on my current WIP which at 8,000 words, and because I don’t write sequentially, is in serious need or being put into some kind of order. It was that or clean the house and do laundry. As it was, I could, if I wanted to, write my next chapter in the dust on the coffee table. To my mind, if I cleaned the house, it would remain dust-free for about a week, but if I wrote, the words I wrote would, hopefully, still be read decades from now. It was, after all, an easy decision: I wrote. Going to work every day is an easier decision. My day job pays the bills and gives me the freedom to write what I want without worrying about achieving commercial success. So, I don’t often debate whether or not I should go to work or stay home and write, for nothing frightens, and motivates me more than the idea of being poor. Perhaps as importantly, going to work every day ...