Lawrence C. Connolly

Tag: writing life

  • Writer at Work:
    Santas, Wizards, & Life behind the Curtain

    So it’s December 1997. I’m driving north out of Oakland, toward Bigelow Boulevard and downtown Pittsburgh. It’s a gray day, light snow falling. Colored lights trim some of the buildings along North Craig Street, but it doesn’t feel like Christmas. Then I see him. I clear the rise toward Bigelow Boulevard, and there he is—fourteen-feet…

  • Writer at Work:
    Standing up for Your Writes

    “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” C.S. Lewis gave that advice in 1937, in an article titled, “Breaking in Print.” But it didn’t originate with him. He got it from his mentor Mary Heaton Vorse, who seems to be the source…

  • Writer at Work:
    Out of the Stories and into the World

    It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. There’s a good reason for that. I’ve been working. I’ve always regarded blogging as a leisure activity, fun when there’s time for it, but readily set aside when big projects hit. Last June, with a new film script sold and an ambitious novel expanding beyond expectations, I…

  • Researching a Novel: Into the Abyss

    It glows by night, filling the air with a blood-red cloud. By day, its rising steam billows dull gray from an active crater. Either way, it’s a wonder to behold, a doorway to a hot spot of subterranean fires that recalls the opening lines from Canto Three of Dante’s Inferno: Only those elements time cannot wear Were made…

  • . . . next thing I knew, I was on the ground!

    It’s been a while since my last post. There are good reasons for that. I had some new stories to finish, and the new novel is still coming together. But the really big thing since my last post is dealing with the aftermath of a nasty fall I recently took while jogging. That’s what I…