Author : Dave Smeds

You can find a new blog entry by Dave Smeds about every other week at bookviewcafe.com and davesmeds.com. His favorite subjects are the writing life, karate, genealogy, and designing book covers.

The Initial Idea

Dave Smeds June 23, 2024

Identifying the genesis of a story isn’t always possible, but sometimes it is clear as day. I’ve been in the mood lately to acknowledge influences

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My First Computer

Dave Smeds June 9, 2024

I have never dipped a goose feather into an inkwell and scribbled words on paper, much less onto parchment or some other substitute for paper.

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A Death at the Dojo

Dave Smeds May 12, 2024

On the night of January 19, 1979, Jerry Honda was feeling good. He was saying good-by to workout rust. He had, as so many karate

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A Story Goes Viral, 1894

Dave Smeds April 14, 2024

We’re so familiar with the phenomenon of information spreading ultra quickly and widely that we have a metaphor for it. We say the news item

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DNA: What a Tangle

Dave Smeds March 31, 2024

People have been talking about DNA for quite some time now. I’m approaching seventy years old, and yet the accepted model of the structure of

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Influences: L. Frank Baum

Dave Smeds February 4, 2024

There are a couple of questions writers get that seem to be unavoidable. I hate both of them. The first is, “Where do you get

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