M.J. Downing This is a true story and not funny at all. I beg you to remember that when it comes to the humiliation I went through, which was so long ago that you might think the sting of the event has lessened over the years. It has diminished only slightly and no longer causes... Continue Reading →

M.J. Downing Some of you might remember the cover of this book that was on an old FB page called “The Ridge Road Mysteries.” The cover art is mine and though I had a better one designed by the talented Mr, Anthony Nowicke, this one was my first. You might even see it on Amazon... Continue Reading →

“The Sign of Four: My Own Enneagram Mystery.” M.J. Downing             I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, take the Enneagram test and examine my personality type in depth. Invoking the Doyle title wasn’t my desire.  The test that I took from Truity.com identifies me as a Four, and emotional type, a heart type, and... Continue Reading →

M.J. Downing Paul Calhoun pulled a chair up to Brendan’s table at the coffee shop, flipped open his tablet, and brought up his school account.  Brendan’s eyes stayed on his screen.  He didn’t act like he knew his best friend had joined him.  He couldn’t.  Brendan stared at a report that a girl he liked had shared about a... Continue Reading →

I took advantage of a wonderful opportunity to go to the Ali Museum today.  They offered a special screening of an upcoming HBO Documentary, Ali & Cavett: the Tale of the Tapes. Both the film’s writers, Robert Bader and Dick Cavett, were on hand doing interviews and signing copies of the poster in the screen shot above. HBO... Continue Reading →

I have an unpublished novel, Starling’s Call, about a some magical occurrences in the life of young Andy McKinney. This Christmas Story is set some years before the action of that novel, but I thought I’d share it with as a bit of Christmas Magic. If you enjoy it, let me know. “Holding Onto Christmas”M.J.... Continue Reading →

Advent, the season of waiting.  This year, for some reason, my thoughts return to the Cotton Vitellius IV manuscript—though not to Beowulf.  That would be my usual direction, but now I’m thinking of St. Christopher, for his legend passes down to us through that charred collection.  The Anglo Saxon folks loved the story of this dog-headed giant, who carried... Continue Reading →

Much of my writing life is pretty boring.  I labor on sentences, wonder about paragraphs, lose plot threads in a cool sounding idea that I explore for three hours, finding later that I can’t use it.  Leaps take me forward; stumbles have me falling way back. Still, sometimes things happen that make all that trial and error... Continue Reading →

The Fellowship of the Ring was the first thing I read by Tolkien.  Mike Brewer, as per usual, introduced the story to me in the autumn of our nineteenth year.  He told me that the story was unlike anything he’d ever read and that it induced in him a longing, a deep melancholy.  I couldn’t... Continue Reading →

Tom Bombadil isn’t essential to the plot of getting the One Ring to the fire, or at least that’s a paraphrase of an idea that Jackson and his team of writers used to adapt The Lord of the Rings to the screen. In the extra material to the extended editions of those movies, Phillipa Boyens... Continue Reading →