David S. McWilliams

  • Home
  • Writing
  • Resources For Writers
  • Bio
  • Contact

October Gigs w/Hecho a Mano

October 4, 2018 by davidsmcwilliams

Hey y’all — two last-minute gigs coming this week with Hecho a Mano.

10/4/18 (This Thursday!) We’re pleased as punch to be opening for Timberos del Norte again at the Spiderhouse Ballroom.
Dance Lesson: 8pm
Hecho a Mano: 9pm
Timberos del Norte: 10pm
21+ $5 cover ($3 for students)
18+ $8 cover ($6 for students)

10/6/18 (This Saturday!) The free concert series continues at Central Market North Lamar. Come hang, enjoy the nice weather, and escape the ACL crowds!
Hecho a Mano: 6:30pm and 8pm
Dance Lesson: 7:30pn
Free!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Hecho a Mano will be on Local Live Tonight!

July 29, 2018 by davidsmcwilliams

I’m excited to announce that Hecho a Mano will be appearing on Austin’s very own Local Live radio show tonight from 10 to 11pm!

We’ll premiering a bunch of my new arrangements, including a pair of new originals (one of which is Tino’s). Additionally, we’re really excited to be performing with Victor Cavazos of Orchesta Trabuko — a fantastic vocalist and good friend of mine. We’re also going to be joined by the Top Shelf Latin Entertainment dance team who will be cutting it up in front of us!

The best way to see us is to watch through the Facebook live stream on the Local Live facebook page! But you can also tune in on 91.7FM in Austin and kvrx.org/livestream for the audio and watchtstv.com/live.php for the video broadcast.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Gigs: First Week of June

June 4, 2018 by davidsmcwilliams

Hey y’all,

Two performances coming up this week that you might be interesting in coming to.

First of all, Hecho a Mano is playing at the Workers’ Defense Project’s 4th Annual Music & Movement dinner. We’re going to be premiering at least two new songs, which is a lot for a single 45 minute set! Come on out to enjoy yourself and support a good cause at the same time.

Thursday, June 7th
7pm – 10pm

And then on Saturday I’m playing again with my favorite band in Austin (except Hecho a Mano, of course) — Orquesta Trabuko — at the Salsa y Bomba festival. This is going to be quite a night of dancing, so bring good shoes. https://casita.prfdance.org/2018/05/celebrando2018/

Saturday, June 9th
6pm – 11pm

See you soon!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

On The “Liberals Don’t Respect The President” Meme

November 8, 2017 by davidsmcwilliams

“Do you believe that Donald Trump and Barack Obama deserve the same amount of respect?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because they are both presidents of the United States.”

“So we should afford them respect because they chose to run, and win, the presidency? We should respect them because they took this action?”

“Yes.”

“Can we then say, more broadly, that we should afford people respect based on the actions that they take?”

“Yes.”

“Both Barack Obama and Donald Trump have taken actions other than becoming president. Should we also consider these actions when deciding how much respect to give them?”

“…”

“Moreover, as these actions have been very different from one another, is it possible that these two men should then be afforded differing levels of respect?”

“…”

“Finally, is it then possible that Donald Trump’s actions have led him to be deserving of a different level of respect from, say, Colin Kaepernick, than Barack Obama?”

“… … really I just meant that people should respect anyone in a position of power, because I’m one of the 30% of individuals in any given society who harbors a subconscious inclination toward authoritarian hierarchy and I needed a rhetorical prop to beat up on liberals with.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Zach Weinersmith on Writing

November 4, 2017 by davidsmcwilliams

Zach Weinersmith (of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal fame) was here in Austin for the Texas Book Festival this morning. His talk dealt mostly with Soonish, but at the end there were a few interesting nuggets about his creative process.

  1. Zach reads 3-5 books a week when he’s not on a promotional tour.
  2. The reliability of the comic comes from setting aside an hour every day to write, even if that time is spent staring at a blank page.
  3. When stuck, it’s vital to read something that’s difficult for you to understand.

He expanded on these a bit at the signing.  I’m paraphrasing, but:

“Some people say they read a lot, but it’s all fantasy and science fiction.  That’s fine, but maybe go back 200 years to the source material that those things come from.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Beta Readers Wanted

April 19, 2016 by davidsmcwilliams

Hey y’all, long time no see.

It’s been quiet around here because I’ve been working on a new manuscript.  Good news: it’s almost done!

Draft 4 is complete, and I’m looking for a handful of beta readers (anywhere from 5-10) to read the manuscript and provide some feedback.  I’ll be sending on the file this weekend, and then compiling feedback the weekend of May 28th.

The manuscript is about 275 pages (82,329 words / 300 words per page in your average paperback = 274.43 pages).  It’s a science-fiction adventure story about a washed-up war “hero” who (in a fit of reckless, drunken self-loathing) saves the life of a wanted alien convict.  Things get complicated when they realize that they fought on opposites of a brutal war . . . and if you want to know more, you should drop me an email about being a beta reader!  Seriously, the link is right up there ^.

The gig doesn’t pay much, but I’ll buy you a pitcher of beer if you’re in Austin sometime.  Scout’s honor.

And if you aren’t interested in doing that, I’ll be putting it up in chapters here (just like the last one) sometime in June.  Er, June-ish.  Summer, at least.  Let’s call it summer-ish.

Hit me up.  davidsmcwilliams@gmail.com

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Introduction to “A Single Cure”

February 27, 2015 by davidsmcwilliams

“All of the best stories are traveling stories.”

So proclaimed the tipsy Texan on the night train to Munich. We were sitting on the floor in the bicycle compartment, drinking Heineken out of glass bottles supplied by the steward. It was an hour and a half before my 23rd birthday.

I asked him to explain.

“Stories are interesting when the characters change, right?” he asked me. “Well, what’s the easiest way to get characters to change? Send ’em away from home. They can’t help but change if you do that.”

We exchanged traveling stories until the small hours of the morning (one of which carried the germ of an idea that turned into Lela’s American Cafe). Later, the train broke down, and I lost track of him in the shuffle of carriages and replacement locomotives. The next night, propped up on an air mattress in a Vienna basement, I noted what he had said in my journal.

“All of the best stories are traveling stories.”

And you know what? I firmly believe that this anonymous Texan (I neglected to note his name and the beer makes things hazy) was right.

Now, of course there are lots of good stories that don’t stray from their home counties. I’m not going to argue that (although many are at least internal journeys). But time and time again, I’ve found myself sucked into books at exactly the moment that the protagonists are forced or finally allowed to hit the road. The pretense can be flimsy, the setting shallow, or the characters flat, but if the author can just get them out the door I’ll forgive a lot.

That’s the essence of storytelling: change. Everything else is details.

–

Tolkein wrote thousands of years of history for The Lord of the Rings, and yet the trilogy covers only the few months in which Frodo and Sam are on the path to Mordor. Coincidence? I think not.

Luke gets less than one day on the moisture farm before George Lucas burns the whole thing down and sends him out into the galaxy. Do we care about the years of agricultural drudgery that preceded Star Wars? Of course not.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is a traveling story, else why would we have the iconic red-line-on-map scene breaks?

Treasure Island has a few static chapters at the beginning, but they’re just setup. The parts of the story that everyone remembers happen after the map is found and a ship is procured.

And Brian Jacques (whose Redwall books I consumed voraciously in intermediate school) always features a brave hero who must make a difficult journey in time to come back and rescue the good creatures of Redwall Abbey.

Watership Down is a traveling story. Ender’s Game has a strong traveling subplot (the Dream Game). Paulo Coelho’s career-maker, The Alchemist, is a traveling story. Huckleberry Finn is a traveling story. On The Road and Roughing It are traveling stories. Looking at my bookshelf right now, I see Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, In Patagonia, Shantaram, and Two Years Before The Mast. You get the idea.

Storytelling is change, and traveling stories can’t help but change.

–

So I decided to write a traveling story.

Of course there are swords, horses, power struggles, ancient ruins, and the shambling brain-hungry undead that have run the risk of becoming a little stale as of late (they’re overused, but I don’t care). I was reading World War Z and A Song Of Fire And Ice around the time that I started this manuscript, and both of those influences are there. I’d also visited a few of the old Templar fortresses in Spain, built to protect the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela, and that’s in there too.

But it’s really a traveling story. A young woman leaves the only life she’s ever known in order to save her friend, ignorant of the fact that the journey will change her in ways that are both permanent and unavoidable. It’s the same story that’s been told a million times and will likely be told a million times over again; the story of a hero on a quest for their deepest desire.

The zombies are incidental.

So that’s what I’ll be putting up in this space, section by section, starting next Friday. Two-Minute Tuesdays will continue as well. Enjoy, and I’ll see you then!

(Update: get started right now with Part 1).

Filed Under: Uncategorized

No Two-Minute Tuesday This Week . . .

December 30, 2014 by davidsmcwilliams

. . . because I’m in the middle of my annual personal review.

I’m writing this from my parents’ house in Michigan where it’s been a fairly warm, soggy Christmas (Detroit had the smallest amount of December snow in the past 125 years).  Today, though, with a high of 21 degrees, I’m feeling a bit more at home.

Anyway, I started these annual reviews a few years ago after reading about Chris Guillebeau’s own review process.  The things that are worth doing in life invariably consist of a large number of small, repetitive tasks, and it’s easy to get side tracked if you don’t keep the larger picture in mind.  You can learn more about the annual review process via this link.

I have big plans for the coming year (including a manuscript that should be appearing in this space soon!).  Best of luck on your own reviews and I’ll see you all in 2015!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

A One Minute Story: When Others Control Our Self-Image

April 20, 2013 by davidsmcwilliams

Dr. Maxwell Maltz was a famed plastic surgeon and author.  One day a man came to him with a problem.

“I have a terrible deformity!” the man said.  “Just look!”

Dr. Maltz took a look at the man.  He had an unusually large lower lip, but that was all.

“It’s not nearly as bad as you make it sound,” he asked the man.  “Why do you want it removed?”

“It’s my girlfriend,” the man said.  “I love her, and she said she’d marry me if only I wasn’t so hideously disfigured.”

“Mmm,” said Dr. Maltz.  “Well, I have good news and bad news for you.”

“What?”

“I can remove the deformity, no problem.  And it will only cost you a small amount.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“I’ll only do it on one condition: you must tell your girlfriend that the operation cost you your entire life’s savings!”

The man thought for a minute; he was quite wealthy.  “Alright, I’ll do it.”

And so Dr. Maltz performed the operation.  He sent the man home that day and didn’t hear from him for two weeks.

—

After two weeks the man came back in for his follow up.  Dr. Maltz was shocked; he barely recognized the pale, weak figure in front of him.

“What happened to you?”

“Dr. Maltz, I did exactly what you said . . . and as soon as I told my girlfriend, she went crazy!  She tore the house apart, told me she didn’t love me, and I haven’t seen her since!”

Dr. Maltz had suspected as much, but it didn’t explain the man’s sudden physical deterioration.  “Is that all?”

“No . . . before she left . . . well, she tried to put a voodoo curse on me!”

“A curse?”

“Yes!  And it’s sapping my strength away every day . . . I can feel it here inside my lip, a little hard bump–”

“Really? Let’s take a closer look at this curse . . .” said Dr. Maltz.

And sure enough, it was just scar tissue left over from the operation.  The man was visibly relieved; he went home looking better already.

—

A few months later Dr. Maltz got a postcard from the man.  “Thank you,” he said, “for helping me realize how much power she had over my self-image.  I’d forgotten who I am in favor of who someone else told me I was.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Subscribe via Email

Get story updates and writing prompts sent straight to your inbox.

Recent Posts

  • Two-Minute Tuesdays 38
  • Two-Minute Tuesdays 37
  • Two-Minute Tuesdays 36
  • Two-Minute Tuesdays 35
  • Two-Minute Tuesdays 34

Recent Comments

  • candicewilmore on Two-Minute Tuesdays 30
  • April is for Salsa! on Beta Readers Needed
  • davidsmcwilliams on Good News, And Bad News
  • robert bayless on Good News, And Bad News
  • A Single Cure: 40 on A Single Cure: 41

Categories

  • Analysis
  • Books
  • Current Events
  • Fairy Tales
  • Freelancing
  • Housekeeping
  • Links
  • Music
  • Relationships
  • Short Stories
  • Spirituality
  • Storytelling in Video Games
  • Tango
  • Travel
  • Two-Minute Tuesdays
  • Uncategorized
  • Writing

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2021 · Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in