August 30, 2009 – 11:11 am
In the comments on the last post, S.A. Cox said “Historically, however, with both writing and teaching, one of the main keys to my development has been trusting my instincts about what is working and what isn’t, and then working like a dog at what isn’t.” My experience with trusting my instincts has been good; [...]
August 28, 2009 – 11:23 am
Every writer has something – some part of writing, however tiny – that comes easily (or at least, more easily than the rest of it). For some it’s action scenes; for others, it’s deep characterization; for others it’s plot or dialog or structure or theme. But there’s always something. What this means is that, for [...]
August 24, 2009 – 7:34 pm
Just for fun, I thought I’d put up some of my favorite quotations about writing, writers, and publishing. Feel free to chime in with yours! “There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” – W. Somerset Maugham “There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, “And [...]
August 22, 2009 – 11:46 am
So last weekend, my brother and his family came to visit. We had a lovely time, despite the fact that they all had colds. You see where this is going already, don’t you? But to really understand this, you have to know that when I get a cold, I usually have a week of being [...]
August 20, 2009 – 9:14 am
Every once in a while, I run across people who are baffled and frustrated by the behavior of certain talented friends of theirs. “They can write great stuff; why don’t they?” “Their fanfic is great; why don’t they try to submit stuff professionally?” “They’ve sold a bunch of books; why don’t they quit their day [...]
August 19, 2009 – 9:08 am
Part of the way down Wisconsin (if you’re coming from Minnesota via I94), there’s a spot where they were doing road work about six months ago. They finished up the first part, but apparently they want to do more on the same stretch at some unspecified future date. Because instead of removing the big orange [...]
August 16, 2009 – 8:30 am
To my mind, a purely altruistic, goody-two-shoes hero is even more boring and unrealistic than a purely evil villain. Maybe because at least the villain is getting something out of being a villain? All those armies to order around, and castles, and power, and so on. OK, people do wake up in the morning and think [...]
August 14, 2009 – 8:35 am
Cazaril, my Maine Coon/Tabby rescue cat, has been seriously annoyed with me lately. I think it’s all the travel – he really doesn’t like being left home with just Nimue for company. So he’s been trying to get me up several times a night. To play with him. (How I know this is, I made [...]
August 11, 2009 – 1:04 pm
I probably should have posted this first, if I was going to blog about getting stuck. Because one of the more important things a writer needs to do when they’re stuck, before trying to apply any of the techniques I was talking about, is to figure out why they are stuck. Diagnosis is important, because [...]
August 10, 2009 – 8:54 pm
Back when I was in 7th grade, I took a summer sewing class. On the first day, they showed everybody how to work the sewing machine and then gave us pieces of paper to “sew” with a dull needle and no thread, so we could learn how to guide stuff through the feeds. I waited until [...]
I’ve been getting quite a few questions in the mailbag recently about writer’s block, and invariably they end with the anguished plea, “How do you know what happens next?” Which is a lot of the problem right there, in my opinon. Because “What happens next?” and “What do I do next?” are among the most [...]
So Book 2 of Frontier Magic (Title To Come) seems to be getting some momentum up at last. Possibly because I finally have a bit of shape for this volume, which looks just a bit novel-like. Part of the difficulty, it seems in retrospect, has been that I’ve only ever written three-related-standalone-novels, not a three-volume [...]
August 2, 2009 – 10:32 am
One of the things you see a lot in fantasy stories is a villain who is purely and simply evil and knows it. No rationalizations, no semi-plausible rationales, not even a rotten childhood to blame it on, just the Dark Lord Who Wants To Take Over The World Because He Is Really, Really Evil. There are ways of [...]