Monthly Archives: April 2011

Miscellaneous Updating

April 27, 2011 – 6:29 am

 First things first: a bit over two weeks ago, our own Michelle Wood emailed me that she’s done a wonderful video trailer for the Frontier Magic series. I’ve been planning to put a link to it on the website, but I’m in the downhill rush to finish the book and updating the web page is [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in General, Writing | Tagged , , , , | Comments (8)

Different strokes

April 24, 2011 – 7:42 am

I talk a lot about differences in the writing process and the way every writer thinks differently and therefore has to work differently. All those differences apply to a lot more than the writing process, though, and it is just as destructive when folks don’t understand that. Take the heady days following the publication of [...]

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Tag, You’re It

April 20, 2011 – 6:12 am

Yesterday, while bemoaning my lack of blog post topics to my walking buddy over our post-walk stop at the coffee shop (she gets coffee; I get tea), I had a revelation. (OK, not a big heavenly-choirs, life-changing sort of revelation, just a tiny hey-I-can-turn-that-into-a-blog-post revelation, but I’ll take what I can get.) She was listing [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , , | Comments (8)

TANSTAAFL

April 17, 2011 – 9:48 am

As any devoted Heinlein fan knows, TANSTAAFL stands for There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. It’s one of those obvious truths about the world, like Murphy’s Law, that ought to go without saying, yet people seem to need to be reminded of it over and over. Something in the human psyche really wants [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Tagged , , | Comments (4)

One at a time or everything at once

April 13, 2011 – 6:10 am

There are two basic approaches to combining or developing ideas and story:  in-depth development, and the kitchen sink approach. These are opposite ends of a continuum, of course; there are very few writers who work strictly one way or the other. Still, it’s useful to think about the extremes before one starts thinking about how [...]

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Changing on the fly

April 10, 2011 – 6:43 am

I’m in what I hope is the downhill stretch of The Far West at last. I have finally gotten my characters out of town and moving, and yesterday I got to what was supposed to be a throwaway bit at their first stop, just a little bit of business to establish how their expedition operates [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Tagged , , | Comments (9)

Internet pros and cons

April 6, 2011 – 6:13 am

Nearly everyone, these days, can name a lot of obvious advantages brought on by the establishment of the Internet. Pre-Internet, for instance, most writers only ever saw the small selection of their readers who came to autographings and readings; now, any reader with Internet access and ten minutes of free time can drop their favorite author [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , | Comments (6)

More than repetition

April 3, 2011 – 6:09 am

“There’s more to the theater than repetition. There’s more to the theater than repetition. There’s more to the theater than repetition… “But not much!”  – The Flying Karamozov Brothers   There are some basic things about writing that people who’ve done it for a while tend to take for granted. I was reminded of one [...]

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