Tag Archives: quotations

Advice you want vs. advice you need

January 30, 2013 – 6:11 am

For a variety of reasons, I thought today I’d do a rant on writing rules. OK, mostly it was because I haven’t done one for a while and I was in the mood for ranting. I started off by googling “fiction writing rules,” just to see what a few other people had to say on [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Also tagged | Comments (15)

Out of Context (Overheard at 4th Street 2011)

June 29, 2011 – 6:55 am

Rather than do a normal sort of round-up of how wonderful last weekend’s Fourth Street Fantasy con was, I opted to collect an assortment of interesting comments heard and overheard during the course of the weekend. A few were made by panelists on actual panels; some were made at panels by members of the audience; [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in General, Writing | Also tagged , | Comments (6)

The Most Basic of Basics

January 5, 2011 – 6:09 am

“It’s not what you don’t know that kills you, it’s what you know for sure that ain’t true.” – Mark Twain One of the things that a great many people seem to know for sure is that they don’t need any knowledge of the rules of grammar, punctuation, or syntax in order to write to [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Also tagged , , , | Comments (14)

Lightning and the Lightning Bug

November 14, 2010 – 6:38 am

A bit over a hundred years ago, Mark Twain made the famous remark that “The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.”  At around the same time, Gustave Flaubert came up with his le seule mot juste [the only right word], which seems [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Also tagged , | Comments (11)

Not according to plan

March 19, 2010 – 9:57 am

So I’m working along, facing my third deadline extension, way behind on everything, with lots of vital-or-at-least-urgent non-writing stuff going on. I FINALLY get past the exceedingly sticky argument scene I’ve been poking at for the last two months, and on into the next bit of wandering-around-the-settlements. I’ve done the go-to-dinner-and-whine thing several times, and [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Also tagged , , , | Comments (9)

Quote unquote

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 [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Reading | Comments (6)