After last week, I was all set to write a series of posts on ways to make up an ending at different points in the writing process – starting with the ending, making it up in mid-story, pantsing right up to the final chapter, etc. And then
Read more →In spite of all the writing advice books and blogs and web sites that tell you to start by making up the ending, I can’t think of any professional writers I know who do this in the strictest sense, at least as their regular process. (I’ve known
Read more →Every so often a writer runs across someone else’s story that has at its heart an idea they think is brilliant, but which they also think that writer has mishandled for some reason. Most of the time, the writer can take the part of the idea that
Read more →Strategy and tactics aren’t synonyms, though in casual conversation they are often used as if they were. It’s understandable; they’re both about planning your actions so you can win. The difference, as I understand it, is that strategy is about planning to win the war; tactics are
Read more →When a writer starts writing a novel, he or she is essentially standing at the bottom of a mountain, looking up. That writer is facing a zillion different moving parts that have to come together to make the climb successful, and which parts are important often change
Read more →Seat-of-the-pants writers whose work quickly sets up like concrete face some unique problems with revising.
Read more →Becoming a professional fiction writer is a lot of work. A lot.
Read more →I’m baaaack! And I want to start by saying thank you to everyone for your condolences and sympathy, and for your understanding about the hiatus. I hadn’t expected it to go on so long, frankly, but I am my father’s executor and it is taking much longer
Read more →I am sorry to tell you all that I need to take a brief hiatus from posting. My father’s funeral was yesterday, and between that and the holidays, I don’t expect to have time to post until some time in January. Have a good holiday season, wherever
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