Story takes effort. Sometimes at night I sit in front of the TV and I don’t have the energy to watch anything more than a thirty-minute sitcom, or a singing reality show, which I can digest in small bites and turn off when I get bored. Because the mental effort of engaging with a longer […]
Does your writing show clearly defined arcs? In story, scene, and character? I spent last Saturday afternoon teaching about arc and it has gotten me thinking about it a lot. Whenever I teach, I do a lot of research to add onto what I already know. That research got me paying more attention to the […]
The other night, my husband and I watched an episode of Scorpion, which I’d only see bits and pieces of before and ended up thoroughly enjoying. The show is about a band of misfit computer experts led by Katherine McPhee, who is their interface and explainer of the real world. In this episode, a helicopter […]
I spent this just-past Thanksgiving weekend at the beach with a rotating cast of family members in attendance. It was a blast. And, I got some writing done. I woke up early every day and sat at the dining room table and wrote on my laptop. (It helped immeasurably that the house has no wi-fi.) […]
I’ve been collecting goodies for you, a lot of which came in the last couple of days. Also, please note my non-link related question at the end. Here goes: Writing Analyze your novel as if it were a dream. I could not live without the TK. On beating not-writing. How to organize your day. It […]
I was at a gathering of writers last night (Portlanders, we meet every last Monday of the month for Literary Libations, join us) and Angela Sanders, an accomplished mystery writer who is doing very well with her books (can you say number one on all Kindle sales?) was talking about her career. Angela talked about […]
Hilda? Here, for your consideration, two aspects of storytelling. 1. Parsing the story. This is, of course, most often the purview of the rough draft, or shitty first draft, or discovery draft, or whatever you want to call it. Hilda would do. (I think I'll start giving my drafts names. Why not?) Although it must […]
This is a paid book review for the BlogHer book club, but the opinions expressed are mine and mine alone! Any book I read (and I try to read a lot, because that's what writers do) I read through the eyes of a writer. Once you being writing, reading is a whole different experience, because […]
This is a guest post by Jessica Baverstock, an Aussie writer currently living in Beijing, China. Jessica read my newsletter discussing how we writers get our knickers all wound up in our stories last month and it inspired her to write about her own stories. The process of which was not only entertaining, but enlightening […]
I volunteer with an organization called Step It Up, which connects high school students with experts in their chosen careers, and offers advice and support around jobs. Over the last couple of months, I've done a couple of writing workshops for them, with a co-leader who is a teacher. The last two days we've been […]
