We went camping this weekend, 7 (or was it 8?) families at a beautiful lake in west Texas. I was stressing about losing the weekend, which is usually prime writing time, to the fun but mindless task of packing, driving, unpacking, cooking, herding kids, organizing hikes, etc. and worried that it would eat into my [...]
Telling Stories
My oldest daughter has been observing my novel writing process with the eyes of a hawk. The other night she sidled up to me as I was working and asked if I would help her write her own book.
“What do you want to write about?” I asked.
“Books.”
“What about books?”
“I don’t know,” she sat down. “Something [...]
Study Hall
I stumbled across this great website today – Editor Unleashed. With almost daily posts from a variety of industry insiders, the breadth and depth of the information is awesome. If you’re an aspiring author looking for insight into how the publishing industry works, start here.
Here are just a few of the articles I’d recommend:
Write [...]
Growing Pains
Nobody’s perfect.
Even the modern day messiah, Barack Obama, has a character flaw – he smokes. So when you’re writing your breakout novel, screenplay or short story, make sure to give your character a few flaws that they can wrestle with and, hopefully, overcome through adversity.
Some of the best examples of this writing tactic tie subtle [...]
Never Judge A Book By Its … Karate Uniform
I volunteer at my kids’ school each week, helping teach karate classes in the after-school program. This usually involves me getting dressed up in a funny-looking pair of white pajamas and trying to get a roomful of toddlers (many with attention spans shorter than a fruit fly’s) to stop talking and pay attention to the [...]
Let’s Do The Time Warp Again
Yesterday we sprang forward, turning the little hand on the clock one full revolution ahead, and I felt like I was in a time warp. It was too dark when I got out of bed. The light wasn’t quite right when we ate lunch. The kids were confused when we put them to bed in [...]
Write With Style
Several links today from articles on writing and publishing that I’ve stumbled upon over the past few weeks:
Damon Runyon, who wrote “Guys & Dolls”, would sit in New York City restaurants and absorb the speech rhythms of the local gangsters and hoods. This great article examines his dual-layered narrative, and his key insight that “American [...]
The Reader
A man will turn over half a library to make one book.
~Samuel Johnson
What’s the number one tool in the writer’s toolbox? You guessed it … his library.
Read, read, read. Read published books. Read literary criticism. Read book flaps and synopses. Read things you don’t like (often – it will break you out of a rut). [...]
Walkabout
Brainstorming is a tricky thing. In the advertising world, we try to bottle the process into a sort of scientific method … cramming a lot of smart, creative folks into a room and hoping for the best. But brainstorming for a client or a product is very different than brainstorming for a novel (or poem), [...]
Travelogue
Back in the day, before the dawn of the series of tubes we call the Internets, writers were forced to get out from behind their dreary writing desks, pack up pen and paper … and travel to exotic locales to experience new and exciting things which they could then write about in a semi-convincing fashion.
The [...]