De

I’m working on my short Alien Blue descriptions tonight to prepare for Pitch Practice tomorrow. Here’s the Who/What/How (Who tries to do What How?) formulaic version: After helping hide an escaped interstellar criminal for the past sixteen years, a New Mexico bar owner plays one last gambit to save his town and the alien–by erasing […]

Here’s a good article on writing “log lines,” or very short descriptions of your work. It’s written to focus on screenwriting but works for fiction, too.

I have this version of Nine Inch Nail’s “Only” at the top of my writing playlist. Much like Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz, the song and a short Casper cartoon have been lined up. I’m becoming less definedAs days go byFading awayWell, you might sayI’m losing focus… “Skin and Bones”

It’s days like these that make me appreciate the fact that Ray gets sick a lot less often over the flu season than she used to. Poor bebe.

I finally got the bugs worked out of the Alien Blue plot. At least, in theory. I have: a two-sentence description, a four-page full summary, and a timeline. I had been using the sticky-note layout to try to work out the timeline, but there were too many things to keep track of, so I put

anamnesis: a recalling to mind Platonism. recollection of the Ideas, which the soul had known in a previous existence, esp. by means of reasoning. –You know, I’d completely and ironically (or appropriately) forgotten about this word.

So I’m trying to patch up some plot holes and I decide the bartender’s father, an atheist who ends up trying to recreate the crucifixion (dying in the process), went nuts during WWII in Czechoslovakia while he was being hidden in the basement of a Catholic church (he was a commie, and the Nazis [right-wing]

John Medina, a geek on brains, gives 12 rules for using your brain (for example, “exercise”). Some snippets: “Millions of years ago, if we sat on our behinds for even a few minutes, we could be somebody’s lunch.” “Active people have half the risk of Alzheimer’s of sedentary people.” “Any experience you have creates new

I forgot–I did, eventually, work up the courage to ask where my book fit in. Me: Beth Anne, I think you’re going to tell me my book is science fiction, but it really doesn’t feel like it. BA: What’s the story about? Me: It’s called Alien Blue. It’s about a bar owner who has to

The March Write Brain for PPW was on Tuesday. Topic: “Fish or Fowl: Where does my book fit in?” Speaker: Beth Anne Steckiel, owner of Beth Anne’s Book Corner. Beth Anne gave a short talk but reserved most of the time for questions. For some reason, I didn’t end up taking very good notes, but