Here are my recommendations, the creme de la creme of my 2014 reading. I slushed over a thousand stories last year, and read two hundred and fifty books. So stop hounding me to watch your favorite TV show. I don’t want to hear it. Each list is presented in no particular order. Short Stories: I […]
It turns out that when you retread your memories over and over again, they become less “your memory” and more “the memory of your memory.” After 9/11, some researchers went out and recorded people’s memories of the event, three thousand people’s worth. Eleven months later, they asked the same questions, and thirty-five months later. The memories were
I’ve been thinking more about memories, memoirs, telling personal stories rather than just fictitious ones. So how do you start a memoir? Where? I’m tempted to look it up. “Top 10 Ways to Start Off Writing Your Memoirs.” “You Weren’t Paying Attention, Were You: 5 Strategies for Assembling Your Past Without Pissing Off Your
Finally reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, which, if you don’t know it, is a writer-book that starts off by advising writers to dig into their pasts. For some reason it struck me this morning that, although both sides of my parents’ families gossip and definitely have a few legendary stories, neither side really
*Research in progress. Lately I’ve been having–or, rather, subjecting other people to–conversations about how to make stories that are better than well-crafted. I’m at this weird point where I acknowledge that becoming better at my craft is going to be a lifelong project…but there’s something more out there to writing than just craft.
I worked out a program for learning how to write this morning, in the broadest (and most general) possible steps. 1) Read. 2) Write. 3) Study by typing stuff in and analyzing it as much as desired, in a way that satisfies curiosity. 4) Research and practice building understanding on the following concepts: clarity of
I wake up and start to comb my fingers through my hair. It’s falling out, you see, faster than it grows back in, and every morning I take a perverse pleasure in eradicating the loose strands with my fingers. Here, says my fingers, lies your “crowning beauty.” Your hair. It’s long and thick, thicker than any
tl;dr: a) buy book and/or ask for free copy, b) review someplace, c) tell a friend, d) give me hugs. Today is the official release day for A Murder of Crows: Seventeen Tales of Monsters and the Macabre. I am, of course, in panic mode, because I have a release-day checklist in which I do more than
Release Day for A Murder of Crows – How You Can Help Read More »
Disclosures: A) I used to slush for Apex Magazine, of which Jason is the publisher, and B) I got a review copy. I’m reading (as I’m sure you’ve heard me go off about by now) Nightmare Magazine Top 100 Horror Books. What I’m seeing, as I work through the Bs of Barker, Barron, Blatty, Bloch, and
I was screwing around with genres while journaling this morning: Horror: We are all trolls. With a splash of terror: Everyone is a troll but me, and now they’re after me! Urban Fantasy: It’s the job of all right-thinking citizens to make a stand against trolls. Especially, you know, if we’re getting paid for
