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Let us imagine, you and I, that we are watching a movie.  We move past the opening credits, during which the camera pans across the blackness of outer space, with a few stars here and there.  There’s a lot of text scrolling across the screen while heroic music plays…this takes two minutes. Then a spaceship […]

I read a story for a friend yesterday; she’s in a college writing class and doesn’t yet have a lot of experience. I ended up explaining something that I hadn’t fully realized I knew, so I’ll add it here, too. You may have heard this a bajillion times already, but in case you haven’t, I’ll

My daughter Ray keeps asking me to help her with her homework…not her math homework (she’s got that down; mostly I just need to check it for careless errors) but her writing homework. Every time she does, I’m reminded how not everyone has writer brain. For instance, she has a recurring set of questions:  “What

As you may know, I am trying to launch myself as a professional writer.  This has had its ups and downs, mostly a series of small, soul-eroding downs interspersed by a few interruptions almost-unbelieved ups. One of the series of small, soul-eroding downs is the short story rejections I receive.  I am at [checks Duotrope]

Ever have one of those moments when you realize that you’re about to know something you don’t know yet?  The Buddhists call it approaching a gateless gate; with my nerderiffic background, I tend to think of it as preparing to level. I’m preparing to level. I’ve been thinking, off and on, a lot about audience.

Gathering strength. # Amazing talk about storytelling by Chimamanda Adichie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg # Song of the Beast – Carol Berg: The parable of the prodigy–brilliant, destroyed, reborn with purpose rather than talent. With dragons. # Transformation – Carol Berg: Let the betrayals begin. I've come to expect to trust nobody in her books, but in a

One of the many conveniences I’ve noticed about my e-reader is that it makes the largest of books seem just as weighty as the lightest. Witness:  Neal Stephenson’s Anathem.  This is a book that I purchased shortly after it came out in hardback and never read.  From time to time, I would look at the

Please understand that this is a snapshot of what I know now.  If it doesn’t work for you–nevermind! Who tells the story, controls the story. Obviously, that means you, the writer.  You get to pick which stories you tell and how you feel about them.  This seems obvious until you start thinking about things like,

I find myself judging other people by the quality of their book recommendations…but dammit, they READ. # On the way home from Dave & Margie's, the DMB song "Too Much" came up. Appropriate. # @doycet Huzzah. Good post. # Craving soup to eat with my croutons. I'm thinking a tomato-basil bisque. # You know, if

…As a short story writer, that is. I am making a serious effort to get better at short stories; a novel is a novel is a novel, but when I want to get into the fine edge of fiction, I read short stories.  I love them.  Especially horror short stories.  My favorite work of horror