The following posts fall under the categories of Creative Writing and Books & Reading. (The link at the bottom will take you to older entries.)
Stalled
So, the novel is once again on hiatus. (Sigh.) I did some great work at the retreat last month, despite arriving there exhausted and full of self-doubt, pretty much hating my own writing. But by mid-week I’d managed to get past that feeling, and in three days, I edited the next...Read More »
Sharing words
My friend Janice Fuller (a talented poet and playwright) has made a practice of asking people to write down words for her. She saves them and then, when she wants to be inspired, she draws a few words from her stash and thinks about the words themselves and the donors who...Read More »
Schrödinger's submission
Having stories sitting in virtual slush piles can be frustrating; in fact, it can drive you crazy if you let it. Waiting to hear back from editors can stretch on for what seems like forever. And while you wait, your manuscript is like Schrödinger’s Cat. Is it alive? Is it dead?...Read More »
Buy, Borrow, Bin: the Terry Pratchett edition
I haven’t done the Buy, Borrow, Bin game in a while, and I decided to make this one a themed episode for an added challenge. So I’m selecting three random novels by Terry Pratchett, one of my favorite authors. Let’s see which books are our contestants this time, and which...Read More »
Wrong character, wrong ending
I wrote a new story last month, and in the process, I committed a basic mistake, one I’d first identified in college (many, many moons ago). I kept trying to write the final key scene, but it just wasn’t working; I tried three times, and each time, the tone was wrong,...Read More »