Sure it can heal some old wounds and that vast emptiness inside you that was once your marriage or your best friend who dumped you for no good reason. It can make you proud and even make your never-lavish-with-praise mother proud. It can fill you with joy and feel like the best kind of fever […]
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Reality Check
There will always be a gap between your ideal self and your real self. There will always be a gap between your ideal writing and the writing you can actually accomplish. Write anyway. Your aim is to decrease the distance between these gaps. Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart
Read the rest of this entry »Rita Mae Reese on non-writing
The one thing I’ve discovered about writing over the years is that not-writing is like a virus—it’s always mutating, always trying to overcome your defenses. Sometimes it will succeed. There’s no single answer that will work the rest of your writing life. You’ll think you’re a disciplined writer and then you’ll have kids; your first […]
Read the rest of this entry »Bitter Truth: Time is a tyrant
Writing and finishing your short story/novel/memoir will likely take longer than you planned. Anyone who has every hired a contractor to remodel their kitchen or bathroom knows this. Things just can and do go wrong. The factory doesn’t have the right tile in stock. The electrician never shows up. Meanwhile, you’re cooking on your camping […]
Read the rest of this entry »Quick Take:
Stories are about change. The more painful the better. These difficult changes are going to happen to your protagonist–he or she will always be the character most hurt and changed by the story events. The effect of all these changes? A character arc. Proof that your protagonist has come through the fire, has been somehow […]
Read the rest of this entry »Details to heighten conflict
Our daily lives are filled with insipid details, background sounds, and habitual responses. There is both sameness and comfort in the dailiness of our routines, the furnishings and clutter in our homes, the alarm clock buzzing each weekday morning. And our storytelling needs bits of this day-to-day normality to establish an authentic and breathing world. Within […]
Read the rest of this entry »George RR Martin on Gardeners and Architects
I’ve always said there are – to oversimplify it – two kinds of writers. There are architects and gardeners. The architects do blueprints before they drive the first nail, they design the entire house, where the pipes are running, and how many rooms there are going to be, how high the roof will be. But […]
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