Writing
-
Hard lessons in writing: Once you finish, do it again.
I mean, of course, that deja-vu insanity, editing. As a novelist, you’ve got to not only write the whole book, but then you have to sit down and read it […]
-
Hard lessons in writing: English is bizarre.
The very first thing I started working on as a baby writer was grammar. That and spelling. As a thirteen-year-old with a typewriter, I thought that the most important thing […]
-
Deliberate flubbing.
When you’re writing fiction, you have to make the same grammatical mistakes that your characters would make. As in, the same mistakes that human beings make when they’re talking. When […]
-
Hard lessons in writing #3: You ARE a special butterfly.
Funny thing is, this was maybe even harder to learn than you are NOT a special butterfly. Once I had accepted the fact that I would have to do all […]
-
Hard lessons in writing #2: You are not a special butterfly.
This was a pretty bitter pill for me to swallow. There was no real “aha!” moment around this, it was more like a process of evolution — that and listening […]
-
Taking stock of the journey thus far.
So it’s been a little while since I just talked about where I am in the novel-writing process right now, so I thought I’d check in. Thing are going okay, […]
-
Hard lessons in writing #1: You’re doing it wrong.
As previously mentioned, I’ve read many books on craft, attended many workshops, and peer-critiqued with many peers. That’s not how I started. I didn’t know any of those things existed […]
-
Editing by levels.
In learning how to write, I have studied many books on craft and grammar and attended many workshops. I honestly can’t recall where I got this advice from, but it […]
-
He/she.
When I was a kid, I had these health books about where babies come from. Okay, fine. On the very first page, before any of the explanations about sex and […]
-
Name that book!
Urgh. I hate coming up with titles. I don’t entirely know why. I just do. Nothing I can come up with seems to fit — I know what I want […]
Fresh blog posts right in your inbox!