Writing the Opposite Sex
One of the axioms of writing is that you should write only what you know from experience. Writers extend that to say that you really only know how to write your own sex: men write only male characters well, and women write only female characters well. That’s why, they say, practically all romance novelists are […]
A Dream to Explore
A quick midnight blog post and an announcement. I swear I did not coordinate this with Jamie Ridler. It’s either an astounding coincidence or a message from God. At midnight, a couple hours ago, Jamie prompted for Wishcasting Wednesday, “What dream do you wish to explore?” And as the song says, a dream is a […]
Have you ever dreamed a New Year’s wish?
Once in a while you have one of those dreams that sticks with you after you wake up, moves you, speaks to you, but in ways you don’t understand upon waking. I had such a dream New Year’s morning. And the first thing I did was to write it down, or at least as much […]
What is Love without Strings?
What is love without strings? I’ve phrased the question ambiguously. It could mean, “What is love, without strings?” Is there any love in existence that has no strings on it? We all put strings on our love. We all have conditions, whether or not or how much to love someone else, not for the sake […]
One Day in December (a Holiday Update)
It’s the day after Christmas (or close enough, anyhow). And you know what that means: Everyone breathes a sigh of relief that Uncle Albert is on his way home for another year. No, seriously, it means we all return all the gifts that we didn’t actually want. Except that I didn’t get any of those, […]
Are You Having a Merry Christmas?
It’s the last day before Christmas. Each year, the kids at church perform at our Christmas Eve service. And this year, Sondra (of In the Deep) has put together a wonderful kids program, with lots of special music. And I’m happy to have been a part of it. I’ve been trying to spend more time […]
Ideas and Inspirations
Ray Bradbury wrote 65 episodes of a science-fiction anthology series called The Ray Bradbury Theater, from the mid-eighties and into the nineties. I managed to catch a bunch of the episodes when they reran on the Sci-Fi Channel, back when it was still spelled “Sci-Fi.†The Ray Bradbury Theater opened with a shot of Ray […]
Sneak Peek: The Kiss
This goes into the “I probably would never have even dated George, but then he kissed me” category. One of the finished scenes, one that I particularly like, in Chapter 3 of From the Ashes of Courage. BTW, I’ve been wondering whether I should post this novel to my “stories” blog. I usually only post […]
A Belated Holiday Gift: Limited Advance Edition of From the Ashes of Courage
Revision and layout are bolting forward on From the Ashes of Courage, as you can see from the front-cover image here. (Click to enlarge.) It would have been nice to have these for Christmas, but there’s simply no way to get a copy to you in time for the holidays, even if the manuscript were […]
Revising Your Novel
As a writer, I often get asked, how do you revise a novel? Actually, I don’t get asked that. Someone does often ask me what word he wanted to use, as though I as a writer should have a command of words. (I don’t. But that’s a different post.) Of course, if I knew what […]