Writing
Friday Fun: The 5 Rules of Book Reviews
Authors and publishers, in my opinion, spend way too much time sucking up to literary critics, which is why I decided to become a book reviewer.
Of course, no critic actually deserves the respect he gets (myself included), not for his opinion in any case. And I dare say, publishers wouldn’t give critics the time of [...]
Friday Fun: Quip Hits
A number of short statements, commentaries, and useless insights collected over the last mumble-mumble months.
On Technology
Top Facebook group: “I’m not yelling…I’m Italian…thats how we talk.”
Top Facebook group that someone ought to start: “Walking around naked makes me feel sexy.”
Some weeks ago, I posted “Coconut” to my Facebook status, and no one noticed. Do you know [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
Friday Fun: 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 [...]
Revising “From the Ashes of Courage”
Revising a novel can be an exciting and trying process. Exciting, because you get to see a story you’ve been working on for weeks (or longer) finally taking final form. Revision is also when you finalize the themes in your story, because the characters’ story arcs have reached their final form, and you get to [...]
Parents of Divorced Couples
I ran into an interesting issue today with one of the characters of From the Ashes of Courage.
In brief, Gail and George divorced years ago, and they haven’t seen each other since. Now, she’s part of his life again, as a friend. George’s father seems genuinely happy to see her and treats her with affection [...]
She’s a headstrong businesswoman…
She’s a headstrong, driven, single-minded businesswoman, a successful independent professional at only 29 years old. But she still feels empty. He’s a fun-loving real-estate agent who made a mint in the boom market, now fast running out of money. And their friends set them up on a blind date, unaware that many years ago, they [...]
Friday Fun: 7 Fun Links from My Feed Reader
I’ve been slogging my way through NaNoWriMo. I’ll probably call this novel From the Ashes of Courage (or some variation thereof), because I think it reflects the theme and mood of the story: risking all in the face of defeat; and less Love Boat, more As Good As It Gets.
At this point, when it comes [...]