Listen. With faint dry sound, Like steps of passing ghosts, The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees And fall. – “November Night,” by Adelaide Crapsey * * * I’ve met a lot of people who want to write but have a hard time listening. They don’t listen to advice They don’t listen to the way […]
Archives for 2010
Can Technology Save Storytelling?
I have a very busy friend — he’s the Assistant Vice President of Application Architecture for a large company. Almost every morning, he’s up early for a run in his neighborhood or on his stationary bike. He has two young daughters who keep him very busy. He’s not the kind of father who puts work […]
Copy Cats
When I started writing, I broke away from the most common bit of writing advice: “Read as much as you can!” I’d read enough throughout my life to know how stories worked. When I started writing stories, I didn’t want too much of the writers I looked up to showing up in my work. So […]
Restrict Yourself
If I look over my left shoulder while sitting at my desk in the office, there are six longboxes of comic books and a small comic box to my immediate left. This doesn’t include all the graphic novels and collections. This also doesn’t include some of the comic books and collections on a shelf in […]
Do You Have What It Takes To Make It Writing?
Are you a productive writer, or somebody who just dabbles? Do you want to supplement your income with writing or make writing your career, but find it hard to make time to write? Do you have what it takes to make it writing? The hardest thing is realizing that you don’t, but there’s no shame […]
The Book Pile: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much
I’ve been meaning to write a review about Allison Hoover Bartlett’s The Man Who Loved Books Too Much for awhile, now. The book was given to me as a Christmas gift; it was one of my favorite gifts received last December. The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is the true story of John Gilkey, […]
Will Write for Food
In the comments of a recent post, a member of the writing group I’m in said this about e-books becoming more common: “I suspect it will be easier to get an audience via the e-book revolution, and harder to make a career” – Mark Felps I’ve seen things get harder when the self publishing boom […]
What’s Worse than Piracy?
“Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.” – Tim O’Reilly Tim O’Reilly’s quote (often attributed to Cory Doctorow), has always rung true with me. Not that I like the thought of people taking and trading an artist’s work for free, but if people are sharing your work illegally, it’s […]
The Problem with E-books (Pt. 1: Because I Know There Will Be More)
While I’ve spent some time touting e-books, I am not one of those people shouting, “Death to print! E-books now!” E-books have some serious drawbacks, and the biggie to me as a writer and a reader: an inability to share. Oh, sure–the Barnes and Noble Nook allows limited sharing with other Nook owners. And if […]
Listening to TV Talk
Whether you watch television or avoid it, writers can learn a lot about storytelling by listening to people talk about the TV shows they watch. Not a week has gone by at any job I’ve ever had where people didn’t talk about their favorite shows. The day job is a great place to learn what […]
The Platform of Silence
J.D. Salinger is dead. I’m not going to talk about what an influence he was on my writing because it was just last year that I finally got off my lazy goddamn ass and read that stinking book he wrote–you know, that one everybody talks about and stuff; the really famous one with the rambling […]
A Delicate, Floating State
Things change. I grew up with three major networks on television and PBS. UHF channels were like cable…that is, until cable came around. I grew up reading books — I love books! Lately, though, most fiction and non-fiction I’ve purchased has been electronic, read on my iPhone with the Kindle app and Stanza. Later today, […]
Looking Ahead
My first novel was well received by agents, but I heard this more than a few times: “I don’t know how I’d market this. Humor, or horror? It’s not at all scary.” There is a reason it’s not scary: it’s not horror. My first novel, Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors, is a humorous coming […]
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