Normality Creeps In
I’m not sure how much this post will have to do with writing…maybe a little. It’s been six days since the quake that wrecked Christchurch. Despite the holes in the road, the shattered buildings and the lost lives, the thing I see more than anything else is a city doing its best to return [...]
Under Duress
So, when it all turns to shit, do you keep writing? The short answer is, if you can. I’m sitting here in my house, which is still a wreck (a structurally sound wreck thank goodness) and wondering if I should keep writing. For awhile I thought it would actually be wrong to post up anything [...]
The Earth Moved
Some of you may know I live in a city called Christchurch in New Zealand. We just had a major earthquake, our second in six months. It has destroyed much of our city. Power and water are out for most of the city; I’m posting this from my phone. I was very lucky. I had [...]
What Genre?
Genre fiction is riding high at the moment, propelled by sexy vampires, teenaged spies and boy wizards it dominates the book worldwide. Literary fiction isn’t doing so well. It’s far from dead, but the general feeling seems to be you have a better chance making a living doing combined pogo/striptease than as a literary novelist. [...]
Five Quick Energy Tips For Writers
* A quick disclaimer. Andrew is not a Doctor, even though he played one in a movie that one time. Nothing he says or does should be construed as a good idea. So. Tired. Eyes dropping, gravity’s getting the better of my face too. I feel like one of those cartoons of astronauts in high gravity [...]
Motivation By Way Of Shiny Toys
I just bought a new computer. An iMac. It is new. It is shiny. For some reason the cats love it. Might be the box. Still, despite the computing power available to me right now, despite the fact that I could be playing games or editing a movie what I really want to be doing [...]
Doom and Short Stories
***Please Note: Contest Extended for 48 hours*** I’m gonna sing the Doom Song now. [singing] Gir: Doom doom doom… - GIR, Invader Zim (2001) Are we all doomed? Listening to the news and various writing blogs it certainly sounds like it. Book sales are down, major book stores are going out of business, I can’t [...]
Zombie Darlings!
We’re told constantly that we must kill our darlings. The term “darlings” refers to those words, scenes and characters that we included in our story not because they fit, but because they were cool. I hate pulling stuff out that I’ve already written, especially if it’s awesome. I have this issue with dialogue, in that [...]
Five Traits Of Common Writing Scams
We’ve all heard of scams that target writers, and we’ve all thought at some point of another “I’m too smart to fall for that”. Sure, you probably are too smart for that, but there’s a fly in our ointment, a secret all beginning writers harbour that keeps the scammers in business: Desperation. We’re all desperate [...]
Writers and Unrealistic Goals
NB: This post was inspired by Chuck Wendig’s blog post here. I think we all do this. I do it all the time, but I’m suffering from a decade’s worth of head trauma, so doing what I do is probably not a good idea. We set ourselves a goal that’s out of our control, then, [...]
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