What Type of Story Gardener Are You?
How often have you answered the question, “Are you a pantser or a plotter?” with “I’m a bit of both” or “I’m somewhere in the middle”, or something along that line? In this video, at around the 50:30 mark, you can listen to Carrie Vaughn and Song of Ice and Fire (better known as Game […]
How Horror Handicaps Your Writing – Don’t Do This (New Article Series)
I’m starting a new series of writing-craft articles called “Don’t Do This”, taking an in-depth look at some of the more dubious choices made by published authors and TV/film writers/directors/editors, and the reasons you don’t want to copy them without knowing exactly what these elements will cost your story. I want to do this without […]
Revisiting Morning Pages
I don’t think I’ve met a writer who doesn’t know what “Morning Pages” are—but just in case, here’s a footnote1. I haven’t written Morning Pages in years, but reading Kathryn Craft’s new book, The Far End of Happy, reminded me of this practice. Kathryn’s main protagonist, Ronnie, is a freelance writer and an ardent morning-pager […]
Are You Leading with Your Weakest Link?
No matter how crucial a scene may be to your plot, if it makes you go “ick”, don’t lead with it. It seems obvious to me after it was pointed out, but at the time of writing and revising a particular story, it made sense to start at the “beginning”, even though I always found […]
Madison Lane is on Kindle and I’m on YouTube
My teen science-fantasy novel Madison Lane and the Wand of Rasputin has been published on Kindle, and (update) is now available in print too. Just for fun, and a leap out of my comfort zone, I made a video of me reading an extract from “Maddie”. Enjoy.
Kristen Lamb – Rise of the Machines – Review
Rise of the Machines : Human Authors in a Digital World is the latest book by social networking expert Kristen Lamb. If you are familiar with Kristen Lamb’s blog, you will recognise some of her wisdom and advice in this book, which acts as a consolidation of her tips on the social networking approach to […]
Announcing: Madison Lane and the Wand of Rasputin
My teen science-fantasy book, Madison Lane and the Wand of Rasputin, will be out later in the year – at this stage I anticipate September or October. This is a very first sketch for the cover illustration by the talented Sandra Salsbury. Here is the blurb for the book: Be careful what you wish for. […]
Orb’s Return (Poetry)
Beyond the murk The ire of dragon long impaled on wretched lance Encircled in a bitter trial. Sacred heart and evil dance And hemlock burns in desperate pale Beyond and through the cries of night Bewitched and thrice behove of light Briton’s daughter-earth beyond Fearless echo of their heart.
Revisions
I’m in the revision phase of my middle grade fantasy novel. I love this part. Revision is layering. It’s the search for symbolism and metaphor and meaning. It’s digging into the richness of what I’ve written and discovering that my planning and outlining paid off when I allowed the writing of the first draft to […]
Dyad
My daughter is nearly a year old, and has been walking for a month, and, thus, our motherbaby dyad is slowly coming to an end. Because of her reflux and the distress that lying horizontally has caused her, we have spent the year quite literally attached. This is how I managed to get all my […]