YouTube is ruining me as a writer. I mean, I think I’ve done some decent writing there. I am very proud of some of the scripts I’ve written for videos (I still think that “Bob” could be expanded into a compelling article, if I ever stop being lazy). But I’ve achieved a modest sort of success there, and as I’ve racked up more subscribers and more ( Read more... )

There’s this feature on LJ. I don’t know if it’s new, but if it isn’t I only just noticed it this afternoon. It’s what you get if you click the little “Stats/My Guests” link on the left-hand side on your homepage (this should teach me to go to my homepage more often, I guess), and what it does is tell you how many folks have been reading your ( Read more... )

I have found a project for myself. I've become fascinated by The Agony Booth, a website dedicated to recaps of really bad movies. Not reviews, but actual scene-by-scene, mistake-by-mistake recaps of the movies. They are very funny, and the site has become my second-favorite. And they accept submissions from readers, so I've been thinking about ( Read more... )

Back during NaNo, I wrote posts almost every day reporting my progress and how various things like spending time with Amy or Katy, or the trip to Minneapolis, distracted me from keeping my word count up.  Nettie wrote a comment on one of these posts, in which I actually wasn’t too far behind, congratulating me for having balance between the NaNo ( Read more... )

So it’s December 12, my father’s birthday.  Had he lived, he would be 58 years old today.  He was good man, and an interesting man:  a Philosophy student and manual laborer, a DJ, a prison minister, a US Army reject, and not least a devoted and affectionate (though cantankerous and absent-minded) husband and father.  I wish I was more like him.
( His life, or bits of it, are under here )

So, I have been thinking.  All last month, actually, I was thinking this same thing:  My talent is mostly for writing dialog.  I have a knack for conversations (which is interesting if you know me, because I have some trouble with conversation when I'm actually sitting and talking with someone).  Novel-writing, I'm still not sure that's for me, you ( Read more... )

...and here are a few of them:

Lenny’s been a fixture in this town since before I can remember. He’s a Gulf War veteran who suffered severe nerve damage in his country’s service, to say nothing of having picked up an impressive array of minor psychological problems that are presumably akin to shell-shock. He came home an alcoholic insomniac who ( Read more... )

I've been just kind of writing my still-nameless NaNo, not sure where it's going or what's gonna happen, just introducing the characters who will go there and have things happen to them.  While I've been waiting for whatever's gonna happen to happen, I've been filling time (and my word count) by exploring the ways in which my characters interact ( Read more... )

My narrator is a cook in a bar who aspires to be a writer, and during work he writes short stories between orders of hot wings and potato skins.  He just had a discussion with himself about why he's so good at short stories but not good at novels, and sort of worked the difference out in his head.

Coincidentally, I've spent most of my life as a ( Read more... )

It’s 2:00 Monday afternoon and I’m lying on my back, my body fighting for sleep and my mind resisting the urge. The alarm has gone off and I’m dead tired and desperately hung over, a real hangover, not a headache or an upset stomach but an all-over, full-body hangover. I feel like someone came into the room while I slept and emptied out my insides ( Read more... )