Starting in January I will be teaching my first writing course, at the Loft. This is somewhat terrifying, but mostly very exciting. But I need students! The course is going to run on Thursdays from January 26th to March 1st, and it is going to be really fun. Also we will learn stuff, like how to dissect a Hobbit. (Students must provide their own ( Read more... )

Aspiring Writers Given Bad Advice. (via Margo Lanagan on Twitter ( Read more... )

1. Framing Devices. Obviously framing devices work sometimes, but it's to the point now where I will spend an entire novel/film/short story/TV episode trying to decide whether the framing device is justified. 90% of the time it isn't. There's nothing wrong with telling a story in chronological order, you know; if doing that bores you, then maybe ( Read more... )

This post brought to you by the fact that I have been trying to read some epic fantasy lately. It hasn't gone well ( Read more... )

Some people react to the spouting of rules with a perverse desire to immediately break them. Hell, sometimes I am one of them. But I would like to propose two simple rules for novelists for all of you perverts to ignore ( Read more... )

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
51. What I Didn't See and Other Stories by Karen Joy Fowler.
52. Thunder and Roses: Volume IV: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon.
53. Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler.
54. Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison.
55. Angela Davis: An Autobiography.

56. Always Coming Home by ( Read more... )

1. Ax-Man Surplus stores logo/mascot, pose and expression of ( Read more... )

I took today off to finish. At about 11 AM I finished the longhand draft of the novel (I still haven't settled on a title); after a break to work out, watch some "Mad Men," shower and eat lunch, I typed the last bit up at about 1:15. So drafts 1 and 1.5 are now complete. This one took a long damn time; I started it in the summer of 2009, and now it ( Read more... )

The novel was moving along swimmingly for a couple of months, there. Then I got stuck. At first I thought it was because I couldn't decide what to do with the Mississippi River, but it's really this scene with the guns, here. Right now I've got eight characters in a room waiting for me to decide what happens next. They are asking me things like, " ( Read more... )

On the way to the library I walked past the site of the Hollow, which was an informal neighborhood playground back in the day. Nowadays there's an apartment high-rise standing there, overlooking I-94. A block beyond that, there's a Head Start facility, where little kids drove tricycles around a track with expressions of sheer delight on their faces ( Read more... )