It's a while since I posted here. More than month's passed since World Fantasy in Columbus. Thankfully, I didn't experience any con crud, and I'll credit the good meals I ate with friends in various restaurants around the convention center, as well as the copious amounts of Blue Moon that I consumed in the hotel bar. I think I've avoided posting ( Read more... )

I'm finally coming down from the rush that was the World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, Ohio, last week. Enough to provide a coherent report of my impressions and what I gained from the time and money spent hanging out with friends in bars and restaurants (and attending the odd panel or two ( Read more... )

One of the few advantages of mowing the lawn is that it allows my mind to drop into autopilot; all it's got to do is keep me walking in straight lines and avoid debris that might shoot out from under the mower. Consequently, my muse moves into the front and starts playing with scenes and story ideas.

I worked through a lot of problems with ( Read more... )

Normally, I'm reading several different books at the same time, and the genres can range from mystery to horror to straight literary fiction. Sometimes it's like juggling bowling balls and chain saws, since the writing styles are so different.

The benefit to tackling books like The Passage by Justin Cronin at the same time I'm reading The Pillars ( Read more... )

I'm not sure how I feel about snippets.

One day I like them, and I'm happy to show them off. They're new and shiny and you know your muse is in the zone. Today's comes from the beginning of the next chapter in Sacrifices / Into Dust Descend, where the story returns to its creepy side.

Old ones within the pack knew obedience.The previous chapter ( Read more... )

I'm still making progress on the book. Not as fast as I'd like, but that always seems to be the case. That I'm still making progress is the important point. Words make me happy these days. The characters and story continue to develop. They're donning complexities like clothes worn too long. Wrinkled and comfortable, all full of textures and ( Read more... )

Today's post touches on one of the reasons I enjoy writing: I get to learn stuff ( Read more... )

One of the things I struggle with as a writer is how to handle flashbacks.

Part of my difficulty is balancing how much to show about a character's past or past events that inform who they are now as a character. New writers are told to start a story by dropping readers in medias res. Yet, writers are told to limit how much they use flashbacks, ( Read more... )

I wanted to start today's post starts with a snippet from Sacrifices / Into Dust Descend, but nothing I wrote last night or this morning was simple enough for me to extract ( Read more... )

Day 3 of 90 finds me on track with the current work-in-progress. Half of it was written longhand, as I didn't have ready access to electricity for most of Saturday. Then I spent Sunday transcribing my scribbles before knocking out new material while JFK played on AMC to provide background noise ( Read more... )