I don't mean boats or ships, or even space ships. I'm talking about the craft of writing. Sadly, a lot of folks in the US don't read books, but they're still exposed to writing, both good and bad. When you see a movie or sit down in front of the TV, chances are good you're listening to something someone wrote. With a few exceptions (e.g., un- ( Read more... )

I just finished listening to my Kindle read one of my own books to me. As I have posted before, the Kindle's robot voice has its limitations, but it also has its strengths. For one thing, it never gets bored or tired. For another, it reads exactly what it finds on the page (except for mispronouncing selected words, as mentioned before ( Read more... )

In addition to red roses and a Kindle, I got an Amazon gift certificate for my birthday, so I splurged a little. Consequently, I am currently reading two books at once, both YA/MG, and both spec fic (one is fantasy and one is science fiction). Both are also very popular, although with different reader groups. The science fiction one has a teenage ( Read more... )

Before I got into writing, I was very interested in visual arts. When I took drawing in college, especially life drawing, it used to frustrate me when teachers would look at my drawing and say, “Don't copy the model!” It made me want to scream, “Then what the hell is she sitting there for, if I'm not supposed to copy her!” I finally said, ( Read more... )

I'm in the middle of revising/gutting/rewriting a novel I wrote a long while ago and only recently gave to my critique group. I've already rewritten the beginning, and I like the new version a lot better, and now I'm considering how much I want to change the ending.

This reminded me of my (fairly recent) experience reading Perdidio Street StationA ( Read more... )

I wrote a couple books in my head before I ever put one on paper. And I do mean on paper. The very first time I wrote a "novel" (I am using the term loosely; that's one that will never see the light of day) it was on a typewriter. The second one was on a PC with dual floppy drives (I am seriously giving away my age here). It wasn't until the ( Read more... )

My reading lately has been varied. In the last few weeks, I finished off How Not To Make A Wish, by mindyklasky, Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne, and The Inferior, by peadarog. Now I have started in on a behemoth- Under the Dome by Stephen King. Reading on a Kindle hides some of the overwhelming impact of door-stopper books, but when I look at my ( Read more... )

I always say that I consider myself a story teller first and a writer second. People tell stories in different ways. When I went to see a co-worker's son perform a recital, he mentioned that he liked to do show tunes because musical theater was just story telling set to music. For the first time, I felt an instant sense of kinship with a ( Read more... )

Something that came up in my writer's group recently was the question all fiction writers face: when and if to kill off a character. Death is a part of life. And really, if there is no risk in a situation, there is no tension either. Unless you're writing a romance, any character should be fair game to get killed off, right ( Read more... )

This isn't my first post in November, but it is my No-vember post. In case you don't follow these things, November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), the month in which a whole bunch of folks commit to trying to write 50,000 words in 30 days (1,667 words per day ( Read more... )