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Writing and the Gap
I watched this video: http://vimeo.com/24715531 and it made me think of my gap. It's a good thing you don't see how long, physically and in time, the gap actually is. It's like skiing, to me. You have to be young enough when you start that you can't see how stupid it is to strap on planks and ( Read more... ) -
Cracked on "writing"
Wow, Cracked did it again. Since I'm no longer trying to make it in "the man's" corporate world (and, instead, hope to make my own corporation, because let's be real, being a "person" is better than being a person under tax code). Read:
5 Popular Self Help Tips That Actually Hurt Your CareerBut instead of reading "hurt your career", read "never, ( Read more... ) -
Writing the Breakout Novel Part 1
2001 was a different time. We’d all collectively agreed that putting your credit card on the Internet was a very bad thing indeed, and I really, really wanted a book my local Chapters didn’t carry. I had already Put My Credit Card On The Internet about a month before to buy a book on writing by Holly Lisle, but Writing the Breakout Novel was ( Read more... ) -
Epiphanies and the work it takes to epiphany
I had a lovely chat with my aunt today. We all think we are all unique special snowflakes when we come to monumental life decisions, but really, the feeling that your writing has evolved to a point where you can see its success in the tension and manipulate it to the nth degree is not a unique thing. A lot of people do it ( Read more... ) -
Taking the shiny off a character (Warning. This post might use the word 'penis' in it) And may rant
I love the word shiny. People who are shiny are just better all around people. It's not enough that they just be really good at one thing and a jerk and a failure in all other aspects of their life, but the people who are genuinely good people, great at the thing they love, and just share joy instead of misery. In real life, I absolutely feel ( Read more... ) -
Being bored and being bad
If I were a child today, I probably would have been so jacked up on baby!speed that my movements would have been more like the three-toed sloth. My brain spun on high gear almost all the time, but when I was absorbing something interesting, I could sit down and watch something for hours and hours at a time. If it wasn't interesting, I'd be bored, ( Read more... ) -
Middles (but really, the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end)
I just finished the end of part two, moving on to the final act. I hate middles. Most middles are the crappy gap between "Man, do I have a SWEET idea", and "I know exactly how it ends, too ( Read more... ) -
Engaging brains
I was a bad kid. I started out merely average on the obedience scale, but a couple things tipped me over the scale in grade six. I'd just started to write, and I had a first year teacher who was a horrible teacher. (In my memories, I make her a first year teacher after going through my own educational steps out of a kindness to her. If she really ( Read more... ) -
Chimps as pets/"First" books by "new" authors/Watching (fill in nationality here) Idol
Just watched a horrible show on owning chimps as pets. They showcased the two attacks in Stanford and Northern California, and had explicitly stated that all chimps past puberty are an accident waiting to happen. They had a physiologist advising that all people who own chimps think that their very special bond is just so much more special than ( Read more... ) -
Positive reinforcements and writing
I never got any positive reinforcements when I started out writing. I decided when I was eleven that I was going to write this massively long story about a farmer boy who thought he was a prince, had an evil father who was trying to kill him, a magic sword, a talking white horse, and off I went ( Read more... )