Category Archives: Writing

I was reading a post about the importance of distance by Bryan Thomas Schmidt, and wondering if it’s really just fresh eyes that make getting distance from a piece so helpful. I know when I come back to a story … Continue reading →

Today’s post is late because we saw Swan Lake last night.  I spent much of the ballet thinking about what led the evil sorcerer to turn Odette and friends into swans in the first place, and what parts of the story would have to change to tell it from his perspective.    Which reminded me I’d meant to talk about Zero Hour! My brother discovered this movie and brought a DVD over while I was home for Christmas. Zero … Continue reading →

Recently, Jamie Todd Rubin posted about how he tracks his writing progress with Evernote and a Google spreadsheet. (If you’re interested in using his method, Margaret McGaffey Fisk has an Excel spreadsheet available for download.) I have a similar spreadsheet … Continue reading →

A Twitter conversation the other day reminded me of something I read a while back about how writers should learn to type faster, because then they’ll be able to write faster. I can’t speak for that person, but in my … Continue reading →

If last week’s post was a look back at 2011, this one must be a look ahead at 2012. I’ll be finishing one novel revision, outlining and drafting another that I’ve already done a bunch of planning on, writing 4+ … Continue reading →

In the usual fashion, I’m starting off my planning for 2012 by looking back at 2011. It was a good year, writing-wise. The most notable point is that I made my first two fiction sales: “The Demon’s Tomb” came out … Continue reading →

Last week I talked about goals–something you want to achieve and can control. If you want something, set goals that will help you achieve it, and then make a plan that will make you meet those goals. So how do … Continue reading →

Because it’s getting to be resolution time, and time for me to set my writing goals for the next year, I wanted to talk about dreams versus goals. I see a lot of people (probably not you) who declare that … Continue reading →

Last week, Pat Wrede posted about college majors and degrees for writers. This is a topic I always find interesting to read about, despite my not having any experience with being in school as a fiction writer–or maybe because it’s … Continue reading →

Congrats to those of you finishing Nanowrimo today! For a while now I’ve been tracking my writing time (and writing a program to analyze it, the results of which I’ll discuss I ever finish it (this is a programming exercise … Continue reading →