Tag: writing
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New Snippet
Go to page: New SnippetThe thing about being recruited into a secret organization of international assassins is that you expect it to happen when you’re twenty, not when you’re forty. And you definitely don’t expect it to happen when you’re not military or ex-military, but in fact, a recently divorced trophy-wife… Snippet #2: Assassin
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Introducing Snippets
Go to page: Introducing SnippetsI enjoy timed writing and writing from prompts. My favorite way to generate a prompt is to throw “give me three nouns,” into a Discord chat. Or I might open three books to a random page and put my finger on a word. I’ve gotten quite a few stories from these prompts, or from 15…
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Hard Choices
Go to page: Hard ChoicesThis post contains spoilers for the Amazon Prime and BBC series, The Outlaws. Over the past few months, I’ve taken a couple of wonderful Gotham classes on story structure, taken a fun standalone seminar on the shape of stories, and been reading Story Trumps Structure, by Steven James. I have thoughts, most of them jumbled…
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Submission Tips
Go to page: Submission TipsA couple of tips I really like, courtesy of the Just Keep Writing podcast, which I recently discovered. This one they credit to P. Djeli Clark. To paraphrase, once you’ve submitted a story, do not touch it again until it has received five form rejections. if that happens, maybe you’ll want to consider changes. Or…
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A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
Go to page: A Swim in a Pond in the RainI recently took advantage of Gotham Writer’s annual Open House, and signed up for a session on fiction writing with author Susan Breen. It was excellent, but it’s not actually what I want to talk about today. During the course of the session, somebody asked about short fiction, and Breen recommended a book by George…
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I should not feel inclined to begin my work
Go to page: I should not feel inclined to begin my workI’ve been here. I know this is Proust’s protagonist speaking, and not the author himself, but it’s hard to imagine that Proust never experienced what I suspect is a universal pattern: No need to write tonight because I’m going to write all day tomorrow. Well, that didn’t go well. I probably need some time to…
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Friends and Writers
Go to page: Friends and WritersI am mortified to realize that I have not made a post yet about my friends who write books! Sure, I only have a handful of followers now, and these wonderful writers are probably them, but someday when we’re all well-established and widely read somebody will find this old post and think, “Oh, hey, they…
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The “Just Keep Writing” Post
Go to page: The “Just Keep Writing” PostWith a bonus reference to Camus A while back I read The First Man, the unfinished manuscript by Albert Camus. I believe I have read almost everything by Camus at this point, and some books more than once. There are still one, or maybe two, I haven’t gotten to, but will soon. This isn’t a…