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Category Archives: writing

Write what you know

There’s a saying that you’re supposed to write what you know. Generally, that’s true — the further you get from what you know the worse the work gets. I think this is why so much fantasy/sci-fi is so bad — the people writing it don’t actually know science; and they don’t know fantasy, since it’s [...]

Burned Notice

Monica graduated from nursing school yesterday, and to celebrate we watched the last two episodes of Burn Notice, season 2. I guess it wasn’t so much to celebrate, as to get it over with so we don’t ever have to watch the show again. Burn Notice has been obsessing me lately because the show is [...]

Harry Potter redux

Last weekend at Wilson’s house I saw most of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. A couple of days later, on a (rather extended) study break, I saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. These movies brought to mind the release of the first one, and how excited I was at the prospect. [...]

Good writing

From this month’s Dreamhost newsletter by Brett D, whoever that is: I’m not saying that Simon is dreamy, BUT, flowers actually turn their blooms to face him whenever he walks by. I have seen this happen. It is fact. Women appreciate his unwavering confidence and rugged good looks. Men look forward to, and treasure for [...]

Notes on dialogue

Janet Fitch writes about writing dialogue: Dialogue is only for conflict. It’s like a racehorse, it can’t just carry any old thing, the pots and pans and old tires. You can’t heap all your expository business on it, the meet and greet, all that yack. It’s just for the conflict between one character and another. [...]

Contemporaneity

Contemporaneity, in the sense of being “up with the times,” is of no value. A competent wakefulness to experience — as well as to instruction and example — is another matter. But what we call the modern world is not necessarily, and not often, the real world, and there is no virtue in being up [...]

Time Spent

DDB made a comment the other day that I’ve been thinking about. In my last post, I said something about how I’d spent ~150 hours watching Lost, and DDB said something about how my comment had made him re-evaluate how he’s spending his time. I think the idea was that the notion of spending 150 [...]

Whammers!

Got to cafe 5 mins before they opened, narrowly beating ‘alternative medicine’ dude who smokes like an effing chimney and who’s been stealing my spot for the last two months. Ha! Also, I’ve forgotten to update on this lately, but the tally stands at 11 total submissions of six different stories, which have resulted in [...]

Well that makes sense now

10 Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied. From here, via Caren. I wonder if anyone who’s not trying to write would find anything of interest in this collection of shop talk. You tell me.

Submission #4

I can’t remember if I’ve been numbering these things in terms of the number of times I’ve submitted, or the number of different stories that I’ve submitted. I think I’ll go with the latter, since that’s a more meaningful metric. Anyway, I’ve been trying to find a good market for “Mutter” which is one of [...]