You slave and slave: outlining, drafting, editing, rewriting, getting beta reads, re-writing, steeping, re-writing, and finally submitting. Some time passes. Maybe a lot of time passes. Maybe “time begins seriously to pass”. Finally, you (if you’re lucky) get a rejection. You feel rejected; you are dejected, you’re not respected, your work wasn’t elected. Even worse … Read more
For some months now I’ve been watching the beta process of Scrivener v 3.0 for windows. I love Scrivener, in my opinion, it’s the best program for writers interested in worldbuilding, and even if you aren’t interested in worldbuilding it has many features that make it superior to things like Microsoft Word or Open Office … Read more
Writers, artists, and creatives have a rich history of choosing Nom De Plumes. Famous works have been published anonymously, ranging from Publius, writing the Federalist papers which have a guiding role in United States Jurisprudence, to Voltaire and Johnathon Swift, chosen to protect the identity of writers satirizing those in power. Will you work smell … Read more
The idea that you’ll write a perfect book is simply absurd. Even so, I’ve seen and heard other writers fret about being criticized. But here’s the thing. You should want criticism. You should crave feedback. You need to hear other’s reactions because your writing doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Writing that exists in a vacuum … Read more
There’s a saying, one of those rules of writing “Write what you know”. This is one of those pieces of writing advice that is both great, and terrible. Writing something that you know, for instance, a job can lend an amazing amount of verisimilitude to your work. Things like jargon, or job procedures, details about … Read more
There is a curious fact about the English language. We use the word not almost entirely wrong. To some degree, this is about semantics, and pedanticism, and colloquialism. But this kind of linguistic ambiguity can be a writer’s friend, and it can also be used for emphasis. Consider the phrase: “I do not like green … Read more
It’s a tremendous risk to wax on about how great the most popular adult cartoon on Adult Swim is, and it’s entirely possible doing so will anger a great many people. Nonetheless, I really like Rick and Morty, and I want to write about it, and this probably won’t be the only time. Rick and … Read more
As things approach the familiar their very unfamiliarity becomes disturbing. Generally, the uncanny valley is an artistic ground trod by film and television, particularly with animated films. Movies like Benjamin Button, Cats, and Polar Express occupy a bizarre space. Characters appear humanoid, but not quite human, but they were obviously intended to evoke familiarity. One … Read more
One of the most common refrains given to writers, and a piece of early advice I got from my dad, was that if you want to be a writer, you have to read a lot. I think this is very true, but there are different kinds of words and different kinds of reading. If you’re … Read more
But What Does That Mean? I always wanted to be a writer. But what does that even mean? I remember when I was in middle school, I read that some writers had started newspapers at a young age. So I started a newspaper/newsletter. It was performative almost, kind of a cargo-cult, but still, I did … Read more