December 7, 2015 A Love Affair with Words Like any love affair, there are ups and downs. Some days, it’s more of a hate affair. But when you love ’em too much to leave ’em, you learn to live with the bad days. Categories General Thoughts & Updates/Quotes, Words, & Phrases Comment: 1
December 5, 2015 The Only Surefire Way To Become A Better Writer Categories General Thoughts & Updates/Inspiration/Quotes, Words, & Phrases Comments: 4
December 4, 2015 Falling off the Wagon of Writing Daily After I posted yesterday, I realized that I’d given the impression that writing daily is an addiction. Once you start, you just can’t stop. That’s how addictions work, right? The addiction part is true. The second part? Not so much. Writing is work. No matter how much you love it, no matter how naturally it comes to you, it’s work... Categories Creative Process/General Thoughts & Updates Comment: 1
December 1, 2015 Characterization Through Dialogue If you’re having trouble with characterization, you might want to check the dialogue. Even though real people don’t talk like book characters, dialogue is one of the fastest and most reliable ways to communicate what a character is like and where a character is from without going into a lot of detail. And the most important part of using dialogue for characterization... Categories Characterization, Plot, & Setting/General Thoughts & Updates/Literary Devices & Writing Techniques Comments: 3
November 30, 2015 The Carte Blanche of a Likable Character A while back, I was watching the M*A*S*H* series, and I had a little epiphany. It started when I realized that although Hawkeye and Trapper regularly tormented George Burns, the series always framed their actions as humorous and Burns’ actions as mean-spirited and wrong – which is essentially how the audience took it. And most of the time, Hawkeye and Trapper’s... Categories Characterization, Plot, & Setting/General Thoughts & Updates/Literary Devices & Writing Techniques Comments: 0
November 28, 2015 Writing Ahead: A Lesson Learned From Exhaustion The past week has taught me a lot about writing ahead when I can. I say when I can because, obviously, I can’t do that with twytte (that would defeat the purpose), but I usually try to keep this blog 1 a week ahead. For a few months, I was 2 weeks ahead. This week (this exhausting, ridiculous week) was the first time I haven’t been... Categories General Thoughts & Updates Comments: 0
November 26, 2015 5 Great Reasons for Writers to Be Thankful in 2015 Yes, I’m going to be predictable and talk about being thankful on Thanksgiving. As a writer in 2015, however, there is plenty to be thankful for. Be glad I’m only going to talk about my top 5. 5 . Novel Writing Classes Let’s face it. Fiction as we know it is only around a hundred years old (and that’s pushing... Categories General Thoughts & Updates Comments: 0
November 25, 2015 Ocean’s Eleven & Learning from Other People’s Mistakes A lot of improving our writing is learning from our own mistakes. But why stop there? Let’s learn from other people’s mistakes. If you want to try this, some of the most revealing pieces to examine are works in progress or works that were re-released. Other than movies of Broadway musicals where the change is apparent over time (such as Rodgers... Categories Characterization, Plot, & Setting/General Thoughts & Updates/Research & Worldbuilding/Theatre & Film Comments: 0
November 23, 2015 Suffering Aside, Write I don’t know when it started, but there is this idea in the arts that you can’t be a truly good or legitimate writer/painter/musician/whatever unless you’ve suffered in your life (“suffered for your art”). The idea is that you have to experience life first-hand before you can express it in a powerful or true way. Eh. Like most generalizations, this... Categories General Thoughts & Updates Comments: 2
November 20, 2015 Shine, Writers. Shine. Categories Creative Process/General Thoughts & Updates/Inspiration Comments: 0
