Blogs

  • A Phantom for My Opera?

    Some days when I doubt myself and my abilities to write I think of employing a ghost writer. But in a bit of a different setup. I will write the first draft and then the potential ghost writer can refine it to a readable/enjoyable state. I love storytelling, and I love the creative process. But my produce just isn't up to par most of the time. Training is like trying to teach an old dog new tricks. I read, I watch, I practice... I learn? Yeah, sometimes I do learn. But I will continue to try my best. So no, I will not employ a phantom for my space opera. I will be the author of my own...
  • The Desperate Search for a New Idea...

    I think I have it... Not a truly different idea in that it's completely unheard of on any level.. But I had quit story-telling for a while because I couldn't think of something genuinely new and interesting. Different in terms of style, structure, and idea. As a fiction writer...I tend to want to [I]create [/I]something. To flex my imagination rather than offering stylistic renditions of the same types of stories. Only problem is...I think I will never complete it in time. I know...cryptic. Useless...but this is more a time-stamp for myself. Maybe, in time, someone will look back on...
  1. What's a Folder?

  2. A Word on the Opening Paragraph

    I'm not a terribly experienced writer. I came to the forum a few years ago as a demonstrably poor writer who wanted to get better. Through the encouragement (and occasional head bashing) I found here, my writing improved. I want to pass that along.

    I said elsewhere, and I'll say here (in particular because I'm not the first person to say this, but it bears repeating): The sole job of the opening paragraph is to draw readers in; to tell them that they want to read more. It...
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  3. Dead trees!

    I used Draft2Digital to expand the publication of my novel, and that included a print version. The process was simple, and while the interior layout isn't perfect (there are a few random page breaks that I don't know where they came from), the general result is excellent. I'm excited about it. It's strange to hold a book in my hand that has my name on it (see the Gallery tab on this post).
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  4. Murdering the world

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    It's an amazingly beautiful day out, and I decided to take the bus up to Subway to get dinner. Walking across the parking lot on the way back, at first I was just thinking to myself in words and ignoring my surroundings, but I happened to glance down. In one sense, it's just a standard parking lot, but if you shut off the wordstream (essentially go into meditation) and allow yourself to experience the moment more purely,...
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  5. Figuring Out My Relationship with God

    Figuring Out My Relationship with God

    Don’t know what’s got into me but I want to go back to church. I used to go to mass every Sunday with my mother and it felt like going home sitting beside her in the pew in the same church in which I was baptized, confirmed and got married. But then Covid hit and we stopped going. And then we entered the worst part of my husband’s battle with MS which ended with his death in September of 2021, and my faith was shook up bad.

    There was no God in...
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  6. Long Winter, Intrusive Memories, and Dreams of You



    I don't remember the winters lasting so long when I was younger. The worst parts of life didn't seem to last so long in hindsight, yet things felt like they lasted forever in the moment. Is every year of our lives just a coin toss between enjoying the view from the mountain top, or looking back at the peaks?

    I had a dream about an old teacher. That long dead period of my life where part of me is stuck. 15 years later and the memories that intrude into my...
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  7. Progress and living matter.

    My fictional universe is science fiction with a blend of fantasy. Immortals, dragons, gods, intricate architecture, billion year old civilisations spanning multiple galaxies, various alien species, and humans.

    I'm soon done with the fourth draft of my first book. Just two more chapters. It's still only around 65 000 words, so I need to get creative and add more scenes. It is very problematic that the main character's love interest only has around ten lines or somewhere around that in the...
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  8. The Hebraic god was something completely unprecedented

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  9. Dialogue should be action

    What does this mean? I have a few ideas I'll write about, but I also want to expand my understanding of how dialogue pushes narrative and character interaction, and how it reveals the personalities of the characters involved. It can do all these things and more.

    As for the more—dialogue, like just about any part of story, can provide exposition, it can be inert, static, or it can even work against the progression of the story. But I'll start with a few things I think I know about it....
  10. Honestly, It's Not for Everyone

    That’s Nebraska’s current tourism slogan, and it seems perfect to me. Most people from the state (at least among those I know) will freely admit there are no obviously sublime sights, no real mountains, no towering redwoods, no massive canyons, only one real waterfall (and it ain’t much by Niagara standards). But then they will say something like, “it’s got a lot of subtle beauty.”

    And so it does.

    I was born in ranch country, way out in the northwest corner of the state, in the shadow...
  11. Prose versus Story: The Great Divide

    In my first blog post I explained that, when reading literature, I value story over prose. I then compared my appraisal of those two facets of fiction with how I would prioritize a school’s campus against its student body and faculty — with the campus representing prose, and the students and faculty representing story.

    Using that analogy, I stated that while I care about campus quality, and believe I’m fully capable of appreciating beautifully and brilliantly constructed...
  12. Breaking Down Breaking Bad

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    I did a few posts about it back in the Hodgepodge thread, but now I want to devote some time and energy to really digging into it. And I'll start with this:



    The video is from this article: Our Favorite Lessons on Screenwriting from 'Breaking Bad'

    Once again I'm using the blog as a...
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  13. R.L. STINE accuses publishers of changing his books without permission

    Well, they're going after R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series and it's news to the him because he never gave them permission to change the text. I'm unsure if this is 'sensitivity' writers or editors but they are changing things like crazy to silly and again going after unkind descriptions for the release of his new E-book editions.

    Scholastic's reason - "keep the language current and avoid imagery that could negatively impact a young person's view of themselves today, with a particular...
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  14. In Praise of Imperfection

    In Praise of Imperfection

    Years ago, I read that, in some cultures, a vase that has been cracked and repaired is considered more beautiful than a perfect specimen. The imperfection tells a story of triumph. “I have suffered, but I have survived.” Battle scars are to be worn proudly. It’s the imperfection that adds depth to the piece.

    Imperfection is a lot more interesting than perfection. Otherwise, what would we gossip about? But seriously, what is perfectionism but an attempt...
  15. True to Type

    I've been reading H.L. Mencken's A Choice of Days, selections from his autobiography that deal with his early adult life, culminating with his work as reporter and later city editor of the Baltimore Sun. Engaging, clever, sometimes painfully casually racist, but all in all a good read. But what I am most taken by at the moment is the cover photo of him as a young man, at a desk, corncob pipe in one hand, a stack of typed paper to one side of an old-fashioned typewriter, with...
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