Let Me Tell You a Story

We love a good story. In fact, we are hardwired for stories.[1] [2] “And the elements of a good story are always the same,” says journalist Dan Gardner. “It has to be about people. And it has to have novelty, drama and conflict.”[3] “The elements of a good story are always the same. It has

Six word memoir

Six word memoirs and summations are popular, I tried my hand at my career. Forester: cuts trees, plants and leaves.

Draft #2-Timberati on the Graveyard Shift

Lee Lofland over at the Graveyard Shift has asked if I’d like to do a guest column. Lee’s a retired detective who’s “solved cases in areas including narcotics, homicide, rape, murder-for-hire, robbery, and ritualistic and occult crimes. He worked as an undercover officer for several jurisdictions, and he even spent a few years as a

Conundrum for the Day

I listen to the podcast of National Public Radio’s Only A Game. The other day I heard a story about the collecting of stories for The Best Sportswriting of 2008. This set me to wondering, given that, whether we writers mean to or not, we use sexual symbols in our prose (see my previous post

I Think About Baseball When I Write

Crawford Killian has an interesting post about “Sexual symbolism in fiction“. Mr. Killian taught writing (if memory serves, though it might have been English Composition) at Capilano College for forty years and has written several novels. What brought the subject up was he had commented on the passing of Michael Crichton and how Crichton had

Multiple POV or Head Hop?

One tenet for writers, besides write, write, write, is read, read, read. I don’t recall where I read it, but a published author said (paraphrasing), “Don’t just read the great stuff, read lousy stuff too.” A couple years ago, I put the first ten thousand words of my story (working title: Timber Beast) on YouWriteOn.com,

Synecdoche

In case you missed it, there’s an interesting post on edittorent on the film, Synecdoche. Alicia makes some interesting points that a writer needs to be mindful of. 1. “Art isn’t life… Life is about living. Art is about selection, conflict, focus.” 2. For art, “[a]udience makes meaning.” No audience, no meaning.

One More Resolution for 2009

“I readily and resolutely resolve to not ponderously, pretentiously, or portentously contemplate; nor to passionately pontificate, nor to ostentatiously overwrite as the over-writer here does,” the wanna-be published writer purposefully averred vociferously and adamantly.

Hello 2009

I thank JA Konrath with providing a list of resolutions for writers that I could edit for my 2009 resolutions: I will finish revising the damn book. I will start on the next book. I will listen to criticism. I will update my website. I will master the query process and find an agent. I

Parodies Loosed

I found a link to a spoof of Twilight at Editorial Ass. It is hilarious. I forget how I came across this spoof of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with its mega-spoilers but it too is great (and teeming with text speak LOL). I have found a site for Shakespeare parodies, such as Scots