by Sarah Hoyt Your life is not a story. I mean, oh, of course, in a sense it is a story – of course it is – in the sense that things happen in chronological order, it has a beginning and one day it will have an ending. You could also say it is divided... Continue Reading →
Quack, quack, quack
by Amanda S. Green No, that's not me fondly imagining going to the duck pond and a warm Spring afternoon. That's fun and brings back wonderful memories of when my son was little and we'd head out to the park to feed the ducks. No, the quack, quack, quack is the sound I hear in... Continue Reading →
In Questionable Taste
Hello. It's me again. Yes, just when you thought it was safe to come out of the water... I have bad news for you. I am IN the water. (you remember those little 'sea-monkeys' adverts?). Anyway, it's always been my charmingly annoying habit to ask awkward questions, in my books and in real life. I'm... Continue Reading →
A Vaunt! (more silly games with language)
'A vaunt! I tells yer, A vaunt,' quoth the Monkey (AKA Dave Freer, author, philosopher, polymath - he can add parrots, man of letters (rejection letters)). To which the traditional reply from the assembled multitude* was, naturally: 'Vot iss it dat you vaunt?**' At which point the monkey rolled his eyes, and, as you should... Continue Reading →
Please Give A Friendly Mad Genius Club Welcome to Lars Walker
The other night I watched one of my favorite old movies, the 1938 film, “Algiers,” with Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr. I remember it showing up on TV pretty often when I was a kid, and it never appealed to me back then. But when I caught it again a couple years ago, as an... Continue Reading →
Editing – How Much is Enough?
by Chris McMahon So you have completed your first draft. Fresh from the rush of getting the story all down in one place and having typed those magical words "THE END" you start - what is for most writers - the most time-consuming part of the business. Editing your manuscript. I have heard this element of... Continue Reading →
Extreme Pantser’s Guide – What Editing is and is not
I seem to be suffering from premature conclusions again: I thought I was done with the Extreme Pantser's Guide, then a discussion over at Sarah's blog made it clear that there was one more installment, namely this one. Here's the problem - there are a lot of different functions that get called "editing". Only one... Continue Reading →
But You Can’t Write THAT Fast
By Sarah Hoyt *This is the third installment of a series on writing fast while as well as you can that I'm doing over at According To Hoyt. I was going to do a different post for here, but for various family reasons, I'm running very late today (Kid in robotics had big DO yesterday,... Continue Reading →
Don’t be a butthead!
Amanda S. Green Sigh. It seems like this time every year or so writers lose their minds. Not all of us. But those who do, do it very loudly and without caring who they tick off. They go off on facebook and twitter and in their blogs about things we were taught as kids not... Continue Reading →
Bird Brain
Put it down to being a bird-brain. When I woke at 5 this morning I realised it was Tuesday, here, and I had let real life (TM) distract me from the reality of Monday and posting. Partly that's down to the distraction of my cousins from Brittany (and you wondered why Manfred came from Brittany?)... Continue Reading →