Frontier Tales has accepted a new Haxan story from me. It will appear in September. The title is as yet undecided. I'm really excited about this story for many reasons. It features Magra Snowberry and tells the story how she tries to get home to the man she loves. Standing in her way are four …
Looking at a Story with Fresh Eyes
I'm a couple of chapters into the new novel. After I wrote the first chapter I was pretty okay with it. I knew it wasn't perfect but there was enough there for me to feel it was well within my ability to fix. After I went to sleep and looked at it the next morning …
Writing What Makes You Uncomfortable
About a week ago I was emailing a writing friend of mine who was having trouble generating story ideas. That got me to thinking about something I wrote on this topic a while back, and I want to revisit it because I think it's one of the strongest things any writer can do. This conversation …
Coasting Downhill
I finished reading my new novel Quaternity aloud. This exercise was very helpful. Not only because I found some little mistakes, but I found places where it didn't "sound" right. So I made the appropriate changes. Truman Capote once said he wrote for the ear. There's some truth in that, I think. Hearing the words …
Seeing Your Story in a New Light
Today my writing buddy, Melissa Lenhardt, was editing her novel on hard copy. That's right, she was using real sheets of paper. I had almost forgotten what that stuff looked like. We got to talking and she said it was very helpful to see her story on hard copy rather than a computer screen. It …
Setting Aside Ego for the Benefit of Story
A writer friend of mine, Paula C. Brown, asked how I go about writing notes for a novel. She wanted to know the method I use because she was having a little trouble getting focused. This is a problem I run into myself when it comes to finding focus and generating ideas. I don't have …
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On Pushing Your Writing Beyond Safe Boundaries
A writer friend of mine, Sandra Wickham, was trying to brainstorm ideas and found herself, in her own words, "floundering." She wondered aloud if people had any tips on how to dig deep for a big idea. I expect she got lots of good advice, because if writers have anything in over abundance it's advice. …
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