From the category archives:

On writing

Writer = lawyer = linebacker

October 21, 2008

So says big time Hollywood screenwriter John August last Friday, in a great piece about what he calls “The One.”1 While the essay’s specific to screenwriters, turns out they’ve got no monopoly on the nut of it: writing is still ass plus chair plus tippity-tappity. The highlight? Screenwriting is a career of continuous effort marked [...]

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A Dozen on Denver

August 25, 2008

The Rocky Mountain News needs a short story to round out its series “A Dozen on Denver: Stories to celebrate the city at 150.” The winner gets $500 and the story gets published by the Rocky in a special section slated to run November 14. The story must be set in in the future and [...]

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J. A. Konrath finally pulls the trigger

July 11, 2008

It’s been a while since I’ve written about writing. Books, too, for that matter. I won’t get into the reasons why1, but now’s a good time to shake the disease: J. A. Konrath released another free e-book. This time around he’s compiled nearly every article and blog post he’s ever written about writing, publishing, and [...]

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The Sunday Salon Monday Edition: Where the hell have you been?

April 7, 2008

Every time I think about The Sunday Salon, Deb Hamel’s terrific group of reader blogs, I’m reminded of the bit in the movie Dances With Wolves when Timmons is driving John Dunbar out to his new post. Along the way Timmons and Dunbar come across a picked-clean human carcass — presumably that of a post-war [...]

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On being prolific

March 19, 2008

A couple of things I noticed yesterday around the Intarwebs: First, Lynn Viehl of Paperback Writer posted her Novel Notebook template… including what a completed version looks like. In a nutshell, the book serves as her novel-writing blueprint and covers everything from cover art concepts to deep, deep character maps. She even gives her characters [...]

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How to find your voice, Part 3

March 12, 2008

So far in this three-part series on “voice” we’ve talked about choosing your pronoun (I, you, he/she/it, we, they) and building rhythm. Now it’s time to really nail some Jello to the wall. Let’s take a look at the elusive characteristics of “style” and “attitude.” In fact, these traits are so tough to describe, I’m [...]

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