Posts tagged as:

Writing

Then, by all means, please stop

March 9, 2009

Writing novels is no fun; nor is, generally speaking, reading novels. Reading people writing about novels is not always fun, either, because relatively little of this kind of writing is any good. Then there’s the group of people who don’t enjoy being novelists, to which I probably belong; whose lives are at once shaped and [...]

Read the full article →

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 by occasional [...]

Read the full article →

The version suicides, Part 2

February 7, 2008

Image by Laineys Repertoire, via Creative Commons. Courtesy of flickr.

The last time around, I wrote about why you need version control. This time around it’s about some of the tools available.
Trust me… there are quite a few. Unfortunately, there’s not enough space or time to explore them in the span of a single blog [...]

Read the full article →

The version suicides, Part 1

January 30, 2008

Image by Thomas Hawk, via Creative Commons. Courtesy of flickr.
Sorry.
That headline’s bad. Really bad.1
But try and set that aside for a moment and follow along with me, because this series just might save your ass.
First, though, close your eyes and imagine a world where writing projects—whether they’re novels or family holiday newsletters—go smoothly, from the [...]

Read the full article →

The mechanics of putting my foot in my mouth

November 19, 2007

I think I may have offended my writing instructor. It was an accident. But it may have happened nonetheless.
Last week in my novel workshop we were discussing the assigned class reading… Chapter 4 from Robert Olen Butler’s FROM WHERE YOU DREAM, a segment called “Cinema of the Mind.”
In a nutshell, the book is a compendium [...]

Read the full article →

And, now, a word from Gomez Addams

October 31, 2007

Here it is, ten days since my last post. It’s a violation of terms. A broken pact.
Meanwhile, I’ve got a couple of books to review and a few other updates that have to happen to get me up to date here. That said, it’s been a while between posts for a good freaking reason: I’ve [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries