Dorothy L. Sayers, who wrote some of my favorite books, also wrote essays I’ve found very useful, especially her writing on the doctrine of the Trinity and its relation to creative writing and the kinds of problems that result from what she called “Scalene Trinities.” For the non-Christians (which I wasn’t when I first read Read More…
Category: the writing life
Some Thoughts on WriterBrain, First Rock (with a few decorations)
On another site, on which I’d written a long comment about the statement “ignorance is bliss” someone complimented my writing (always pleasant to hear) and thought my “story-writing brain” was completely back in service. Which–though much improved–it’s not. That’s not a venue in which to explain how many different components and levels a fiction writing Read More…
Knitting a Book…One Stitch at a Time
At various appearances, book clubs, conventions, I’ve talked a little about how knitting socks connects to writing a story…and it does, although I didn’t start out writing stories as a kid with any such awareness. But what I’ve said before has new and deeper relevance in my struggles with both writing and knitting after the Read More…
NewBook, Sausage Balls, and the Real World
NewBook has lost 10K words as I’ve read my way carefully through it, distracted far too often by phone-spam, weather, and of course politics. Most of the 10K were inline with recommendations from early readers, and leave room for tightening the plot. However, one of the other annoying aftermaths of the concussion is that when Read More…
Happy New Year!
Two days later. That’s because ON New Year’s rain fell, wind blew, the thermometer dropped and I was busy keeping horses hayed up and (relatively) happy. It cleared off in the evening so people could shoot off their fireworks and the horses could disapprove. New Year’s Eve was also rainy, windy, cold. We got 2.6 Read More…
Revision Review
Since revision this time digs right into the foundation structure of NewBook, a post on where the revision is at the moment seems a good time to discuss the kinds of problems a book’s underpinnings or foundation–the deeper structure–can have, and strategies for fixing same. This is not a problem I have often, but it’s Read More…
Rags & Tigger & Elizabeth: I Don’t CARE What It Cost, I Hate It!
Tigger’s very expensive and back-ordered supplement arrived. I opened it; it’s a granular and good-smelling (to me) brown stuff with lots of good-for-joints in it. It has a measure. (Everything has a measure, and you have to dig for them in the plastic tubs these things come in. Yes, we re-use the tubs. My favorite Read More…
Revision, revision, revision: still not done?
Still not done. Little chunks have come out. Bigger chunks of new material have appeared. Sequence tangles have been extricated, laid out, and put in order, with necessary transitions. It’s taken this long to get the first thirty-two days of the story cleaned up, and to introduce things that were left out. It’s gonna be Read More…
SF and Soup
When a science fiction writer makes soup and then wants to take a picture of it…my, what strange things get into into the picture. Is that cute little alien *pregnant*??? What’s with the one straddling a big of carrot and holding (?) a black bean? (This being a winter soup, it started with 4 cups Read More…
Another Note on Research
Having just explained that I do not outline books…you may wonder how I can research backgrounds, both physical and social. As of today, I can offer a new example. Usually, when I start a book, especially in a series, I have in mind a setting of some sort…my characters have shown me where they are, Read More…