Let’s talk for a moment about Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, possibly the biggest disappointment of the current season of television. And it was the biggest disappointment because the expectations were […]
Read moreCategory: perils of the writer
Perils of the Writer: Disasters Big and Small
Little things can throw kinks in your day. A speeding ticket throws you ten minutes behind (and a minor headache to deal with). Ten minutes behind means you’re now in […]
Read morePerils of the Writer: NaNo No No No
Right now, on November 25th, the rough draft of Banshee stands at 54,932 words. If I were doing NaNoWriMo, that would be pretty impressive. But I’m not doing NaNoWriMo, and […]
Read morePerils of the Writer: Heroic Support and Infrastructure
Most of what I write essentially involves one or two key characters who, through choice or circumstance, have to go out and do hard, heroic things. Of course, sometimes these […]
Read morePerils of the Writer: Writing on Shuffle
I am not a NaNoWriMo person. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to do, per se, but I do think it sets an artificial ideal of breakneck pace over, […]
Read morePerils of the Genre Writer: Prophecy and Inevitability
Given my frequent mentions of Edding as, if not an influence, at least an inspiration, it’s no surprise that I think about prophecy as a tool in the fantasy writers’ […]
Read moreDueling Query Letters!
This time around we have two variant query letters for the same project, courtesy of Amy Judd. Let’s see what we can do for her: Version One: Genieve Hart is […]
Read moreAnalysis of a SF/F Query Letter
This week we have a brave soul who is willing to have his query letter given a public critique. And there’s a good lesson in here about the overall challenges […]
Read morePerils of the Writer: Query Letters
I brought up query letters last week as part of the whole Heinlein’s Five Rules posts, so it’s worth talking about them. Query letters are evil. I’ve never met a […]
Read moreHeinlein’s Third Rule
Continuing from the previous posts (Heinlein’s First and Second Rules), let’s move on to Heinlein’s Third– and to some, the most controversial– Rule to succeed at writing. RULE #3: YOU […]
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