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Six Ways Twitter Can Make You A Better Writer
Many people consider Twitter solely for networking purposes, for meeting people with common interests and conversing. And while that’s a big part of it, Twitter can also be a very useful tool for improving your writing. When I first started building my Twitter follow list, I started with a lot of writers. And soon I discovered, mostly through feeds of people like Jay Lake and Paul Jessup, the #wip hashtag. Easy enough, WIP stands for “work in progress”. Basically, writers sample little 140 character or less sections from their work, sharing it with their friends and followers. Not every writer does this (either some don’t like the attention it brings, while…
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One more time, with feeling!
In many ways, 2009 taught me about all the myriad things I don’t have control over. It’s been humbling, to say the least, to learn so much about this industry. It’s been a little embarrassing to admit just how much I didn’t know, walking in to 2009. What I didn’t have in business savvy and general know-how, however, I made up for with perseverance in the writing department, something I have absolute control over. My mantra for 2009 was, certainly, Just Keep Writing. And write I did. A whole damn lot. So, 2010 is already starting off with a lot of loose ends. But I’m still writing. This weekend saw…
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Writer Resolutions and Echoes of Other Years
The best part about having a blog is that it allows me to go back in time and laugh at myself. I used to do this with diaries in my youth, snatching up old (never completed) journals and then annotating with derisive commentary throughout. Most often, the marginalia was scathing, along the lines of “how could you ever love x” or “you silly, stupid git.” While, thankfully, I grew out of that stage, blogging has served to chronicle my own personal writing journey over the last couple of years, first at The Aldersgate Cycle and now here at Writing Across Worlds. What hasn’t changed, however, are the cringe-inducing posts from yesteryear.…
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Getting Through The Writing Drought
By virtue of the holiday season, I have been doing little else but crochet and cook these last few days, leading to a whopping 0 progress in fiction. I’m starting to get twitchy. It’s not that I don’t love the holidays, my family, tradition, all those things. It’s not that taking a break might, in fact, be a pretty good idea; it is more than that. I need a break, but I’m not willing to let it go without a good share of bitching and moaning. Since the youngest of ages, wandering around the playground clutching notebooks scrawled with imaginary worlds and adventures, I have sought out fiction as therapy.…
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Metrics, Mind-tricks, and Mayhem
This week I: Killed 30K in The Ward of the Rose Wrote 7K in The Ward of the Rose Decided I’m awesome and it’ll be no time before this career gets off the ground, then Decided that I’m not good with that much bravado; then Decided I pretty much suck, I’m doing it all wrong, and my stuff will never see the light of day, then… Decided, in light of what’s going on, I’m allowed a moment of crazy Fell in love with characters I hadn’t seen in a while Wanted to strangle some of the characters I hadn’t seen in a while Felt very grateful for having recorded the draft of The…
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Thoughts on Booklife Part I: The Pillars of Private Booklife
I had the pleasure of meeting Jeff VanderMeer last week and talk books, fiction, and inspiration. He also brought copies of Booklife and Finch. I haven’t yet jumped into Finch, but man, I’ve got to say, Booklife is the book I wish I had two years ago. I am envious of all the writers out there who have access to this book now, because they have so much essential information in one place. They won’t have to make as many stupid mistakes as I have, nor feel as aimless, floundering around trying to figure out what to do once the book is finished (or even begun, in some cases). No, I don’t mean to imply that Booklife is magic.…
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Renovating rooms, knocking down walls
I’m not going gung-ho with writing right now. I know it’s a bit of a fruitless endeavor, what with family and holidays and everything. As my lovely friend Jennifer said to me yesterday during coffee, “Just enjoy doing nothing for a while.” Yeah, I’m not good with doing nothing. Especially writing-wise. But hey, I’m pacing myself. Except characters just have minds of their own now, don’t they? The last three days I’ve been assaulted with bits and pieces of dialogue, scenes, sentences, and stories from The Ward of the Rose (taking a wee break from the followup to Queen of None, but still going to be writing more Arthuriana posts). For those…
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Loving Lancelot or, the Force of Character
I have to confess, I’ve never much liked Lancelot. I never got the whole thing with him, never understood why, time and again, he appears in book after book after book, film after film. And I swore, up and down I swore, that if I ever wrote Arthuriana that there would be absolutely no sign of Lancelot to speak of. No stupid Frenchman ruining everything. No pure, guiltless knight; no hunky posterboy. The only Lancelot I marginally liked was T.H. White’s… because he was terribly ugly. I can appreciate that sort of irony. (Of course, they couldn’t have kept that in Camelot. Had to go and make him all sexy…
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Arthur Re(du)x – Part One
I can’t say for sure, but I think the first time I ever saw something remotely Pre-Raphaelite was in elementary school upon visiting the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA. It very well could have been this painting, though I’m not sure when it was acquired. Regardless, I remember returning from the museum on an absolute high, my mind alive with the images I’d seen and thrilling at the prospect of such visual imagination. Throughout college, I learned a great deal more about the Pre-Raphaelites, and they and their brotherhood (and sisterhood, et al) continued to crop up during my Arthurian studies. And the more I read of Arthur, the…
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Steampunk Tales #4 is out – with “The Brass Pedestal”
Ahoy there, mates! Steampunk Tales, the penny dreadful for your iPhone, just launched its 4th issue. And within its digital pages, you will find a copy of my short story, “The Brass Pedestal”. It’s about family, metal corsets, clockwork earwigs, and how love can be a barrier to revenge. I had a great deal of fun with this particular story, as it has a hint of weird west to it, and features my favorite town name ever: Replication. Thanks to the folks at Steampunk Tales for including me in issue #4, too! Hoping to see much more of this type of publishing in the future.
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The Queen, the Knight, and Arthur
If you’ve followed either of my blogs, listened to my podcast, of likely talked to me for all of ten minutes, you’ve probably gathered that I have a thing for Arthuriana. My love of the genre is deep-seeded, having taken root somewhere in between watching The Sword in the Stone and receiving a book from my great aunt on the subject (I can’t seem to locate the book, but it had fabulous illustrations, including a brilliant one of Morgause holding up Mordred as a newborn amidst the rocky sea and churning waves). But it wasn’t until college that something really clicked with me, something started reverberating in my brain, in…
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Updates in a Nutshell: Publishing, Reading, and Writing
Well, enough has been going on in the last few weeks that I thought it might be helpful to make a fancy wee bullet list for organization’s sake! First up is a reading that I’ll be doing on December 10th with Jeff VanderMeer and Mur Lafferty at Chapel Hill Comics (which is both thrilling and awe-inspiring, since I get to read, um, my stuff next to their stuff!). Jeff was kind enough to invite me along. Following the readings will be a freeform storytelling session where we’ll work together on a story all live and junk! Makes me glad for all those years of improv and, also, quite thankful for…
