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Going for the jugular: killing characters
These days high-profile writers get a lot of press for doing awful things to characters. Yes, killing a protagonist can be a very effective way of adding a hint of surprise to your novel. But it’s by no means unusual or original. I mean, if you ever have read any George R. R. Martin or heck, even J.K. Rowling, you know that people make a very big deal about killing characters. It even becomes some writers’ defining characteristic. The weird thing is that it’s not new. Take the “Song of Roland”. Hint: everybody dies. Well, Roland and Oliver die. And everything falls apart. Pretty much the same story in Arthuriana.…
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Giving GoogleDocs a second chance.
My husband has always been a huge supporter of using GoogleDocs, and I have always been skeptic. There’s something about writing in your own program and having everything just where you like it. I’m possessive, I admit. I tried writing in GoogleDocs a few times, and was always put off by myriad formatting issues. I can tolerate lots of clunkiness in the way of a word processor, but if it can’t do a handful of things I toss it out entirely. Well, I’ve been contemplating novel storage, and as a backup, I’ve been importing stuff into GoogleDocs. Then I decided to give it another try, just to see. And I…
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More process than product.
I have been editing a book for longer than I’ve been writing it. Such is the way of things. But I am seven chapters from the end of The Aldersgate, and looking at my collected chapters in Scrivener gives me a very warm sense of accomplishment. I’m hitting the home stretch, and yesterday when I went to visit my husband at work, I was listening to the radio and tying up loose ends in my head for the last few chapters; everything sort of rushed and me, and I realized about ten minutes into my thought process that I was going the wrong way on the highway–i.e. north and not…
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The creativity curve, and time for the cure.
Creativity is a fickle little brat. You know, I try my best to be disciplined. Okay, that’s a blatant lie. Let me try this again. I’m not good at being disciplined, but I occasionally make the effort to do more than write whenever I feel like it. I write when I can. And what exactly the magic mix that entices me to write thousands of words at a go might be… well, damned if I know. Sometimes opening up my laptop and staring at Scrivener is akin to a holy experience, the story unfolding in front of me faster than I can type. Other times, I feel like a dried…
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