I’m starting to learn how to add suspense to my stories. Something I often lack because I’m such a nut about being brief. Naturally, the way I think best about suspense is to look at it through the lens of poetry. Warning: The following contains POETRY COMPOSED IN A Read more…
We make things harder than they actually are. Take rock-climbing. The beginning rock-climber takes way more steps and hand-holds than she actually needs. Trust me. I’m a beginner. I will not move an inch unless I am braced with both feet and both hands and the distance to step is Read more…
Sometimes, writing is fun. Super fun. It’s those moments that are the gateway drug into a long miserable career in the arts. Sometimes the fun can become a problem. It’s like – writing the first draft feels like this: When you’re done, you either think it’s the most awesome, carefree Read more…
I was in third or fourth grade when I wrote a story about a group of kids forming a club with a friendly alien. With a treehouse. Treehouses where very important to me at the time. Other than that, the story was a straight rip-off of “The Story of the Read more…
When we talk about ourselves, and other real people, we can agree that who a person is, the content of their character, is more important than what they are. Who > What So why is it, when we talk about our fictional characters, more often than not, we start with what Read more…
I had attempted to write this novel before. First as a short story of about 10,000 words. When my writing workshop all said “this should be a novel,” I expanded it to about 28,000 words without adding any plot. My goal for National Novel Writing Month was to finish a Read more…
I used to never finish a draft of anything. Or a sewing project. Or a crochet project. Or a poem. I was a queen UNfinisher. At the Game Devs meet up the other night, during a discussion on unfinished projects, someone, I think it was Matt, said, “No one finishes Read more…