February 2012
3 posts
5 tags
Link: Tips for Flash Fiction →
I love it when people who know what they’re talking about provide concrete rules for writing. Most people are too afraid.
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Words We Don't Say
Writing is an art. No one can tell you how to be a good writer. There’s no guideline to follow. Just intuition.
Which is why I love it when someone gives me rules for writing. Specific, Stone-cold, hard-nosed, zero-tolerance rules.
Reading this article from the Paris Review, which references this other article in the New York Times has made me think a lot more about the words I use. It...
January 2012
16 posts
4 tags
For Those Times You Wonder if You're Delusional
As a writer, you’ve undoubtedly read someone’s sucky writing before. That person was all proud of their a) beginning paragraphs of a scifi novel that was comprised of needlessly complicated backstory + the presentation of an unrealistically cool protagonist and his strong, sassy love interest b) an awkwardly worded meditation on an abstract concept like “beauty or c) third-person...
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On the Writer's Ego
A couple facts about writers:
1. Most of them aren’t as good as they think they are.
2. You have to tell yourself you’re an excellent writer in order to make it.
I am not that great of a writer and I know that. I’m not even good enough to impress myself — and I’m pretty biased in my favor. When I was in grade school, middle school and high school, I was always the...
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Things to Write About
After my post “Things I’m No Longer Allowed to Write About”, I am left feeling kind of lost as far as subject matter. So, I’ve complied a list of humble, mundane things that I can make a story out of.
There is nothing wrong with writing a story about some situation that is “beneath you”. Sure, maybe in my own head I’m grappling with life, morality, death,...
10 Inspiring Social Networks for Writers →
As a writer, you know how important the literary community can be for your work, but you don’t have to shut your creative front door as soon as you’re published. Social networks can become virtual communities that allow you to extend your influence and continue to develop your content. Author…
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Things I'm No Longer Allowed to Write About
love death marriage truth beauty depression illness good evil fate religion regret parenthood addiction sex trauma coping…
All of my stories so far have been stupidly over-ambitious.
Actually, “ambitious” might not be the right word. More like “naive”. I’m 24. I’m single, I grew up in the suburbs, I don’t do drugs and I barely even...
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Promises to My Next Story
1. You will be about things I know well. Things I have encountered and things that I already have an understanding of. I will not write about love, death, betrayal, marriage or anything I haven’t experienced firsthand.
2. You will take place in a a specific location. One with an atmosphere, a mood, a temperature and a smell. The location will be its own character.
3. Your protagonist will...
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First Post
Hello world.