Another Requisite Cat Post
- February 27, 2017
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It’s been a while since I posted pics of Frankie and he’s been posing in pretty darn cute ways, so here he is:
Writing Locations—Should You Have Been There First?
- February 20, 2017
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I’ve read books that were so elegantly crafted with a sense of place, I assumed the authors had traveled to those exotic locales. And then I’d read an interview where they’d say, “Nope, just did a lot of research.”
Writers, Ditch This Word
- February 13, 2017
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I’m on Twitter and I keep seeing author bios that proudly state they’re aspiring writers.
Aspiring. What does that even mean?
The New Oxford American Dictionary defines aspiring as “directing one’s hopes or ambitions toward becoming a specified type of person: an aspiring artist.”
And this is why I have a problem with that word. If you write, you’re a writer. If you mean you’re not a writer until you’re a published writer, well, that’s something else entirely.
Are you serious about spending the time and energy and doing the work? Are you writing? Are you crafting stories? You’re a writer. And until you own that word, why should anyone believe you?
Aspiring sounds hopeful to some. Not to me. If you write and want to be taken seriously as a writer, knock that word off your bio. It takes courage but writing is not for the weak. Writers need to have thick skins and you might as well get in practice from the start.
You are a writer.
It’s something you work at, honing your craft, learning more every day. This doesn’t change whether you’ve written one book or a hundred.
You are a writer.
Writing By Hand
- February 06, 2017
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It had been a while since I wrote by hand instead of using my computer and I wanted to feel the difference. Because it is different.
As a writing exercise, I created a villain. He was big and strong and evil. Bullets couldn’t touch him, bombs made him sneeze, and even a building falling on him made him lightly brush off the debris as he climbed out of the rubble.