I’ve been rereading Jeff VanderMeer’s Booklife recently, and trying to apply the things to my life in my own way. In doing so, I’m actually giving name to the ways I already protect myself and my creativity. There’s an old piece of riding wisdom that I use to guide the majority of my life: “Keep […]
Archive > March 2011
Why CREEPY is my thing
I wasn’t creepy until I fully embraced my inner writer. That person was born from a depraved childhood in the 1980s. See, we lived so far out in the boonies that we didn’t have nice, clean, FCC-approved television. We had books. And unlike those poor sad children of the 1960s, who parents might have […]
Maintaining a Willingness to Learn
This is a post on editing, rewriting, and being willing to take a critique, and I fear that writers recently edited by me will think this post is about, or aimed at, them. It’s not. Well, mostly not. It’s about my own journey as a writer; the most important lesson I’ve learned from being critiqued […]
Community
I blog a lot about not-writing. Even my one “writing” post looks more like not-writing. Anyway. Community. No, not that Community. I went to FOGcon this weekend, where I got to hang out with fellow inkpunks Jaym and Erika, as well as a swath of friends (Emily, Jeff, Ann, Andy, Amy, Abner (that’s a lot […]
Motivation, procrastination, and the only thing we have to fear
Once again I put out a call for blog post suggestions, and Charles A. Tan had a few. (We can always count on Charles.) There were some great ones there, including “motivating yourself to write.” I read through them all. Then I checked my Direct Messages and played with the cat. So yeah, I thought about […]
Trunk or Submit
Writers are a neurotic bunch, and like many I have a trunk where I lock my most embarrassing failures lest they break free and expose me for a fraud. On top of that chest of despair rest the manuscripts that aren’t quite so bad. Some of them, in fact, are kind of decent but they’re […]
Novel Revisions: Sharing the Pain
I’m no expert on producing novels, but I’m finding ways to survive it, including sharing my pain as therapy for myself, as well as hoping it will help ease the pain for others. This is only the second novel I’ve worked on, but I’ve made it all the way to a fifth draft. I did […]
Awards Season, or Reader’s Guilt
It’s that season again. The season where I need to read all the things becomes I have to read all the things, or I am not worthy to nominate!!!!!. The season where I, once again, face up to the frankly over-developed Reader’s Guilt monster and try to reassess my obligation as a reader. If you’re […]