Unpenned: Turning the Novel Loose
“There comes a time when you have to let the novel go.” “It will never be perfect.” “You can’t fiddle with it forever.” Yadda, yadda. So goes the writing advice about when to finally set a novel free in the…
“There comes a time when you have to let the novel go.” “It will never be perfect.” “You can’t fiddle with it forever.” Yadda, yadda. So goes the writing advice about when to finally set a novel free in the…
Every revision has its own character. There’s the first messy revision, during which you try to cull from the confusing mass of pages some sort of a narrative. The second brings with it massive structural changes (in my case, cutting…
By Guest Contributor Larry D. Sweazy. So, it’s no surprise to my friends and family that I admit to having a bit of rebellious streak. I think all writers and artists do. There has to be a core of sacrifice…
“Writer’s Block” is a lot like climate change: despite mounting evidence that it does, in fact, exist, some of us are still deep in denial. Until recently, I believed that provided a writer shows up to the desk every day,…
Helen Phillips is the author of the novel The Beautiful Bureaucrat (Henry Holt, August 2015). Her collection And Yet They Were Happy (Leapfrog Press, 2011) was named a notable collection by The Story Prize. She wrote the children’s adventure book Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green (Delacorte…
I completed the GrubStreet Novel Incubator Program this April and when I look back at that yearlong whirlwind, I still struggle to catch my breath. Most daunting was not learning so many (new to me) literary terms. Nor was it…