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…
Category: Novels
YA Wednesday: YA Comes of Age, Threesomes are Trending, and a Quiz
Hurray it’s Wednesday! You got through Monday and Tuesday. But if, like Wednesday Addams, you’re full of woe, because Friday still seems sooooooooo far away, no worries. To make the week go faster, Dead Darlings is introducing YA Wednesday. We’ll…
The Writing Zone: Finding Your Tug Toy
As happens often, I found another parallel between training a dog and writing a novel. This time it had to do with arousal states in dogs and writing zones for writers. Essentially, there is an optimum state for a dog…
Friday Feast: Vomit Drafts, F Words, Introvert Laments, Lessons Before Writing, and World History Plot Holes
There’s nothing like a first draft — whether it’s your 1st first draft or your 10th — to make you feel like an amateur, or a diner at a restaurant that consistently receives one-star reviews on Yelp. It’s easy to…
The Writer’s Tool I Didn’t Know I Needed: Confidence
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…
Interview with J. Ryan Stradal, Author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest
J. Ryan Stradal is the fiction editor of the online magazine The Nervous Breakdown and the acquisitions editor at Unnamed Press in Los Angeles. His debut novel, Kitchens of the Great Midwest, is the story of a young woman with…