I decided to write a historical novel because I wanted to get completely out of my day-to-day life and contemporary everything—terrorism, the failure of capitalism, modern marriage, childhood and adolescence, politics, racism, climate change, you name it. Did I have…
You are going to get it wrong. It is as fundamental to the craft as rejection, procrastination and gravity. A pursuit that requires you to put yourself into the heart and brain of another human being will lead you to…
I took a break the past few weeks to finish edits on my novel. I had some guilt about leaving ALL of you without your Friday Feast for a few weeks (hi, Stephanie and Emily and random WordPress denizen). But this…
At the beginning of this year I started up on a new revision of a book I’d been working on for two years. And for two years I’d been swimming inside the world of the story, intimate with its characters,…
By Guest Contributor Virginia Pye We all know writers with unpublished manuscripts hidden in desk drawers. Successful authors often admit to a half dozen failed, boxed-away books. Emily Dickinson bundled her poems with string and placed them under her bed….
“I just want to understand what the character is feeling.” If you’re playing writing workshop bingo, this statement should be the center square, guaranteed to come up in every class when discussing a work’s emotional apex. Sometimes off-base, yes, but…