Why Not to Work on Your Novel
I assume if you are reading this blog, you either have been or currently are in the middle of the long slog that is writing a novel. I am. I’m in year three, and still I don’t see an end….
Category: Writing Advice
Friday Feast: In Praise of Rejection, Writers Who Give Up, Things Writers Know, Perfect Practice, and Six Debut Novelists Look Back
Fall is the time of year when I most feel the pressure to get the words on the page and revise the stories that I allowed to languish all summer (or since last year). Maybe it’s because October is a…
Whether the Weather
I usually try to do what Elmore Leonard says. If plied with wine or office supplies, I might even admit to having a fantasy about him being my life coach, going to the gym with me, telling me how to…
When Less Really Is More: What Comics Can Teach Novelists
Consider the Comic where what’s not on the page is as important as what is. So says comic artist and writer Scott McCloud in his deceptively simple book, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.
Life and Death and the Novel
Writing a novel, especially a first novel, can be a long, hard process. A few years ago, I began working on a novel that focuses on a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law and examines the complexities of in-law relationships as well…
The Blood Turns to Ink: How Real Crimes Influenced My Fiction
This post originally appeared on Jungle Red Writers. I’m from a small town. East Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Population: almost 11,000 when I last lived there. That was 1993, the year I graduated high school. A half-year earlier Kent “Rusty” Taber Jr….