Writing « Storytellers Unplugged

Patchwork Dreaming

By Gerard Houarner, on February 4th, 2012

Or…”interrupted by a person on business from Porlock” — sustaining the vision of the story you want to tell as life’s storms rage around you.

Trust me, it’ll make sense.

Quite some time ago in a LOCUS interview, Jay Lake talked about the challenges of containing the story he’s working on in his mind, or living in [...]

I’m on a deadline and couldn’t think of anything to write about this month, so I dredged up an oldie but a goody from 2005 that is still as pertinent to me today as it was back then. I updated a few of the details but the sentiment is the same.

When people who’ve known me [...]

Disruptive Thinking

By Gerard Houarner, on January 4th, 2012

Looking through clip files for an SU piece this month, I came across a July 2010 article on disruptive thinking. A quick web search led to a ton of more material on the topic, including a military field manual on Intelligence, so I thought it might make a cool kick-off for the coming year.

Like so [...]

Promotional consideration

By Bev Vincent, on December 17th, 2011

At every convention I’ve attended, there’s a table full of promotional items. These usually consist of postcards or bookmarks, but sometimes there are fliers or little gadgets intended to entice people into purchasing a product. Usually a book, in my experience. Everyone is clamoring for everyone else’s attention, and if you don’t have the weight [...]

The art of (re)writing

By Alma Alexander, on November 30th, 2011

(…yes, I’m in the middle of it. Why do you ask?)

Here’s the thing. First drafts are supposed to be awful. HTat’s what they are FOR. You simply give yourself the permission necessary to WRITE BADLY if you have to, for the purpose of getting the bones of the story down on the page. There will [...]

Auto Draft

By David Niall Wilson, on November 27th, 2011

Another November of writing has come and gone, and it’s been an interesting one for me. I’m pulled in more directions these days than I was in the past, and even the writing itself worked out differently than it ever has. For all of that, it’s been a good month.

I’ve waited a lot of years [...]

Barking Heresy From The Fringes

By Richard Dansky, on October 27th, 2011

There is nothing intrinsically sacred about the act of writing. Yes, it’s a strong creative outlet. It’s a wonderful career for those of us lucky enough to be able to do it for a living. And it fuels one of my favorite hobbies, which happens to be kicking back in my hammock with a good [...]

Answering questions from an aspiring writer

By Bev Vincent, on October 17th, 2011

I recently agreed to be interviewed by a college undergrad for one of her classes. Their assignment was to interview someone working in a career that interested them. Since that interview won’t see the light of day outside of the student’s class, I thought I would post it here in lieu of my usual blatherings.

What [...]

Miscellaneous thoughts...

By Alma Alexander, on September 30th, 2011

Well we writers are often asked were we get our ideas. So I thought I’d look around and see what caught my mind’s eye right now, and this just goes to show, EVERYthing is grist to the mill…

***
It’s Fall again, but this year it kind of snuck up on me. I don’t know if it’s [...]

Words count

By Bev Vincent, on September 17th, 2011

If you’ve ever read an author’s blog for any length of time, or followed his or her Facebook feed, you will no doubt be familiar with the tradition of posting sporadic or daily word counts. It is, perhaps, the only metric that writers have available to measure our productivity.

My favorite anecdote comes via Stephen King [...]

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