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Tag: writing
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Reasonable Stocks
I just reread a comfort book. A Louis L’Amour called A Man Called Trent. That was the magazine version of a story he reworked into The Mountain Valley War for a Bantam paperback. There isn’t enough difference between the stories to matter much, though I’m sure there is more material in the paperback version. It…
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Plotting
#amwriting and I have a question for you… The First Reader and I spent about 6 hours yesterday in a car together. We are both exhausted today, and feeling slightly hungover. These trips are worth it, to see his parents and we love doing them, but the driving takes a toll. On the other hand,…
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Rebooting my Brain
I’m blogging over at Mad Genius Club today on how I’m going to get back into the swing of writing after this long break. I’m back. I didn’t mean to take two weeks off from blogging, but that’s what it ended up being. It’s not that I haven’t written anything in two weeks, just that…
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Writer’s Heaven
No, I don’t mean haven, I really do mean heaven. I was reading James Schmitz last night and this morning. One of the things about reading with my tablet is that when I want to read in a dark room, I can. And then when I wake up but don’t have to get right out…
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The Field Guide to North American Writers
Byline: Sanford Begley So you want to join the ranks of Writer watchers, do you? You have your Binocs, jungly style outfit with shorts and a pith helmet? Ahh… you are missing the field guide. Well, I am here to rectify that problem. The first thing you need to do is discover how to differentiate…
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Coffee in the Fog
I’m sitting here sipping coffee with almond milk in it, looking out at the fog. There was a train a little bit ago, with the whistle blowing all the way through town because of the heavy fog. I’m still not used to train whistles, living in New England and Alaska, trains were not part of…
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On Women and Writing, and Science
Dave Freer has an excellent article over at the Mad Genius Club today, and I wanted to share a bit of it – I encourage you to go over there and read the rest, if you like, but like him, I raise an eyebrow (maybe both) at someone who states numbers with no data to…
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Be the Clapper
“But it is the only reason to write: for a moment, my mind becomes a bell that, in resonating, makes yours vibrate. It’s the closest we people of flesh can come to being in someone else’s mind, in that lonely space behind the eyes.” Read the rest at Mad Genius Club…
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Guns in Fiction: More Useful Information
After I shared the link to my Mad Genius post on Saturday, Chris Byrne offered an assortment of articles he’s written on guns in fiction and real-life use over the years, and he gave me permission to put them all in one place to find again, and share with my readers. There is a lot…
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Choices for Readers
It’s a fresh bright shiny new week… so why do I feel like I’ve been dragged through a keyhole backwards? I’m facing a week of abnormal schedule, and heavy homework and… So what do I decide to do? Looks back at the words she’s written. Abuse the ellipsis, it seems. Seriously, though. I have two…
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Guest Post by Declan Finn
Please welcome a young upstart author to my blog. We decided we’d swap, today. So here’s Declan Finn, talking about pacing. In return, you can find me talking about politics, fiction, and how much I hate combining them at Declan’s blog, A Pius Man. You can find his Amazon author page here, with a handy…
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Naming
I’m having a difficult time with names. With characters, I just name them, usually. Some come into my head fully formed, name and all. My First Reader named Learoyd Otheris Mulvaney, the centuries-old pixie whose stark cynicism has been shaken by the acquisition of a wife… and two children. But me? I’m trying to come…