Writers

Let’s face it. The first scene of your story is like the front door of your house. If it’s dingy, dusty, falling off the hinges, and covered with bric-a-brac and dead ivy, no one’s gonna want to come inside. But it it’s well lit, clean, and organized, folks are more likely to take a step inside. I’ve written a number of stories, and have gotten a lot of advice on how to start a new story in the most appealing way. And quite often, the way I choose to start it initially and the final beginning are very different. Some … Read more

So I was thrilled to have a couple more sales this week (details to be announced at a later date) for two of my short stories. But it made me wonder, once again, about writing short stories vs. writing novels. Short stories take less time, and can get you out there in many places. But the pay for shorts is not huge, and ultimately they offer only a taste of your potential to the reader. I still think the long game is in writing long – in getting novels put together and out there for folks to enjoy and talk … Read more

Every now and then, the stars align. I’ve got a concept, a chunk of time and my writing brain is charged and ready to go, and I enter the zone – that place where the writing flows from my fingers like milk in the land of milk and honey. If you’re a writer, you’ve been there – that place in your head where you feel like you could just write and write and write – as if you had tapped into another world, and your characters were just writing themselves. As if you were just the scribe, recounting events that … Read more

Every day, I try to write for at least an hour. I’ve set aside for myself (which my hubby Mark’s wonderful understanding) the hour from 5-6 PM to sit down and actually write (or rewrite). Not to network, not to blog, not to research, but to actually work on the writing. Of course, life sometimes interferes, like when we are going out to meet friends for dinner – those times I try to reschedule my time for earlier (or later) in the day. But sometimes I sit down to write, and I just can’t get into it. I’m not sure … Read more

In writing, it seems to me that the trick is to invest these characters with flaws but to still make the reader fall in love with them. Because a flawed multidimensional character is often much more interesting than a picture-perfect Ken doll.

What do y’all think?

What do you do with stories that have fallen all the way down through the editorial pachinko machine?

I’ve always thought I was a little ADD – generally, I flourish when I can be bouncing back sand forth between multiple tasks, and rarely do I sit down and do just ONE THING AT A TIME.

But sometimes I wonder if this serves me well in my writing too.

As part of the QueerSciFi.com site, we have a fairly new section where authors can share their WIP’s for critiques – anything from a general “what do you think?” to a more detailed line-by-line edit. But as I start doing more of these critiques, I’m learning (or re-learning) that not everyone agrees on how to do a good critique. I did one critique this last week where the author pointed out after the fact that my use of LOL and “unintentionally funny” could be seen as derogatory to the author and / or their work. While my comments were not … Read more