This is a great book to help someone who wants to upgrade their reading fare from genre to literary fiction. It teaches you how to pay attention to meta-textual details such as themes, symbols, voice, diction, and story structure. Attention … Continue reading
I recently finished the tenth revision of my cop thriller novel. I’ve been working on it for five years. It’s been through a million cuts and folds. The original is no longer even recognizable in it, and I thought I … Continue reading
I’m sketching for my new novel. I have 20 pages of notes, not really an “outline,” as in Roman numerals and all that, but I start out with a blank document divided into three sections, or “acts,” which are, Beginning, … Continue reading
I’m still struggling to focus my latest android story on my lead character, Robin, one of two androids. I’ve put her on stage more frequently and tried to keep the spotlight on her. I changed an important dramatic crisis by … Continue reading
I’ve broken my own rule about letting a new manuscript marinate for a couple of months. My recently completed android novel was calling out to me from the darkness of its disk drive. It lacks a traditional story structure and I thought … Continue reading
Pathetic though it is, my favorite part of the day is to check my log of words written on my current novel. I don’t count words written on emails, book reviews, blog posts, edits, and miscellaneous sketches that I write … Continue reading