Archive for February, 2007
Wave Dilson Had a Flack Bedora, on a Train and on a Plane
By David Niall Wilson
(with a nod to Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss)
Currently, one of the greatest pleasures in my life is reading stories to my three year old daughter, Katie. One of the things that make this fun is the work of some very clever authors. My two personal favorites are Dr. Seuss, [...]
Dateline Paris, February 9th
I saw the Phantom of the Opera tonight.
He’s given up on the old opera house, you know. Left it and its Chagall ceilings and history and heartbreak behind, packed up his kit and made his way to the Bastille. There’s a newer opera house there now, a curved edifice of grey stone and glass that’s [...]
Aspiration: Hope, Ambition, & Breathing
by Janet Berliner
Thank you, Mr. Steinberg for being so gutsy and so gracious. (See “Pain.”) I proffer you a wobbly curtsy and dare here to embark upon a journey into the same territory as your last essay.
My journey into the twin topics of pain and exercise takes a circuitus route, beginning with two [...]
An Evil Point of View
Point of view.
The world through the eyes of a character, residing in the mind of a character.
If nothing else, point-of-view discipline is something that I have struggled successfully to maintain in my own writing. I try to contain a disciplined POV within a set-piece, most often chapter-length.
In fact, submitting to the discipline of POV can [...]
On Pain
By
Richard Steinberg
With more on the topic by Janet Berliner on the 26th
“If pain could have cured us we should long ago have been saved,” George Santayana
I remember going to the podiatrist that morning. I remember the wait in the Emergency Room later that day. I remember wondering if I was going to die [...]
Neuroplasticity and You
by Jeff Mariotte
Like many writers—most, probably—I’m often asked for writing advice. Because virtually everyone who speaks the language can put a pen to paper or jab at some keys and write a reasonable English sentence (although often not two in a row), many, many people think they could be writers of one kind or [...]
Theme Walked In:
(so what the hell do I do now?)
Justine Musk
1
Perhaps theme gets a bad rap.
Its twin, Theme with a capital T, deserves all the potshots and ridicule and dressing-down that it gets. But if Theme is the pretentious dude decked out in Gucci and Prada who wears sunglasses at night and brags about how many [...]
The Importance of Being Earnest
by Weston Ochse
Can too much success too soon hurt your career?
What happens when a publisher comes knocking and you don’t have anything to offer?
I never thought success would be a problem, then again, I never thought I’d succeed so fast and to such a degree. Let’s go back to 2000 and [...]
WHEN IT’S A PIECE OF SHIT…KEEPING IT RAW AND REAL
–Deborah LeBlanc
Last week—-or was it the week before? Hell, I’ve lost track of so many days it’s ridiculous….I handed in a manuscript that was without a doubt the biggest piece of shit I’ve ever written. No, no, I’m not defaming the book to garner sympathy or pats on the shoulder along with, “I’m sure it’s [...]
Anatomy of a short story
– Bev Vincent
An online acquaintance e-mailed me recently to offer congratulations on one of my stories he’d just read. In his message he said, “I’m not a short story guy—I don’t understand the mechanics, so I never write them myself.”
That got me thinking, so I decided to spend my time this month talking about the [...]
