Storytellersunplugged

by David Niall Wilson When I was younger, I had a plan that involved growing up to be a minister. In a way, that plan never left me, since I did become ordained through the Universal Life Church, an ordainment every bit as legal as any other, but probably not taken too seriously in most circles. I also had a plan that involved growing up to be a great writer. That plan is also still kicking and breathing, and the ... Read More

R. C. Jones The buzzing sound began as I started down a narrow set of stairs leading to a large basement room. I had never been there before, but I knew what the source of the buzzing must be. It was the sound of a small vibrating saw cutting off the top of someone’s skull. READER ALERT! Anyone with an especially queasy stomach might wish to abandon ship here. In my last essay, we got as far as what happens forensically to ... Read More

--Sarah Monette1. The more fun you have, the more fun your audience will have.World-building should be fun. That's what it's for. You don't have to approach it like a history textbook with all the dates and the names and the dry tedious facts. You only have to talk about the good bits, and you get to decide what those good bits are. And you can be outrageous. Real history is.2. Never world-build through infodump.1(N.b., there is a ... Read More

As I write this in longhand early on the 27th, the printing plant is silent, has been since a transformer was hit by lightning during last Thursday's storm. I hadn't heard an air raid siren in years and a moment later the sound from past the loading docks was that of a truck being flipped on its side.There is relative quiet, the computers are still working, mine making sounds like waves lapping at a houseboat. Not long before the power outage, I ... Read More

Let’s talk about the bad news. And by bad news, I mean getting a negative response to something you’ve written. It may be a bad review. It may be a reader slagging the book on Amazon.com or on a message board. It may be a critique from a professional peer or agent or member of your writing group that leaves your manuscript bloodier than Caesar at the end of act IV. In the end, it’s someone responding to your writing with ... Read More

by Janet BerlinerAs I began to write my memoir--which may or may not ever see the light of day--I tried to get a fix on what that meant. Is a memoir "Just the facts, Ma'am?" or is it, as Gore Vidal wrote in Point To Point Navigation, "...how one remembers one's life."More than whether or not it was fact or interpretation, I realized that my memories were circular, joined together like a Slinky toy, and that I had to begin with ... Read More

A friend sent me a very timely email today, in which he quotes the wise Tom Petty:“The waiting is the hardest part.”Tell me about it, brother. I’m a writer, not yet a professional one (by my standards anyway) but I keep trying. I devote about three hours a day to writing. The other twenty-one hours I spend waiting. My current worry stones include three novellas sent to three different publishers, all out about three months, two novels to one ... Read More

By Richard Steinberg “The creative artist seems to be almost the only kind of man that you could never meet on neutral ground. You can only meet him as an artist. He sees nothing objectively because his own ego is always in the foreground of every picture,” Raymond Chandler It’s an interesting moment. Dark and light seem completely balanced in my life right now. Not as if I have finally got a handle on life – far from it – but rather, as if ... Read More

I just got back from Gen Con late Sunday night, and I'm still beat. It's a long-standing tradition (at least for me) to hit any con I hit hard. If I'm going to be there, I go all-out. This year, my fourth in a row as a guest of honor, was no exception.During any convention day, you can expect to find me in one of three places: on the exhibit show floor, checking out the merchandise and bumping into friends; taking part ... Read More

by Justine Musk This is not the essay I intended to write. I write this in a lodge somewhere in Iceland where I've been staying the past two days with my spouse, assorted extremely-bright accomplished people, and a famous actress. This gathering is meant to be a kind of think tank retreat/salon concerning one issue in particular. I won't say what that issue is, because I want to talk a bit about the famous actress without giving away her identity, and, like any movie star, which is why they become a ... Read More