Archive for January, 2008
The Gonquin Table: Resolutions
Frank Wydra
January 13, 2008
January is a transitional month. North of the frost-line grey snow still blankets the fields and the prospect of buds breaking seems a distant promise. Yet, once the solstice has passed, the chimera of renewal and rebirth flame the imagination. Young and aged alike assess the road traveled and [...]
Looking back over the last year
Normally, I try to have this article posted by one in the morning. I’m a few hours behind schedule this time around.
Today was not a normal day for me. I got to sleep in rather late by anyone’s standards and by my own I may as well be Rip Van Winkle. After eventually crawling out [...]
Burying Hatchets
You’re not important enough to hold a grudge.
There are thousands of people who don’t believe that. Writers, especially genre writers, simply cannot afford to number themselves among them. It has been suggested recently that writers have large egos. That assertion was made by a highly regarded author and was quoted by yet another professional. It [...]
Show & Tell
SHOW & TELL
By Cody Goodfellow
Remember how utterly lame Halloween costumes used to be?
What kid-hating idiot in the 1960’s decided that kids had to be the Platonic ideal of a character, instead of a mimic of the real thing. that a kid who wanted to be the Wolf Man for Halloween really should instead become a [...]
The Right And The Wrong Of It (So Far) – Part 2 Of 2
by Brian Hodge
[Podcast edition available through iTunes, or here.]
I promised you a beating this month. My own.
As sketched out in Part 1 last month, I turned 2007 into a more introspective year than usual. The schema was to be as honest with myself as possible while sorting out where I’ve come from, where I am [...]
Blocks and Blockbusting
STORYTELLERS UNPLUGGED
Many of my compatriots have tackled the issue of “Writer’s Block,” but, in that I can’t think of anything original, I decided to commence Unplugging 2008 with that very topic my own self.
Q. What is Writer’s Block?
A. Writer’s Block is the situation in which you cannot write.
I do hope [...]
It’s January In The World
By Richard Steinberg
“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our Bear In Mind is deep within the world right now, creating light and words. And as the world is deeply in need of both light and words, [...]
MAKING NEW FRIENDS FOR YOUR IMAGINARY FRIENDS
(OR: THE FINE ART OF BELIEVABLE RELATIONSHIPS)
by John Skipp
Dear class –
Great to see you again! And you’ll be either relieved or saddened to know that nobody has to die today. At least not in THIS class! (Sorry, Victor! Rest in peace, bro!)
This time, I’m gonna pull a reluctant “volunteer” from the furthest reaches of the [...]
Rejections, Reviews and Other Dubious Reactions
Rejections, Reviews and Other Dubious Reactions
A friend recently complained about a review, which got me to thinking how I react to them, and by extension the slings and arrows of rejections and critical feedback and interpretations in general. Certainly a lot of folks have talked about this kind of thing here, so there’s no particular [...]
Get It In Writing
We’re writers. We work with words. Words are our tools, along with our imaginations, out knowledge of the craft, our reference books, and our pens, papers, and computers. You’d think that because words are so important to us, we’d be sure that not only did we work with words but also that words worked for [...]
