Storytellersunplugged

When it comes to writing, every day is April Fools’ Day.  The Muses -- hobgoblins of the mind that they are -- play their usual tricks 24/7/365.  Clear your desk, your computer screen and your brain for them and they will clear out of town.  Cut yourself off from pen and paper and they will immediately begin dictating the great American novel to you.  They have a sense of humor, a sense of irony, and no sense of obligation whatsoever.  Swim a ... Read More

To: JERRY WILLIAMSON IN SPRINGTIME by Mort Castle Dear Jer, I figured it a good time to write because it is April and spring has come to Illinois--more or less, it hath, because last week snow still lay on the ground and a mixture of the same and rain is predicted for this weekend ... See, remembering over the many years, it was always this season when we both shook off hibernation and got springtime-goofy in those long, late night phone calls in the ... Read More

My mother liked to get things done and hated to impose on anyone. This may be why she never made it to the maternity ward and birthed me in the lobby of a hospital. It was the first of many surprise entrances through the wrong door at the wrong time of life that have dogged me ever since. Now you might think that bad timing would be fatal to a writer or to anyone reaching for high stakes against long odds, and ... Read More

Bev Vincent  Get the podcast - or Subscrbe in iTunes When I was a kid, the National Film Board of Canada ran short documentary vignettes between TV shows. One that I remember vividly was about Christopher Columbus’s expedition to the New World. The film was stop-motion with ships rocking up and down on conspicuously fake waves. The line that stands out in my mind explained how long the journey lasted and how some people were getting impatient. “The days passed. The nights passed. ... Read More

Stop me before I kill again. I’m going to do it, yes, I am, I’m really going to do it. Going to write about another obscure topic so ephemeral that I don’t know if I can pull it off. You may have noticed that I shy away from the easy stuff – practical stuff with practical answers. Not that those things aren’t invaluable – they are – but all the sane and successful writers in this blog do an admirable ... Read More

My first word was “Boo!” and I’ve loved surprises ever since.  I want to discover things.  Refine that, I want to discover hidden things, things that have meaning.  I want there to be more than five senses can take in.  Five senses are standard issue.  Most critters with fin, skin, fur or feathers have them, often with a superior specialty.  Jack rabbits out-hear me.  Eagles out-see me.  I’m tied with the koala bear.  But word has it that heart, mind and soul ... Read More

Have you ever noticed that the outcomes to life’s most successful quests can’t really be foreseen in detail?  If it’s an initiative that your heart is truly into, then whatever concept you have of success ahead of time, the outcome ends up exceeding it.  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”  But starting out all you can see are the complexities and the problems up front.  The solutions build stroke by stroke like a painting taking on shape and color.  In the ... Read More

In the summer of 1995 I decided to get serious about something that had, up until that point, been not much more than an occasional hobby, one I took up every now and then to amuse my friends and myself. Every now and then I would write a short story, realize that I was probably the best writer since Stephen King, submit it to a couple of magazines, realize I sucked, then give it up for a while. This time I was serious! ... Read More

There are people who can’t help but be different, and people who choose to be different, and people who live in fear of being different. If you’re a writer, that third category is a killer. In fact, it’s a killer for just about anything that isn’t sedentary, unimaginative or uninspiring. I’m writing about ways of thinking, of course, and let me just call that fear category S3S for Stage 3 Suffocation. Excitement and discovery don’t happen much by ... Read More