Storytellersunplugged

Flamingo Frank would hate it if I wrote his obituary, especially with black crepe hung all over it. Much too dreary. But early on the dawn of August 2, 2008 -- by his own decision, you can be quite certain -- Frank T. Wydra decided he’d had enough of wrestling with pancreatic cancer and told the subversive processes that were racking his body, “Okay, you want it, you got it.” He could do that because his physical presence was the least of ... Read More

Friday the 13th of June was a lucky day for me.  That was the start of a three-day weekend on Cross Lake, Minnesota, as a guest of Glenn Frey.  The friendship goes back 20 years now, and though our muses have different addresses and our histories follow different maps, we are brothers in the ether.  His muse glides elegantly from one success to the next; mine lives in the woods and sweats a lot.  His maps cover the Seven Wonders of the ... Read More

My mind went on a diet a while ago and already it’s lost nearly 1800 words.  It started by eliminating all those empty adjectives and adverbs that just pile bulk on the body of my work without any real nutrition.  Then it tossed out the interjections (pure comfort words – WOW! huh?).  You’re allowed substitutions on this diet, and so next went a bunch of nouns, replaced by less rich pronouns.  I feel much better now.  I have more energy and I ... Read More

I think it was the DragonBar that made me remember an early lesson in my writing career.  And that happened because the carp 'n' tuna syndrome that beset my wrists after too many 18-hour marathons at the keyboard eventually led me to try voice activation software.  Dragon NaturallySpeaking with its DragonBar is arguably the leader in that field.  I had tried using it in the late 90s to write a book for a celebrity, but the error rate just killed me when ... Read More

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

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

Last month I began a short series on Beginnings. We identified the six key things a good novel beginning should accomplish and covered the first, hooking the reader, in a bit more depth. This month I want to tackle two more of the six - establishing a bond between the lead and the reader and presenting the story world. Establishing a bond between the Lead and the Reader The second thing a beginning should do is establish a bond between the Lead ... Read More

Most writers who have been in the biz for a while and have scored some decent sales to decent publishers that resulted in decent books will be asked by those who want to join the game, “How do you get published?” It’s inevitable. It’s also a fair question, because those who don’t know want to know, and who better to ask than those who supposedly DO know? And sharing information does not lessen another’s success. But herein lies a myth. Those of ... Read More

--Justine Musk So here’s the thing. I sat down yesterday to write my essay for this site. I had a topic. I had a sense of where the piece would start, where it would end up, and how it might go in-between. But when it came game-time, I realized: I got nuthin’. Could be I’m a bit burned-out – and maybe I could have essayed about that, except Elizabeth Bear already said everything I would want to say about that point in your ... 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