There are all sorts of promises a storyteller can make to her audience, but one of the cardinal ones is, I think, “I won’t come between you and the entertainment.” By which I mean, during a dramatic moment I won’t break the tension with silliness; I won’t ask you to believe six impossible things before you know who the characters are; I won’t present my story as intelligent and undercut it with dumb; I won’t drag you through fascinating-to-me-alone arcana and forget where I was going in telling the tale.… Read more Goodwill, The Story Needs It →
I did not post on Monday because I was in Massachusetts, at Readercon, which was just splendid. What is a Readercon, some might ask? It’s an annual convention of readers… Read more Conventional Wisdom →
Some days I swear that, writing-wise, I’m like Bart Simpson* muttering “can’t sleep clowns will eat me.” Except, of course, I substitute write for sleep. Why will the clowns eat me? The temptation to be really really glib here is almost overpowering, but I’m going to try to play this one straight. I’m trying to finish three short stories and start a new book. I know what all four works are about; what I don’t exactly have a handle on is some of the events in those stories. This is… Read more 600 Miles Through Rough Country →
In high school I had a teacher who loved Wuthering Heights. I was, I blush to say, a bit of a suck-up in English class because I loved the subject,… Read more Charlotte Is My Brontë →
My friend Janni Simner wrote a great piece last week on finding the writing process that works for you. Go read it. No, really. It’s terrific. I’ll just wait here. I am one of those neurotic folks who thinks that everyone else was issued a full set of instructions at birth. For everything–friendship, clothes, housekeeping, parenting, business. Mostly I’ve learned to background that assumption, or even forget it for long periods of time. (I am always convinced that people I think are cool must have homes that are tidier… Read more Ur Doing it Rite →
Sometimes, when the writing is being uncooperative, you need to do something else. It’s a nice thing when someone asks you to do that something else, so you can pretend… Read more Distraction and The Sistine Chapel Effect →
My younger daughter, a high school freshman, has hit one of those adolescent patches where she can’t go to sleep. Given that this makes her soggy to the point of uselessness in the morning (getting her out of the house can be a little like rolling a boulder composed of Jello uphill), we’re working with her, as the jargon goes, to help her get her sleep mojo back. Some of this involves impounding her computer at 10pm and suggesting that she do something quiet and non-screen related: read, play guitar,… Read more Bedtime Stories →
In the last year I have finished and turned in two books. Because the watchword of writing is “What have you done for me lately,” I immediately started thinking of… Read more Let Them Have Their Say →
Madeleine Robins 