Part 2 SWF (Continued) I created a character that I would end up using for years: the Oakland Oddball. He was an erratic bad guy. looked like a bald surfer (but despised surfers). For a brief time, I even had a Website for him. I created three other characters around him, two his brothers (and […]
Category: Writing Craft
Write Like a Pulp Writer
Not Purple Prose, But… I’ve read several books about this: These aren’t affiliate links. How to Write Pulp Fiction Pulp Era Writing Tips You shouldn’t try to write the style of pulp. It’s purple prose, bad writing for readers today. However, as these books say, parts of their methods we could learn from: Speed Pulp […]
Why Ninja Writing Will Change Your Life
Your writing life anyway. It changed mine. Before Ninja Writing I began a novel in 2013. I finished the first draft in early 2014, and didn’t touch it again until November 2018. As I’ve mentioned many times, I’ve been in the Montreal chapter of NaNoWriMo since 2012 and won it four years in a row. […]
Welcome, 2019!
I’m becoming an old man: I fell asleep, missing the ball drop, and woke after 3 AM… in the new year. Many folks will make resolutions for the year. I’m not one of them. Folks Always Fail Them Instead, I do things differently, and get a lot of stuff done as a result: I Make […]
Changing Views
Over time my views on different facets of writing have changed, in some ways contradicting other, previous posts on this blog: Reading While Writing Here’s my past view on this. Things changed from a quote by Stephen King. I don’t like King as a person thanks to a meeting years ago, but I still think […]
GOR: The good, the bad, and the Ugly
I haven’t posted here in a long while. Medium with it’s bigger audience lured me away. I’m trying to fix that… Cue the Ennio Morricone music… The Gor novels are mostly forgotten nowadays (although Politically Incorrect Games [P.I.G.] have released a Gor game; l have to find the email). I’m not surprised. The series began […]
Definition of Dramedy, part one
My short story and novel – and the series that they’re a part of – supernatural dramedy, is fairly new to fiction (although technically Janet Evanovich does it in all but name), but it has a long history on television. The word ‘dramedy’is a combination of ‘drama’ and ‘comedy’. As a genre, it combines them […]
Writing Mood: My Way to Get Into it
Not everyone does this, so I’m not making this concrete advice — but you may find it helpful to put you in the writing mood… To get into the mindset for writing fiction, this may seem redundant but try freewriting. Here’s the Wikipedia entry on what it is. Doing it is not hard: Freewriting (Mood) How-to […]
Robert Heinlein, SF YA Precursor
When I researched this on Wikipedia I found that I’m not the only person to make that link. Robert A. Heinlein was one of the three people seen as pillars of the Golden Age of science fiction (that’s another post). He wrote many books and short stories, but a period of his novels are considered […]
Preparing for NaNoWriMo
(I began this post before this event; I’ll state what I didn’t do.) … or Camp NaNoWriMo, which I’m doing right now… which is why I haven’t updated this site in a week. Here are some tips to achieve your word goal in the month (50, 000 for NaNo, variable for Camp – I’m writing […]