Talking about writing process, I learned the hard way, can be as tedious to uninvested listeners/readers as droning on about the history of a project, interlarded with character names and places without the listener having any idea who they are … Continue reading
I’m fascinated by beginnings. That is, the first words that fall into a reader’s brain when she opens up a book. Not all stories have evocative openings. I was bemused to find that some of my favorite novelists do not, … Continue reading
I’ve got a writing exercise for ya.’ I’m hopeful it will put ideas into your head. It requires reverse engineering something, in this case, greeting cards. Those new any occasion cards with blank interiors are the best for this. Here’s … Continue reading
When I was a kid, stories were short. We read short stories in class. Novels were short. Series were rare, and those tended to deposit the main characters back to ground zero, exactly as television did. Since there was no … Continue reading
In editing a piece of promotional work for someone this morning, I was reminded again of the many similarities between writers, who tell fantastic stories for a living and have no intention that they be taken as fact, and “truthers” … Continue reading
Some writers are just—more. More everything. More brilliant. More talented. More challenging, and more wickedly subversive. Ursula was all of those things, but even more than that, she was loved. I was her colleague in genre and here at Book … Continue reading
One of the things I love about the way the fantasy genre has evolved in the new millennium is how it plays with its tropes. Every genre has them, and cherishes them. Tropes are what make a genre what it … Continue reading
Today I offer the Author’s Note from the first book I wrote as Anne Rutherford, “The Opening Night Murder, ” where I address the issue of dramatic license in historical fiction. In my associations with other authors, often I’m drawn … Continue reading
I was invited recently to speak along with some other writers to a beginning creative writing class taught by an old workshop friend. This class was filled with writers who’d completed their first project this last November during NaNoWriMo, … Continue reading
The last Horseblog attracted a great deal of commentary from the horse community, and as always happens when people are talking about scary things, the horror stories waxed horrific. Amid all this, author Pamela Dean commented, I had a question … Continue reading
