Writing

This piece is a response to Chuck Wendig, who was wishing for an Easter Bunny story with a bit more detail to tell all of our children.

I don’t actually set out to write political pamphlets. I’m always writing story first, and even before that I’m always writing character first – everything is born of character. But I think that I have some very strong feelings about some things; in particular, ideas of fairness and justice.

Do you keep a journal? I often wonder. It’s something we’re told we should do. Any simple search on the internet, or any self-help book you care to pick up, will suggest that there are numerous mental health benefits to journaling.

Sam Sykes has published a reflection on the life of Shin Sang-Ok, and on an artist’s need to create. The idiot ninja action film I watched as a kid was the last legs of a man who was being denied his needs for a final time.

I’ve been trying to get back into the routine of doing morning pages. That is, the process of writing three pages of material each day to clear my mind and prime my creative pump for the day.

Man is the animal that tells stories about himself to himself. — Salman Rushdie, Lecture at the University of Iowa (March 2004) It’s been years since I sat in that lecture hall, but Rushdie’s description of humans as storytelling creatures still gets me with it’s perfect simplicity.

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. — Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality

The antidote I’ve found for this is to write for only two people. First, write for yourself, both your present self whose thinking will be clarified by distilling an idea through writing and editing, and your future self who will be able to look back on these words and be reminded of the context in which they were written.

New Year’s Eve has always been an uncomfortable holiday for me. While for many, it’s used as a time of renewal and looking forward with hope to the future, I’ve always spent the time reflecting on what did and did not get accomplished the previous year.

You are not a brand. You are a human being. Writing is your craft. Story is your art. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: who wants to read a story by a brand?

If I’m anything at all, I’m not really a science-fiction writer — I’m a writer of fairy tales and modern myths about technology. — Ray Bradbury

I’ve added the short story that I wrote for the Kopoint Halloween Spooktacular to the fiction section of this site. I’ll continue to add stories and fiction projects that I release online to that area as the days go forward.

There’s a well known theory that keeping a journal, or at least writing daily, improves your day-to-day life. My anecdotal experience has shown that to be the case for me as well.

Great interview with Ted Chiang, who happens to be a rather brilliant science fiction writer. Seriously, if you have not read his wonderful story "Exhalation", you have missed a gem. You can also hear an audio production of that story here.

This YouTube playlist covers a wonderful lecture on story structure from Dan Wells. Wells is the author of the fantastic novel I Am Not A Serial Killer, which I urge you to pick up and read.

I can’t decide if NaNoWriMo is harder than I thought it would be, or if I’m just a bigger wimp than I thought I was. Regardless, it is tough. So, rather than writing out a long entry about it, when I should be working on the novel, I decided it would be quicker to record a quick video.

I have not had time to post here in a while. My new job has kept me very busy and most of the time when I get home I just want to relax and spend time with my girlfriend.

This is excellent advice, as is the author’s follow up article Build Upon What You Build. This piece, as the title suggests, describes the problem with people describing themselves as what they are not, as opposed to what are, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It appears that I have written myself into a corner here. When I first started this site back in 2004, I intended it just as a writing exercise. It was supposed to be a place where I would publish daily in order to build discipline as a writer.

This is a fantastic article, that along with its companion piece, it covers how the influence of business on the web has been reduced from writing to "zombified copywriting." The author indicates that this is because so many people writing for the web are not writers, but rather engineers, secretaries and designers.