On Saturday, my hair was cut — much shorter than I anticipated. For some reason, this bothered me way more than I expected, and I spent the next week trying to reflect — to understand why I felt so wounded. ~ For those of …
Story Structure Tools
Sometimes writers fall into trappings of their own enthusiasm (see also: madness). With this being something like my seventh major re-write of Planes Shifter, I’m trying not to make the same mistakes as my last draft. If I’m going to …
Plot-Seeking in Favourite Films
This week I began my novel re-write following the newly-fixed plot line [fingers crossed!] Taking a NaNoWriMo approach – just writing each scene as it comes, and not letting myself edit anything other than spelling mistakes and clear grammatical issues – I’ve been watching …
Balancing Learning: Writing versus Studying Writing
Since 2009, I have started eight novels and two novellas. I have finished drafts of five of them. Three I will never look at again (not to edit or salvage, anyway — maybe to learn from them). In terms of major …
The Importance of Stories: Pacman as an Antagonist
Once upon a time, humans were tribe beings. And within the culture of tribes, storytellers were key. Stories allowed elders to teach the young. Stories allowed tribes to communicate; to share knowledge and learning, to explore the differences in their …