Have you ever been so busy you end up doing nothing at all? Whenever you begin a task you so feel bad about all the other jobs you should be doing that there's nothing for it but to have a little lie down. I swear, it's amazing I get up at all sometimes. Never mind, read on to win a three month Audible.com membership worth 45 dollars. Free audio books! ... Full >
NaNoWriMo: When all else fails.. go meta
At the time of writing, my NaNoWriMo effort stands at 38500 words. So I'm in with a chance even though my plan fell apart like a wet pizza sometime into the second week. I almost walked away from it then. But I'm too stubborn for that even though I had to take a few days ... More >
Flash fiction: Action Required
Over at Terribleminds Chuck Wendig laid down a flash fiction challenge inspired by Occupy Writers: a 1000 word story on corporate abuse - any genre. Here's mine. ACTION REQUIRED Subject: Action required. Refocusing opportunity in your area! Congratulations! You have been selected to take part in Zanutabor's customer refocusing program. We know are a busy person. In fact that's ... More >
Larry Brooks’ story structure diagram
In preparation for NaNoWriMo, I have been reading Story Engineering by Larry Brooks. It's a useful book, especially when it comes to pinning down story structure. I kept notes as I worked through this section and I'm sharing a neat version below. If the diagram whets your appetite you can get the book for the ... More >
Mind the gap: Catherine Brady and the hidden story
There is no shortage of books about literary criticism and critical theory. There are also plenty of popular how-to guides for writers. Poking about Blackwell's Bookshop the other week, though, I came across Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction by Catherine Brady. Brady is a professor of creative writing at the University of San ... More >
Those Guardian Masterclass article links
Last weekend (Saturday 15 October) The Guardian gave away a free booklet: How to write fiction: A Guardian masterclass with the print edition of the newspaper. For those who missed it, or live outside the UK, you can get the whole thing as a Kindle ebook for a few dollars. Not all the articles were ... More >
A little twitter catch up
I've been a tad slack on the Twitter front recently, but I like to keep a record of good writing links around. I still mine my old link round up articles when I need to remind myself about topics like structure, characterization, and editing. Which is about every week. Maybe one day I'll make a ... More >
What I learned this week: tell fewer jokes
This week my workshop piece received its treatment at the hands of tutor and my fellow students. The story survived the ordeal pretty well, considering the subject matter included a baked bin tin the size of a house, a sea of gravy, and a soldier in the First World War. Besides, no work emerges from ... More >
9 steps to prep a story for workshop
It says something for how busy I've been that I found this ten day old piece in my queue, unedited and unposted. And that I have no recollection of having written it. So I'm on the road yet again, and I have a workshop story due in Monday. It's going to be a hurried affair. If ... More >
Tom and the unfeasibly large sandwich
My friend and fellow writer Tom described a meeting he attended yesterday for his day job. In fact, it was a call-in affair. While he was wandering a wind-swept university campus waiting to go into class he was also speaking to co-workers in London and Silicon Valley. The conversation made him glad of his new-found ... More >