My daughter is on the brink of adulthood. She‘ll be 18 years old in a couple of months and graduating from high school. She’ll get her first job, go to a new school and be on her own. I’m freaking out, and so is she. My advice has been to take things one [...]
The month is nearly done, and the novel….Well….it is not nearly done. Suffice it say I am well below the 50,000 word goal and there is no way I can close the gap in 5 days. I stalled because I focused on QUALITY vs QUANTITY. To write a novel in a month, you must commit [...]
It is difficult enough to keep the world straight without the interposition of fiction. But the conduct of the novelists and the painters makes the task of the conservators of society doubly perplexing. Neither the writers nor the artists have a due sense of the responsibilities of their creations. The trouble appears to arise from [...]
I got back from Vegas yesterday afternoon. Not surprisingly, I returned with a notebook full of blank pages. On the plus side, I had a wonderful time and I’m ready to write, write, write for the next 3 weeks. THREE weeks! Yikes, that’s not much time. I’m already behind, needing 16K words to be on [...]
Yesterday was go day. I did get chapter 1 done, but it’s only 1400 words. That’s not going to cut it. To complete 50K words by the end of the month, I have to write 1500 words each day. Based on my outline, with 20 chapters, each chapter needs to be 2500 words. I’m especially concerned [...]
The writer must have eyes to see the vivid side of everything, as well as words to describe what he sees. There is a cramping restriction of an insufficient vocabulary; not merely a loose and inexact apprehension of many words that are commonly used, and a consequent difficulty in using them accurately, but also a [...]
Novels, the works of fiction, which have become an absolute necessity in the modern world, as necessary to divert the mind loaded with care and under actual strain as to fill the vacancy in otherwise idle brains. They have commonly a summer and winter apparel. The publishers understand this. As certainly as the birds appear, [...]
Let clearness be the first consideration. It is best, at all events for beginners, not to aim so much at being brief, or forcible, as at being perfectly clear.
1. When using the Relative Pronoun, use “who” or “which” if the meaning is “and he” or “and it”, “for he” or “for it.” In other cases [...]
Every morning I read the news and imagine the circumstances that led up to the reported events. I devise complicated plots and conspiracies, characters on the run from corrupt government officials or alien invaders. I love stories that place ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. The truth behind these news stories is usually mundane – just [...]
Writing clearly–so far as arrangement of words is concerned–is a mere matter of adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs, placed and repeated according to definite rules. Even obscure or illogical thought can be clearly expressed; indeed, the transparent medium of clear writing is not least beneficial when it reveals the illogical nature of the meaning [...]
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