Theodore Sturgeon is not a household name by any means. But he was a fantastic writer. Here is the first paragraph of his book, More Than Human. The idiot lived in a black and gray world, punctuated by the white lightning of hunger and the flickering of fear. His clothes were many-windowed. Here peeped a … Continue reading The Amazing First Paragraph of MORE THAN HUMAN
Here you have the first part of the second half of my novella-in-progress. In it, we are introduced to a new character and a new place in the novella's world. You do not need to have read anything else in the as-yet unpublished novella to read this, and I would really love for you to … Continue reading Talek Finds His Rage
Here are the first 600 words I wrote for NaNoWriMo this year. Warm out of the oven. (My brain, I mean my brain.) Are you doing Nano? Add me as a buddy, or come chat on Twitter. Chapter One Heethe sped down the street, threading the motorcycle between cars as bullets whished past him. More … Continue reading The Dreamkeeper – NaNoWriMo has started.
I'm doing NaNoWriMo again. This time I have a full outline ready, a system in place, buddies and plenty of coffee. I'm pretty sure that I'll manage to get the 1660 daily words done, or at least close enough to have a novel written in a month. This is the novel cover I'm using to … Continue reading NaNoWriMo 2017, Here I Come
Scott Hawkins, the author of the excellent The Library at Mount Char answered a question over at Goodreads about his writing schedule. Since I've been spending my weekdays getting up at 5:00 to write recently (thanks, #5amWritersclub!) I found this very interesting and motivating. It reflects well my own thoughts about writing a book as a … Continue reading Scott Hawkins’ Unbelievable Writing Schedule for The Library at Mount Char
I was scrolling trough my Kindle Highlights (you know you can see all your highlighted passages from Kindle books online, right?) when I came across the following highlights from The Exorcist. I don't remember highlighting anything from it but I read it at the beginning of the year so maybe that's normal. Horror has a … Continue reading Adventures in Unexpected Great Prose – The Exorcist
Nick Mamatas wrote a post on Facebook today about how writers can go about finding an agent. As someone who will hopefully start shopping a book around soon, this was a godsend. Straightforward, no nonsense. With Mr. Mamatas's permission, here is the post as he wrote it. This is *one* method of finding a literary … Continue reading Nick Mamatas’s Simple Guide to Finding a Literary Agent
I'm writing again. The following is a single-sentence paragraph that I think works, mainly due to the emotions involved. Let me know in the comments (no worries, this is first-draft material, so be brutally honest). The argument was mundane, a been-married-for-twelve-years banal tiff, a clichéd and overused disagreement between people who love each other, love … Continue reading Just a few words
Here's Max Booth III's Isaac, the main character in the book The Nightly Disease, to tell us. "This is my take on it. Hotels are the kind of places you don’t mind bringing your family to—you can expect good service, a nice breakfast. Motels, on the other hand, are where people take cheap dates for … Continue reading What’s The Difference Between a Hotel and a Motel?
Eileen is a well-written and strange little book, that is hard to recommend. But stay with me. It's slow. Fully three fourths of the book are just a few days in the life of Eileen, a rather odd young woman with no ambition and a social recluse by choice. She just goes to work at … Continue reading Eileen – Book Review
