Tweet So. We’re reworking your novel. What exactly does that entail? It entails voice and style. It entails characterization and foreshadowing. It entails hooks and cliffhangers, suspense and resolution. This is the point in the story where you put in all the beautiful little things that will go unnoticed by your reader even as they […]
Tweet I started this week with a story about my creativity in the kitchen. It all really boils down to finding a prepackaged dish I really like, and adding some chili powder. Usually black pepper, too, but that didn’t make it into Tuesday’s story. It’s a solid metaphor for what we’re doing with our novels, […]
Tweet I like to cook. Sometimes. To a limited extent. Well…no, not really. Let me start over. I’m a notoriously picky eater, so for the most part I don’t love to eat what I know objectively to be delicious foods. I have a limited repertoire of things I like, and I like them prepared my […]
Tweet So now that you know what you’re supposed to be changing, and what you’re supposed to watching for, you’re ready to get started revising your manuscript. Dive into a second read-through, and start making your book better. You do know what you’re supposed to be doing, right? I only ask because I understand the […]
Tweet Okay, if you’re following orders then at this point you’ve read through your finished book, cover-to-cover, and discovered the story you actually ended up telling. Maybe you read through it with a red pen, maybe you fixed some things, but your primary focus was on discovering what was there. Now it’s time for revision. […]
Today, my snippet of courage has come to you in the form of a poem: my attempt to convey via symbols the intangible emotions — the happiness, the wonder, the impish delight — I feel at the realization that Unstressed Syllables will be a year old tomorrow…
Tweet Today is December 14th. That means Thursday is going to be December 16th. I know, I know…I’ve just demonstrated that I’m a brilliant mathematician. Or…calendarist. Something. There’s a special significance to December 16th, though. Around here, anyway. Thursday will be the official anniversary of Unstressed Syllables. One year ago Thursday, I wrote my first […]
Tweet We’ve been talking about “debugging” your book — about committing to a cover-to-cover review that will make up the first stage in your document’s rewrite. With any luck you’ve had enough time by now to catch your breath. With any luck, opening up the book no longer feels you with the anxiety and frustration […]
Tweet I started the week with a story about learning to program, about learning the difference between typing computer code into a machine and actually writing a game. The difference (in case you skipped the story) is called “debugging.” And that’s where we are now with our novels. November’s done, our first draft is done, […]
Tweet I started playing videogames at the age of six or seven. Within a year, I was programming them, too. Now that’s not to say I was exercising my creative genius way back then. (Not in that medium, anyway.) No, my dad had a Commodore 64 and a subscription to Compute! magazine, which came with […]
