Over the years, I’ve fallen out of the habit of giving general-audience writing advice, because it’s sort of like giving advice on sex: unless you’re an active partner, you really don’t know enough about the person to be useful. That said, I do have two bits to say, that will hopefully be useful to any […]
Writing Advice (or not) Read More »
One of the interesting joys of the current story-series is that I’m NOT writing a broken or restricted character – I’m writing a character who has gotten his shit together & is taking on a new, out-of-comfort-zone challenge because he chooses to. Because the story doesn’t end when the broken bits of a POV character
Random Monday Writing Thinks Read More »
Before I disappear for a day or revising the entire first third of the new book (sob), lemme tell you about a Thing! Even better, A Thing I’m In! The Usual Path to Publication 27 stories about 27 ways in edited by Shannon Page $2.99 A BVC Original With as many “success stories” as there
for Fantasy Book Cafe. It’s not about the Hugos, or politics, or civil rights. It’s about fathers, and daughters, and where that intersects with what we create….
So I wrote a thing… Read More »
There are a lot of books out there about How To Write (hell, even I have one, although Practical Meerkat is less about writing than it is surviving the writing life). But here’s the thing….. The thing about writing advice is that it’s not only NOT one-size-fits-all, but we (hopefully) grow out of advice that
Practical Meerkat’s Advice About Advice Read More »
13 days until the second-pass draft of Book 2 of THE DEVIL’S WEST is supposed to be done. *looks at pile of notes, giggles slightly hysterically* If not today, then certainly by Saturday I will have hit peak performance panic mode. Fair warning for anyone in my actual vicinity Slide a pizza under the door
The State of the Meerkat Read More »
But really, it can all be summed up thus: The squalling of “oh, fantasy isn’t about REAL issues or proper use of metaphors” we’re seeing once again from critics and writers who should know better by now ignores the fact that ALL good fiction invokes moral and psychological themes – and emotional themes, too. And
I had a thing to say… Read More »
My post on using American history in fantasy over at Charlie Stross’ blog seems to have evolved in comments into a “the technical aspects of how you’d write an alternate American history where the Indian tribes don’t lose” alternating with arguments over the definition of Celtic and related UKcentric socioarcheology, and the only-occasional hitting of my
Deeply amused and not at all surprised…. Read More »
After spending a year creating a new world and new characters for SILVER ON THE ROAD, returning to Sylvan investigations, and the world of the Cosa Nostradamus is kind of… interesting, in a shake-up-the-brain way. Because none of you have met Isobel, Matthew or Farron yet. None of you have encountered the boss, or Calls
Some people can write five or six or ten thousand words in a day, and suffer no ill effects. Some people are pleased if they manage a thousand. There’s no ideal speed (so long as you hit your deadline) and the writer who goes at a slow and steady pace is no better a writer,
Words Are as Words Will Read More »