“When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.” – George Bernard Shaw “The most successful people are those who are good at Plan B.” —James Yorke, mathematician “The best sentence? The shortest.” – Anatole France, French poet and novelist, winner… [Read more…]
September 5, 2009
When I wrote my previous post to this blog on a whimsical piece by James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, I mentioned it made me remember a similar piece overflowing in a sense of place. Here ’tis. It’s by a North Dakota writer, Linda Hasselstrom, who writes and runs a writer’s retreat at her home, Windbreak… [Read more…]
August 29, 2009
Last week I did a pleasant book-signing at Boswell Book Co. (for A Guide to Fantasy Literature; my thanks to Daniel Goldin, proprietor, and Jason, for hosting!). Boswell Books is a Milwaukee indie bookstore, named for James Boswell (1740–95), a literary Scottish laird, described by one biographer as a complicated fellow, with “his rippling good… [Read more…]
July 21, 2009
To learn to see and write better, there are great books to inspire you. One of the finest, an exquisite book of nature writing, is Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), winner of a Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, an account of a year spend looking closely at the world centered around a creek in… [Read more…]
July 5, 2009
I’ve been driving cars around the block. Lots of them. I’m car shopping, looking to replace a venerable Suburu wagon that almost made it to 200,000 miles, but sadly stopped short of that celestial goal in a cloud of smoke a couple of weeks ago. Accordingly (hey, that’s a Honda pun!) I’ve been studying the… [Read more…]
January 22, 2009
Imagery for a master writer isn’t just coming up with a nice turn of phrase . . . one that conjures up a sunset suddenly appearing like a distant marching band turning the corner . . . or the sense of a breeze on the skin like a silk scarf. A truly compelling image is… [Read more…]
December 30, 2008
“I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me.” – A.A. Milne, in Winnie-the-Pooh Short words and phrases are effective. Whether it’s a query letter to an agent, or a review blurb excerpt, keep it short and sweet, and you’ll impress more than you would with a long version. Why is… [Read more…]
November 18, 2008
At the end of the day, I personally, at this moment in time and with all due respect, want to say something fairly unique. Although it’s absolutely a nightmare to even try, but certainly not rocket science . . . let’s face it, I shouldn’t of started this literary blog for good writing advice, available… [Read more…]
The Writer's Handbook
December 15, 2009
2