I’ve been a fan of The Kenyon Review for some time now. In addition to publishing the best of contemporary literature, the journal now has it’s own blog. The blog provides reading that is as worthy as the journal and they recently posted an entry that is near and dear to my heart: Notes from […]
Maud Newton noticed this unusual bit of writing advice from the late Charles Willeford: “Never allow yourself to take a leak in the morning until you’ve written a page. That way you’re guaranteed a page a day, and at the end of a year you have a novel.”
Peter Selgin edits Alimentum: The Literature of Food and, like most editors, he has a few bones to pick with the folks who fill up his mailbox. His article, The X Files: Confessions of a Cranky Lit-Mag Editor appears in the May/June 2006 issue of Poets & Writers. In the piece, Selgin offers some worthwhile advice […]
In a post some months ago, I wrote about Nicholas Delbanco’s great ideas concerning imitation of the fiction masters. In his essay, Delbanco argues that copying the greats can be an incredibly educational experience.
I recently came across the same concept, this time in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone […]
From Carolyn See’s Making a Literary Life:
“Revision is when you first get to recognize the distance between what you wanted to write, what you thought you were writing, and what you actually did write. That recognition often makes you want to throw up.”
We all know that turning point, the key moment, maybe it’s the climax, maybe we call it the crucial moment, or maybe we just leave it unnamed, but we all know it should be there. That pivot in your story whene a character faces a hinge in his life and nothing will ever be the same. […]
And here’s a tip for how you can improve that execution…
It’s very fashionable to say you don’t plot out your stories before writing them. And it’s certainly the epitome of geekdom to even allow the word “outline” to fall from your lips. It seems very few writers will admit to outlining their work, and I […]
I often hear writers spend an inordinate amount of time talking about their search for the great idea. I do it myself. Often, we get frustrated at rejection letters from The Toilet Paper Review or the fact that managing editor at Headbanging Accordion magazine won’t return our phone calls and we blame it on […]
Craig Clevenger, author of Dermaphoria and The Contortionist’s Handbook does not expect to ever write another word. He doesn’t plan on a career, he doesn’t worry about his “style” or his body of work. He focuses on every single word as if it’s his last. Above his desk is a note that reads “this is […]
I’m utterly amazed how this can actually be used by a professional writer, in a professional magazine. This is something that we all have done, so don’t act like you didn’t, but usually we outgrow this after the first few stories. So I’m just shocked to see it in an otherwise decent story I read […]