Archive for February, 2006
Spotlight: City Lights (Review)
For Valentine’s week, I’m looking at one of the best loved romantic movies of all time. No, not Casablanca, though that is one of the best loved romantic movies of all time. Go back about another decade, to 1931, to the time of Charlie Chaplin. His films enraptured me as a boy. Even today, as [...]
Sin and Vengeance (Review)
I just finished Sin and Vengeance by C.J. West. It was gripping, but not perfect. I did not finish that last, short chapters, and I would not read it again.
Best of Valentine’s Day
Here’s some good stuff for Valentine’s Day. Paula B. interviews Susan Jeffers, author of The Feel the Fear Guide to Lasting Love and Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, on The Writing Show. “My First Kiss” by Jim “Suldog” Sullivan. And lastly, “Love Through the Eyes of an Idiot”, an essay yours truly wrote [...]
Of Stories And Wine
I was listening to Grape Radio, “where an enthusiasm for wine gets personal.” In a previous episode, someone had stated some opinions on wine, causing a firestorm of debate among listeners. That’s how I feel about stories.
Feeling the Romance and Keeping it Real
There’s a standard formula for romantic stories. Boy meets girl. They fall in love but pretend they don’t even notice each other. Finally, they declare their love and live happily ever after. This may sound a little corny, but most romantic stories are much deeper. Still they rely on the standard formula. There’s a reason [...]
How to Handle Too Many Ideas
Keep an idea journal. For your stories, for your blog or podcast, for your business, for your personal development, keep an idea journal. It’ll help you in more ways than you might expect.
How to Measure a Good Story
If a few people don’t hate you, you’re doing something wrong. Or at least that’s how writers ought to feel, instead of feeling that if someone hates their work, he hates them. We know that’s not reality, that a negative review of our work says nothing about us. Yet we pour ourselves into the stories [...]
Where to Get Character Ideas
I’ve discovered a new source of character ideas, at least for me. Anyone can get ideas in the same way, even if not from the same source.
Spotlight: Heartbeat (Review)
Heartbeat is perhaps not what you would expect me to read. That’s because it’s intended for a different audience, girls aged 9-12. My daughter put me on to this book. She needed to do a book report, and her teacher put her on to it. What she liked in particular was the format: 180 pages [...]
The Forces of Character Change
Extraordinary changes require extraordinary forces. The bigger the change, the larger the force needed to make it. This may seem obvious, but I continue to wonder at the stories that neglect this truth. Some of these stories are published novels or released feature films.