Archive for November, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving Wishes
I want to wish everyone in the U.S. a happy Thanksgiving. I myself will be spending the day with family. And I hope that wherever you are, you’ll find love and happiness there. You’ve probably noticed I’m posting much more on this blog of late. That’s because I’m actually writing again… seriously writing. That is, [...]
A Writers’ Rant by Harlan Ellison
Thanks to C. E. Dorsett for putting me onto this YouTube video, a rant about how professional writers deserve to be paid. Hee! I so miss Harlan Ellison’s rants. Back in the day, when the SciFi channel actually had programming worth watching, he did a segment on a half-hour SF news show. I watched it [...]
How to Beat Writer’s Block: The Definitive Course
Today, Holly Lisle releases her definitive course, How to Beat Writer’s Block. But as an affiliate of Holly’s web store, I’m making a special offer available only to you and others who are reading this blog post. For those who order Holly Lisle’s How to Beat Writer’s Block through my affiliate links at the bottom [...]
The Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan Drinking Game
Another TV Dr. drinking game, to add to the Dr. House Drinking Game, and hopefully the second of a long series. I borrowed the Bones DVD’s from my parents, and now I’m hooked. More importantly, this show looks like it would make a good drinking game. Here are a few rules. Please add more rules [...]
March of the Penguins… Again
The Discovery Channel has been advertising the “Oscar winning” film The March of the Penguins. The documentary has also won numerous other awards… Proof, by the way, that awards indicate nothing as to whether a movie is actually worth seeing. And just in case you think I might have been sucking on sour grapes, I [...]
Carnival of Storytelling #7
Welcome to the Carnival of Storytelling! Thanks to everyone who submitted articles. Please show your support by checking out other articles on these blogs. If you would like to host an edition of the Carnival of Storytelling, please let me know. Now, the most interesting posts in the blogosphere about telling stories…
A Sure-Fire Cure for Writer’s Block
I got this from a copywriting maven… Sorry, I don’t remember who. Maybe it was Dan Kennedy. Or the late Gary Halbert. It might have been Gary Bencivenga. Sorry, I don’t remember. I heard it in an interview, and I’ve actually tried it, and it actually works for some types of writer’s block. This is [...]
The Value of a Skillful Writer
A paragraph struck me while I was reading an open letter by Joss Whedon about the writers’ guild strike: Writers can be replaced, as we are constantly reminded. But so can companies. Power is on the move, and though in this town it’s been hoarded by very few, there are other companies with newer ideas [...]
Is my story cliché and contrived?
An actual question asked on one of the writer’s boards. An aspiring author gave a two-paragraph summary of his plot idea. He said he feared it was just a series of clichés, then he asked whether it was too contrived to be taken seriously. Now, I don’t know whether publishers would take it seriously. I [...]
100 Free Fictional Character Ideas
… a tiny sample from 1001 Character Quirks for Writing Fiction. Literally, the full list is more than 10 times as big. Of course, the list of quirks is the easy part, because they’re just character ideas, and ideas are a dime a dozen. -TimK