The September issue of Writer’s Digest has an article by Gabriela Pereira titled “The Great Revision Pyramid.” I was eager to read the article, as I’m working on a major rewrite of my second novel. In the article, she talks about how non-writers might think that once the first draft is written, the book is […]
Is your first draft automatically your worst?
“Good stores are not written. They are rewritten.” I’ve seen that quote attributed to everyone from Phyllis A. Whitney to Stephen King to Michael Crichton. I’m going to guess that it’s from Phyllis A. Whitney, since she lived to be 104 and would have therefore had time to come up with all sorts of nifty […]
5 Cold, Hard Truths About Writing
Writing is a fun, painful, time-consuming exercise that can leave you drained and exhausted or just as easily pumped full of adrenalin and ready to run a 10K. It’s crazy like that. But that’s okay. That’s what makes it cool. The art of writing is just as spastic as those of us who practice it […]
10 Common Writing Mistakes to Avoid
In a previous post looking back at the first year of my ezine, Theme of Absence, I mentioned that I could often find writing mistakes in other authors’ submissions that I miss in mine own writing. I didn’t elaborate on those mistakes at the time, but it got me thinking about some of the common […]
Avoiding Past Progressive Tense
One of my biggest writing mistakes (especially early on, but it stills shows up every now and then) is to slip into this annoying tense that I believe is called past progressive or past continuous. The most common place I find it is when I’m describing a setting. For example, after Bob walks into a […]
3 Most Common Mistakes I Find in My Own Fiction
After spending the last few years writing, reading, and learning as much as I could about writing fiction and the “right” way to do things, I’ve also learned a lot about the wrong way. Not only through Theme of Absence, but also from my own work. In fact, most of what I discovered came from […]
Five Links Friday 3/20/15
We’ve reached the end of another busy week. Hope yours was a good one. Here are five writing related links you should click on. 1. Let’s start with a post from Jane Lebak at the QueryTracker blog looking at The Query Process: laughably bad rejections. My favorite: “We just accepted a story with a main […]
A quick look at my blogging history and the evolution of my ezine
It’s already been nine months since I launched my online magazine, Theme of Absence. To be honest, I started the site almost on a whim. I had owned the domain name for over a decade, as I first bought it to use for a Pink Floyd fan site. (Note: This was in 1996, so you […]
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