I have read a lot about building a following of readers, having online presence, working the social networks, and so on. And while a lot of it seems reasonably useful, there are also slews of articles that rub me the wrong way or that I’m not willing to do. Also, while I don’t claim to be the most successful network builder out there, I have gotten a lot more attention and a greater presence than I thought I would in just a couple of years. Yes, years. There is no such thing as an overnight sensation. Or if there is such a thing, one ought not plan to be that. I might as well develop a 5-year plan for flying myself to Mars. Read More…
Latest from the Blog
Writers on Parade
Deep Fried Oreos
I pride myself on cooking well, and across cuisines, ingredients, and meals of the day. If someone can’t eat a certain kind of food—close friends know I never eat raw tomatoes—I enjoy coming up with substitutes, different recipes, and so on. Cooking to me represents an ever-shifting journey that feels at times like archaeology. There is literally nothing I can come up with in the kitchen that hasn’t been done by someone else before me, so I at least attempt to hold that history sacred when I’m fixing up a dish.
When I found out we were with child, after all of the excitement rolled through us, one of my first thoughts was that I’ll be able to adjust to whatever food preferences Susanne has for the duration of the pregnancy. And yet this moment marked the peak of my culinary confidence in this regard. Read More…
Bumbling into Baby
Truth be told, Susanne and I were looking for more than writing sanctuary in our temporary move to Seattle last fall. We were also hoping to make progress on the baby front. And by “progress,” I mean that we’d crossed our fingers that with the help of some expert fertility staff, we would conceive.
There were more than a few errors in our presumption-making, however. Read More…
A Writer’s Mission
Those of us who’ve spent time honing our language use and craft have inevitably stumbled across the occasional comment or question about whether we could donate our skills to writing something for them or someone they know. A newsletter needs one last article, or someone read a call for essays on fishing, or have we ever thought about ghostwriting, because it seems like there’s always work for ghostwriters. (Hint: ask an actual ghostwriter and one may receive a different impression.) It’s as if any writer can write about any subject, in any form, and within any genre. We practically poop letters.
Gratefully, it does not work that way. Read More…
Cheap and Easy Ways to Defeat Zombies
At first, the thought of a zombie horde clawing its way to one’s front door inspires terror and panic, but if we examine the nature of an undead mob more closely, a few simple tactics come to mind that can greatly diminish their numbers and increase the likelihood of human survival. Read More…
Character Believability Using POV
It’s a common statement about stories—the conflict is the story. Sure, conflict is the center of a story’s universe, in that it pulls all of the elements together and is the thing around which those elements revolve. And yet it’s what the characters do in response to that conflict that keeps us reading. After all, the audience can’t identify with the conflict itself—they identify with how one or more of the actors reacts to the conflict. If those characters aren’t fully envisioned on the page, there isn’t enough for the reader to latch onto, and writers run the risk of breaking a cardinal rule: The story must be believable.
And not just the story, but the people in the story itself. Rookies build two-dimensional characters. Good writers get readers to buy the people in their novels (or short stories, which is harder because of the smaller scope). Read More…
The Good Christian Households of Walla Walla
I think we’ve established that in the big scheme of things, Walla Walla is a pretty small town. It’s bigger than Ember, Wyoming, yes, but I’m sure 99.9 percent of the United States has more than 50 people in its city limits. Overall, the few tens of thousands of folks who call Wallyworld home understand that it’s a bit isolated, a bit small, and a bit lacking in big city sophistication.
Even in big cities, there are the door-to-door solicitors, mostly hawking church services in a town known for secular government. I can see why this congregation or that would think that sending out local missionaries is a good idea, but in Walla Walla, most folks are already associated with a house of worship. The biggest parking lots here, after all, have aligned themselves with one church or other. Yes, the lone synagogue has a pretty small parking lot. I’ve looked. Read More…
Forgetting Is Easy
Way back in June 2003 I had a dream that began a long string of nervous decisionmaking to embark on this whole gender transition journey of mine. As I progressed, I gained confidence, but I was making everything up as I went along. Somehow my culture hadn’t already identified a ready to wear outfit for having a sex change. I plunged into the Internet, which at the time was All About Messageboards, and somewhere beyond the thick soup of hyperspace were actual people. Some of them were newbies, like myself, asking questions, others were at the intermediate level, as it were, and still more folks had set themselves up as mini-gurus on the topic.
To say that in the midst of these personalities, there was some conflict would count as something of a stunning understatement. Read More…
When the Books Come Tumbling Down
Riddle: what do you get when you combine an overtired klutz, an avid reader of 40 years, and a person’s observation that a particular bookshelf looks more than a mite unsteady on its feet?
Answer: I think we all know how this is going to turn out. Read More…
Why Agents Get Snarky
I understand the appeal of putting up the best of the worst queries that land in an agent’s inbox, of letting off a little steam of frustration and giving everyone a laugh in the process, I really do. There is no end, after all, to the pipeline of awful query letters. After reading through agent blogs, Twitter links, fan pages and the occasional Writer’s Digest article, I can even scratch out some categories of Terrible Queries:
1. The Delusional Query Letter—This is the best book evar!!! Nobody has my lyrical, lyrical, lyrical prose, and you, dear agent, whoever you are, will love it and love it and die happy for the reading of it. Pay no attention to the fact that it gives the same tired storyline, be it Eat, Pray, Love, or boy meets girl, or a hero’s journey. At least this writer is no stranger to fiction. Read More…
Trans/plant/portation 