With the holiday season upon us, the time crunch is even worse than usual. Finding time to write can be even more of a challenge. But, it is important to remember that even small blocks of time can add up. I’ve been reading Pen on Fire: A Busy Woman’s Guide […]
Why I Never Get Any Writing Done
I am a slow writer, a failing demonstrated by the factoid that I started this post in Mycenaean, had to switch to Celt-Iberian, then Saxon, and finally Elizabethan English (I figure I’ll touch this up as I post the final version). You have no idea what a hassle it is […]
Picture It! by John McNichol
[Editor’s Note: This is John McNichol’s first column for our Catholic Fiction Saturdays. John blogs at Young Chesterton Chronicles, and is the author of The Tripods Attack and The Emperor of North America, both now available in e-book format at Amazon. He is currently working on the third installment in […]
A note from Karina Fabian about her worldbuilding class
People who read my blog know how bizarre my imagination gets, and how detailed and wild I can get in my worldbuilding. Even though I’m more of an intuitive, seat-of-the-pants kind of writer, I have broken down worldbuilding into several steps and I’m teaching them at savvyauthors.com September 5-October 3. […]
"You talk like you was there."
Hearing voices in your head can be a good thing. At least it can be if you’re a writer. One of the three legs of a good story is characterization. Three things paint the character’s portrait for the reader: description, action, and dialogue. The first is usually the easiest for […]
Writing The Alien Alien
For the writer of speculative fiction, there’s a dodge most of us use—the human dressed in the alien suit. I don’t mean the guy dressed in a serape, lederhosen, Zulu head-ring, and carrying a samurai sword and boomerang (though it does make for an interesting picture); no, rather an alien […]
The Seasoned Writer
Of the 18 known dimensions, time—the fourth, is the one most important to the writer. Most often when a writer thinks of time, it is in relation to deadlines which always seem to be approaching at the high closing rate of a behind-schedule freight train. Or how long we have […]
Blogging with the Spirit
I’ve been pretty embroiled in preparing for our parish’s Confirmation Boot Camp over the last couple of weeks. This week, in front of the class of Confirmation students, I thought about my journey to published author. Blogging’s what lit my fire for writing. It’s how I came to be published. […]
Social Media & Blogging
I resisted it for quite a while. “I already blog,” I thought. “Who needs Twitter? And I can’t even really navigate Facebook. So I’ll just keep blogging.” That was years ago. Now, I’m just as embroiled in the web of status updates as anyone else. It just seemed to be […]
Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics, & "Slice of Life"
Posted by Walt “Slice of Life” writers, such as Ernie Pyle, Erma Bombeck, and Dave Barry, have occasionally been accused of exaggeration. A charge often leveled by parents, spouses, offspring, and just about anyone else who enjoys the gift of knowing them. To which I say: “Tosh” (and other words […]