Category: Writing

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The Battle of the Binge

Unfortunately this time of year is hell on my productivity. Some of my favorite authors have new books out. It all started with Robert Galbraith’s “Troubled Blood“. I tore through almost a thousand pages in three days. And now there’s Joe Abercrombie’s “The Trouble with Peace“, and several more books sitting on my teetering to-read pile, clamoring for attention. I seem to be a person who doesn’t do things by half measures. When I read, I binge-read. When I get hooked on a TV series, which fortunately happens only about once every five years or so, I binge-watch (I’m looking Read More …

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Survivorship Bias

Another author’s talk. Another conference panel. Another interview. Again and again, we’re treated to stories of success. We hear about the query letter that landed an author an agent. About the chance encounter that led to a guest post that went viral and launched a career. About the debut novel that sold at auction. For a high six-figure advance, of course. And, of course, every success story needs its share of adversity overcome. The bigger the success, the bigger usually the adversity. The message is clear: Everybody can succeed if only they apply themselves. If you’re not succeeding, you’re not Read More …

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Don’t Take on the Stress of Others

“Don’t take on the stress of others” is advice (from Mark Sisson) that recently popped up in my inbox. I don’t take it to mean that we’re supposed to be as cold as a dead fish in the face of other people’s distress. If we can in any way help, we should do so, if our help is welcome. Sometimes it isn’t — and that’s all right. All we can do is to be gracious about offering our help as well as accepting a rejection. Empathy and Outrage Empathy is a precursor to any genuine wish to help that’s driven Read More …

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Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding is the bread and butter of any fantasy writer. Of any writer, really. In fantasy, though, only our imagination is the limit. The idea of making up my own rules, of playing god in my own world, has always appealed to the control freak in me. Also, I never liked to do the in-depth, meticulous research I’d have to do if I wanted to credibly set a story in a place that actually exists. That doesn’t mean, though, that as fantasy writers we’re spared any research. In my own writing, I take elements from our world, natural or cultural, Read More …

LK LohanLeave a comment

The Taste Gap

Ira Glass raised a very interesting idea in an interview once. The idea of the taste gap. What it means is that we get into creative endeavors because we have good taste. We want to make good art. We know what good art looks like, feels like, reads like. But in the beginning, our skill set isn’t nearly evolved enough to produce the kind of art we like. So we practice and we expose ourselves to other people’s art. We refine our taste and we build our skills until we’re starting to produce work that we’re proud of. And then Read More …