I’m still battling with the age-old writers’ conundrum regarding outlining and plotting. It could be that my resistance to outlining stems from quite a few years working as a tech writer. I’ve written a hundred user manuals for numerous software programs and technical procedures, none of which I could have started or completed without an…
Here’s actor Jeremy Renner on a recent episode of the Smartless podcast. “I don’t really believe in hobbies. Either you do something or you don’t, right? I don’t have time to just dip my toe in the water. I’m not taking a ******* bath here in life.” Where do you categorize your writing? If you’re…
One of my college English professors told the story of a British Shakespeare expert who carried a copy of The Riverside Shakespeare onto a plane. The plane was hijacked by a terrorist with a gun. The terrorist shot at the professor, who shielded his chest with the 1,923-page volume of Shakespeare. The bullet lodged in…
In my MFA program, I learned about hybrid forms as a common technique in experimental literary fiction and poetry, but lately I’ve noticed it more often in the genre fiction I read. In his most recent novel, Horror Movie, Paul Tremblay interweaves scenes from a fictional screenplay with traditional prose. Brian McAuley uses the same…
My fellow customer arches his bushy eyebrows, the left one forming a tent top.