Keeping the Plates Spinning—A Chat with Author Daryl Wood Gerber
My daily writing output runs erratic. Some days I’m a scene machine, other days I agonize for hours on a sentence I end up deleting. I’m positive I missed something in the writer’s handbook—the...
View ArticleA Market Too Perfect for Profit
In The Navigator there is an unapologetic shout-out to an unlikely place. A suburb. The walking paths of Reston, Virginia are famous and special. They are particularly special to the residents of...
View ArticleOrder a Zoombie at the Red Panty
A sweet dry wind blows downriver through the Rio Grande Valley. Squinty sun, cornflower sky. Mid-afternoon two and a half weeks ago. I am in Nuevo Progreso, a Mexican border town in Tamaulipas,...
View ArticleGoodreads Acquisition: Is Amazon to Big to Fail?
I thought I’d do something a little different for this post and discuss some current events in the publishing world. As most of you have probably heard by now, Amazon has recently announced its...
View ArticleKurt, Bernie and Walt
All of literature is connected. Listen. Norb Vonnegut and I joined up recently in Manhattan at the Algonquin Hotel. Where else agreeably to conspire about the future of Algonquin Redux? We both...
View ArticleNoir Star
The audio is clear and resolute. The vibrant voice is that of an older man, still a lion, called upon and caused to reflect. He speaks remembrance in pain and with honor. The words come forth as...
View ArticleWriting with a Collaborator
Writers are used to having total control over their work, at least until it goes to an editor. You come up with an idea, maybe you outline it a little or a lot, then you write a first draft. You write...
View ArticleMythbusters are a writer’s best friend
My new book, DEVIL’S NIGHT, features a scene in which heroine Kat Campbell is trapped with a bad guy in a room filled with gas fumes. (Don’t ask why or how. It’s a long story.) At one point, she fires...
View ArticleBook Launch. Six Stories.
June was book launch month for my novel The Navigator. Anticipation met reality. I promised from the start here that my posts on Algonquin Redux would concern the book’s marketing. The wild ride of...
View ArticleThe Three Princes of Serendip
A couple thoughts on creativity: 1. Change Your Perspective A few years ago while visiting a hotel in Denver, I noticed “EXIT” signs not only above the exit doors, but also at their base. “How odd!” I...
View ArticleDo You Judge a Book by Its Cover?
How much does the cover of a book influence your decision, if not to buy, then at least to pick it up and take a look? Although we’d like to think otherwise, covers strongly influence our choice of...
View ArticleWhy I Don’t Try to Come up with More Ideas
When I speak at writers conferences, people often ask me where I get my ideas from. I’m not always sure what to tell them; I mean, the answer is life. I get ideas from the intersection of reality and...
View ArticleDoes Fiction Really Matter?
When novelist Philip Roth was awarded the International Man Booker Prize he gave an interview with the Financial Times of London and said he wasn’t reading fiction any more. “I don’t read it at all,”...
View ArticleEsoterica, Plain & Simple
Who wouldn’t want to knock back drinks and tell tales with (l-r) Art Samuels, Charles MacArthur, Harpo Marx, Dorothy Parker and Alexander Woollcott? But they weren’t wholly loved. Groucho Marx, brother...
View ArticleZ’s Drive-in
Wautoma, Wisconsin. The corner of Highway 21 and Highway 22. That’s where Z’s Drive-in sat, with its peeling paint, and simple, hand-painted sign. It’s not even a drive-in, because you have to walk...
View ArticleThe Big Nothing, Small Deaths, and How a Dilemma is Vital for Storytellers
Two days into 2014 I had a ‘New Year’ conversation with a good friend. Our talk turned to Noam Chomsky. I’d just seen Is The Man Who Is Tall Happy?, an animated documentary on the life of the...
View ArticleDoes This Book Make Me Look Fat?
I went to the gym yesterday for the first time in … well, I forget. I think it was September. Or maybe August. Months. Let’s just leave it at that. The impetus for this rare trip to the gym came last...
View ArticleThe Secret to Writing Faster
Last summer I found myself jammed up against a deadline most novelists would have thought impossible to meet. My normal writing pace produced roughly one polished chapter per week. Now, in order to...
View ArticleWhat Do You Have to Hide?
Recently, I was intrigued by an article someone forwarded to me about a sixteen-year-old high school student who was sick of his teacher reading symbolism into the books she assigned them, so he wrote...
View ArticleThe Five-Minute Story Test
Over years of writing professionally—and coaching and consulting with other writers—I’m perpetually on the lookout for techniques to make it easier to sprout and nourish strong stories. And so the...
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