Category: Articles and Essays
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How Often Do You Write?
This question always seemed to come up when I was attending writing conferences and workshops. Participants and fellow novice writers like myself directed it to the workshop leaders, published authors. The answers the authors offered were as varied as the authors themselves.
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Planning Your Novel: My Notebook
I have a notebook for every novel I write. I make notes on short stories I write, but novels deserve an entire notebook. My novels, as with all stories I write, begin in my head. Since earning my MFA I give much thought to my novels before I write, sometimes as much 3 years or…
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Angels and Demons: Books and Movies
I saw the movie adaptation of Angels and Demons on opening night, Friday, May 15th with my middle child and husband. It was great. Although the book was much better than the movie, I thought the producers created a good storyline, much better than the one in the current Star Trek movie. As a trekkie…
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The Decline and Fall of Books: But Is Writing and Reading Dead?
I doubt it. One has to be really careful when reading articles such as, “The Decline and Fall of Books” written by Nicholas Clee. In it he writes, “Traditional bookshops are closing; vending machines are churning out novels; and e-books are the new paperbacks; so is this the final chapter for the book industry?…Booksellers have…
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Italo Calvino, The Micro Chapter and Writing What Interests You
Calvino was brave because he sat down to write what interested him – not what might interest other people. He had a day job in a publishing house, and he sought neither celebrity nor wealth. He was the extreme other of the creative writing course wannabe. He loved the short fictional form, which was a…
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The Map is Not the Terrain-Jon Franklin and His Outline
With the last of t he edits underway on my new publication, The House, due for release in Fall 2009, I’ve found myself pondering my next story. A novel, the idea came to me sometime last week. I now realize it popped into my head after overhearing a conversation wherein a middle-aged woman in speaking…
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Ayelet Waldman, Bad Mother Anxiety and How We Come to Writing
Ayelet Waldman, wife of author Michael Chabon, mother of four and author in her own right, discusses on NPR’s Fresh Air, her trials of feeling that she’s not measuring up to what a “good mother” as defined by the late 20th early 21st century ideals.