I recently received a nice (as in beneficial) kick in the caboose. Challenges, schedules, accountability — These are all good things for you. And really good for writers! I’ve got to confess that my time management skills are terrible. In spite of the glorious sense of intoxication that came with publishing As the Crow Flies, I immediately fell out of the habit of writing regularly. Again. That’s not to say I haven’t been writing at all. You may remember that cleeeeaar back in February I noted that I was re-working the outline of my WiP (as opposed to the writing of […]
Category Archives: writing
Pioneer Day and Finish Lines
In my neck of the woods, today is a Big Deal. Pioneer Day is an official holiday for the state of Utah, and some of the regions in surrounding states originally settled by Mormon pioneers have celebrations, too. The holiday commemorates the arrival of Brigham Young and the first Mormon pioneers into Utah’s Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Between Pioneer Day and Independence Day, we pretty much party all month. There are parades, concerts, barbecues, pancake breakfasts, reenactment treks, retail sales, and rodeos. And fireworks. Oooooh, yeah. Once upon a time folks would just set off their fireworks whenever they […]
Fictional Holiday Fun
Hello, and happy First Friday! Can you believe the year is already half over? If time flies when you’re having fun, then we must be having a blast! This time last year we chatted about what freedom means to us and how the topic figures (or not!) in our novels. Fun, right? This time A Drift of Quills is talking about fictional holidays and celebrations we use in our novels. It’s good to rule. I love the depth of creation behind world-building: the nitty-gritty, the if-this-then-that, the marriage of reality to imagination, the glimpses into the author’s head. Adding holidays to […]
First Impressions – 8 Great Beginnings
A week or so ago I was part of a challenge on Twitter. One of the required items was to “Pen your own perfect first sentence to your “Great American Novel.” I’m working on that novel, so it should be easy, right? Clearly I had forgotten about how much of a work-in-progress my first chapter is. Ai ai ai… But wait! What about the other novel that’s been bubbling around in my head, vying for attention? This was clearly an invitation for it to leap to the forefront, knocking the current wimp right out of the ring. I’ll let you […]
The Stuff Between the Lines: Fact or Fiction?
Hello, and happy First Friday! A Drift of Quills is digging into our very souls this time, unearthing our philosophical innards. The question of the month is: “Is there any particular code, belief, or faith that inspires our writing? How and why?” Yes, we’re getting all existential on ya… Read on to see how that looks in writing! In all honesty, I don’t think the limited space of this format is up to the task of dealing with the subject. The best we can do is skim the surface of the tender, personal area that is our beliefs, codes, or faith. […]
Dreams, Schemes, or Circus Clowns?
It’s a First Friday again! A Drift of Quills comes together again, this time to air our lofty opinions about dreams in fiction. Are they good or bad? And joining us today we have author Gregory S. Close. You might remember him from the book I recently reviewed over here. Please give him a warm welcome! GREGORY S. CLOSE Author of In Siege of Daylight, Book 1 of Light, Dark & Shadow Gregory’s website A dream sequence can create an ethereal mood of otherworldliness, reveal hidden truths, foreshadow victory or doom, or even represent a second, hidden realm that parallels the […]
Nail Your Villain
via Sam Lavy, Flickr Who doesn’t love a good — er, bad villain? Some excellent examples are Prince Regal in The Farseer Trilogy, Norman Bates from Psycho, Commodus* in Gladiator, Professor Umbrage from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Eremus from Mordant’s Need, Arienrhod in The Snow Queen. What makes them so bad we love ‘em and can’t wait to see them brought low? Humanity. Yup, you read right. A villain—or antagonist, adversary—is so much more believable and so much more frightening when he’s not simply evil for the sake of being evil. As author Ben Bova noted, […]
NaNoWriMo 2014!
Greetings, dear readers! It’s the first Friday of the month, and time for A Drift of Quills to get together and chat about books and writing. You may also have noticed that it is November, and November means NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). While Patricia is off flitting about the countryside, Kristie and I are knee-deep into the crazy, wonderful writing frenzy that is NaNoWriMo. Do you know what that means? Hundreds of thousands of people around the world leap headlong into the challenge of writing a novel (50,000 words long!) in thirty days. (Though if I wrote through Thanksgiving Day, […]
The Effect of the Day Job
It’s the first Friday of the month! It’s Quill Time!Most authors have other jobs besides writing—and that includes being a full-time parent (which is hard work!). Along the route we’ve picked up various sorts of education, training or experience. We thought it might be interesting to discuss how our other jobs or experiences influence our writing. Does it make it easier? Harder? PATRICIA REDINGAuthor of OathtakerPatricia’s websiteLike most writers, I also have another “life.” I practice law. For the most part, my legal background is a benefit to writing. Admittedly, however, there is at least one downside to it . […]
“What’s Past Is Prologue”
“What’s past is prologue” is a quotation by William Shakespeare from his play The Tempest. As the phrase was originally used in The Tempest, Act 2, Scene I, it means that all that has happened before that point (the past) has set the stage for the present. So it is with the prologue (or prelude) in novel form. I’ve read a lot of articles that claim a prologues is the kiss of death; editors hate ’em and readers skip ’em. I’m not sure what that makes me, because I read them, except when… Well, we’ll get to that in a […]