July 2003

Maybe I should just stay off the writers’ message boards. Posted a fix of one problem, and found another. My ex-Marines apparently should not continue using the military protocols–saluting, sir, etc.–after being discharged from the service, even though it seems completely natural to me to write them that way. So you guessed it, another major […]

Today my friend sent me the 10 elements from that book about writing your novel. You know, figure the main character’s flaw, figure what makes the character change things, how the flaw flubs things up, all that stuff. She said you’d think following a plan like that would result in formula fiction, but it wasn’t

Sometimes it’s really hard to do what you need to do, before you do what you want to do. It’s getting harder and harder to make myself work on editing Eve’s book. I want to be more creative. I want to start real work on the next book. But I don’t want Eve’s book sitting

Is it possible, can a synopsis not be a PITA? (See last blog for translation.) Today I tried BJ’s outline, and bam! I had a synopsis. It’s not perfect, but it’s less than one page, and it actually does tell my story! With work, it will be awesome, I think. I’m going to include the

So my writing friend asked me for my synopsis. My what? I said. Of course I knew what a synopsis was, but I didn’t have one. I don’t write that way. Usually. But she said it would help her see the flaws in my book, and I definitely want to catch flaws before sending it