Amber: imbedding strong images You know those images that stick with you long after the work has been shelved or sunk beneath a mountain of new impressions? The ones you can read over and over and feel the gritty texture, smell the burning tang, see the vivid stain…that quality of capturing a moment precisely, the…
Reading a Connie Willis novel is like drowning. Her very first paragraph is a rip tide that lets you get a breath just often enough not to drown you. You spend a lot of time treading water, but the liquid feels so lovely against your skin, a blood warm suspension, and you pray for breath…
The art of writing dialogue I have always enjoyed reading Heinlein’s books, but it is his dialogue that holds my attention the most. His characters play with words and by doing so demonstrate relationships and conditions. This excerpt from The Cat that Walks Through Walls is a great example of how his dialogue clearly separated…
Always looking at a master’s work before tackling your own world building is a good way to not just see the process in action but immerse yourself in it, so when you dive into your own work, the spell has been cast, a sense of the cape of good building has been settled like…
The pen is my sword. I have written before that writers are readers. We read for our own enjoyment and to learn techniques, both through exposure to well-written work and through examination of the works we read. Lu Chi’s Wen Fu (which I have cited in the past) said it best: When cutting an axe…
All me, just different. Like most writers, I have a day job. I am a teacher. I am also a wife and mother, so adding a writing life just increases confusion to the standard complicated life of this everywoman. I have to keep them from overlapping. My teaching is about the student, not about what…
ring by ring, we build brevity, depth, complexity, simplicity Every new skill or bit of knowledge we learn brings with it that usage curve that starts out complex, and as we gain understanding and mastery, we simplify and integrate. That applies to life and work in general, but it is also the essence of growing…
start with something & keep writing What better post to discuss beginnings on than In the beginning…. Where to start the story? Start with any word that comes to mind — the beginning is just that: a place to start. a character talking to another character the character talking to the reader the character talking…
