Columns

Product Review: iPad Pro

April 14th, 2016

all images courtesy Apple.com Last year, Apple released the iPad Pro, an expanded version of their preexisting tablet, boasting a 12.9 inch screen and a host of other bells and whistles. Tim Cook, the company's CEO, pondered last November "...why would you buy a PC anymore?

Read Column →

Finding Poetry In Computer Code

April 12th, 2016

In his 1984 book, Literate Programming, computer scientist Donald Knuth wrote, “The practitioner of literate programming can be regarded as an essayist, whose main concern is with exposition and the excellence of style. Such an author, with thesaurus in hand, chooses the names of variables carefully and explains what each variable means.”

Read Column →

What An Author Reading Is And Why You Should Go To One

April 11th, 2016

Last week I went to an author reading with my partner, PoonMasterFlex. That's her chosen nickname, by the way. For the sake of this column, I'll just call her "Flex." It's shorter, less fratty, and I live in fear of the kinds of Google searches this column might pop up under if the term "PoonMasterFlex" is overused. Flex and I were walking to the reading, and when we were about halfway there, she said, "So...what's going to happen? How does this work?"

Read Column →

22 of the Best Single Sentences on Writing

April 8th, 2016

There have been entire articles and books devoted to the craft of writing. And while you should definitely read at least a few of them (I personally recommend Stephen King's On Writing and Robert McKee's Story), you'll likely never find the time to read them all. Fortunately, some of the best tips out there can be whittled down to a single sentence, easily consumed and memorizable. Here are some of my favorites (22 in all, to be exact) culled from some of the biggest names in the world of fiction writing.

Read Column →

6 Killer Death Scenes to Tattoo On Your Writer's Brain

April 8th, 2016

When my kids were little we had a family fun game called “Death Scenes.” We’d gather in the back yard or in the playing fields behind our house—the same fields, by the way, where Peter Jackson shot his matricide movie, Heavenly Creatures—and we’d compete to see who could die the best.

Read Column →

Literary Orphanages: 5 Places to Find Open Calls for Submissions

April 7th, 2016

So maybe you’ve written a story. You’ve gone through a series of painful, bloody rewrites. You’ve obsessed over your writing so much that your family’s given up on you. You’re a lost cause, they say. Some psychopath chasing a wild dream that’ll never work out. You aren’t gonna get published. You’re just some punk drooling on a keyboard instead of contributing to society like your much more successful sibling. Maybe you want to prove them wrong. Maybe you don't care what they say. Either way, you want to take the next step.

Read Column →

LitReactor Community Spotlight: April 2016

April 6th, 2016

I've been thinking a lot about perspective. If you've been following politics in the US this election cycle, you probably have too. Conflict is easier for an individual to manage from a limited perspective; you can name a thousand and one reasons why your side is correct, and why the opponent is wrong. From an individual perspective, every fight is a virtuous one.

Read Column →

Why You Should Write Something Pointless

April 5th, 2016

Have you ever heard of water calligraphy? Here's how it works.  Basically, a person, often an old man, goes to the park. He brings a water bucket and a stick with a sponge strapped on the end. He finds a spot of concrete, and he dips his sponge in the bucket. Then he writes. Beautiful, ornate characters on the sidewalk, carefully formed. The characters last for only a short time before they dry out and disappear.

Read Column →

7 Valuable Pinterest Tips for Writers

April 4th, 2016

Most writers are aware that Pinterest is known as the single greatest time-suck in all of procrastination, but in reality it can be so much more. Sure, you can spend hours pinning recipes you’ll never try or crafty bookish projects that won’t turn out quite like you imagined, but there’s a way to make Pinterest a source of more creative pursuits. From before you sit down to your work in progress to marketing your finished novel, here is a list of ways for making the most out of Pinterest as a writer.

Read Column →

Every Danielle Steel Novel Summarized in 140 Characters or Less

April 1st, 2016

Images via Cyrus Webb & DaniellSteel.com Inspired by the column that almost became a segment on the Queen Latifah Show: Every Stephen King Novel Summarized in 140 Characters or Less by Max Booth III Say you wanted to get into Danielle Steel and didn't kno

Read Column →