Columns
Showing 3540 Columns
These 4 Popular Reading Spots Are Actually Awful
May 30th, 2017
Header: via Pexels Close your eyes and imagine your ideal reading spot. You know, the place you most want to go and cozy up with a book on your day off. Picturing it? I bet it’s an awful place to read.
Read Column →10 Things About Writing I (Re)Learned From Graphic Novels
May 26th, 2017
Image: Mortadelo y Filemon, created by Francisco Ibáñez As a kid spending my summers in a dilapidated old house by the traintracks in a tiny town in Northern Spain, comic books were very important to me because they were the only non-running-around form of entertainment I had. I devoured comics, mostly by Spanish comic maestro Francisco Ibañez. Mortadelo y Filemón, El Botones Sacarino, and 13, Rue del Percebe were all favorites.
Read Column →Community Spotlight: Summer 2017 Edition
May 26th, 2017
Why do people love the summer so damn much? Whoops, hang on. Whenever I make curmudgeonly statements like that, my eyebrows grow out to Andy Rooney lengths and I have to comb them back so I can see the keyboard. All this affection for summer, I think it's left over from school days. As a kid, summer was the best. But it had nothing to do with the distance between the earth and the sun. It had to do with the distance between me and the classroom.
Read Column →Want a Masterclass in Character Development? Better Call Saul!
May 25th, 2017
Crafting a successful spinoff series is one of the toughest tricks in television. It feels like the ghost of Joey haunts every current attempt to extend or expand a successful show's existing universe. Want an even bigger challenge? Tackle a spinoff of Breaking Bad, a nearly perfect, almost universally adored drama that contained one of the best slow-burn character arcs in TV history.
Read Column →How Do You Know When Your Writing Career Is Over?
May 24th, 2017
This dark question is one I’m willing to bet most of us have asked ourselves at least once, if not much more regularly. I’m raising it here not to be discouraging. In fact, my motive is quite the opposite. This column is meant to be more of a pep talk, believe it or not. The only folks who will come away from this column too depressed to move are those who have been lying to themselves for a very long time.
Read Column →
50 Anthologies I Wish I Could Submit To
May 19th, 2017
I love anthologies. I love reading them and I love writing for them. Anthologies bring together different voices and offer something that can't be found anywhere else. The true beauty of them is they can be written with a very specific market in mind, and they grant the readers an opportunity to see how different authors tackle the same theme/concept/whatever. I've been published in crime anthologies, horror anthologies, and bizarro anthologies. I've written about death, magic, love, zombies, weird sounds, and drug use.
Read Column →Seeing the Page Like A Quarterback Sees the Field
May 19th, 2017
Both my fiancé and I are writers, and I give her edits before she submits to presses and vice versa. She loves that I can help her make her stories better, but she hates that I use a ton of sports metaphors about the craft of writing.
Read Column →5 Writing Lessons You Can Learn From Pop Punk
May 15th, 2017
Just about every web site has articles about lessons learned from the punk music movement. Start Your Own Business The Punk Rock Way, Grow Herbs The Punk Rock Way, Find The Right Long Term Care Facility for Grandma The Punk Rock Way. Whatever the need, there’s almost certainly an article about how to do it based on the lessons learned from the punk rock movement. But what about punk rock’s cousin, pop punk?
Read Column →Tech and Product Round-up: May Edition
May 15th, 2017
image courtesy Dopamine Labs Hi gang, welcome once again to LitReactor's monthly tech and product round-up, where we take a look at all the new gadgets, apps, and whatever, filtered through the lens of writerly interest. This month, we're taking a look at a new Kindle (or, additionally, a new means of spiffing up your old Kindle). As usual, we've got plenty of ground to cover, so let's jump right in.
Read Column →