Columns

Inspiration vs. Influence: Using What We Know

July 18th, 2017

There’s no right or wrong way to be inspired, but there might be a wrong way to be influenced. When I was 17, I worked as a bag boy at a grocery store. My friend Zack Buckingham worked with me. We would stand around judging the customers—pointing out the pretty women, ugly women, the weird shaped men, the decrepit and how they moved. Once a boy about our age entered the place and I said, “I bet his favorite band is Weezer.” I guess it was meant as an insult. Zack said, “Yeah, but you can’t help what you like.”

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Books at These Speeds: Sped-Up Audiobooks

July 17th, 2017

Let me take you back to the days when I was part of a book club on television. Yes, I used to travel every month or so to a TV studio where I’d sit with a bunch of other folks and talk about a book. Our hour-long chat would be clipped down to about 2 minutes and used to fill a slot on a slow news day. Depicted here is my entire contribution to this endeavor after attending about half a dozen tapings:

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Brace Yourselves: A Breakdown of the Game of Thrones Pilot, "Winter is Coming"

July 14th, 2017

Game of Thrones is coming for your social media feeds this weekend, and what better way to prepare for the latest season of the series than to revisit where it all began, the pilot episode, "Winter is Coming"? That's right—brace yourselves, it's time to break down the Game of Thrones pilot.

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The Writing Guide to End All Writing Guides

July 14th, 2017

The web is full of articles trying to tell you what you should and shouldn't do if you want to be a successful writer. Well, those are all bullshit. This guide right here is the only one you will ever need. If you follow these guidelines, your success is guaranteed. The knowledge I'm sharing with you (you're welcome!) comes from a decade in the business...and stuff I've stol...er, I've learned from observing some of my favorite professional authors. In other words, you should totally make this your bible. Let's get to it.

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Reading Outside Your Comfort Zone

July 13th, 2017

Some of my best reading experiences have been with books outside of my comfort zone. Times when I’ve challenged myself to read beyond my preferred genres and expand my horizons. To read stories from points of view radically different from my own. Titles such as The End of Alice by A.M. Homes, ‘Fox 8’ by George Saunders, Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, and If This Is a Man by Primo Levi.

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It's Just Books: 5 Reasons It's Okay to Quit Writing

July 13th, 2017

About a month ago I gave some thought to quitting writing. I didn’t post about it on social media, so you know that shit was serious. I walked around all day in a great mood. You know what they say about people who are actually going to commit suicide? How they’re all smiles, because they know it’ll all be over soon? That was me, except with writing. My guts knotted up every time I thought of writing or reading. I’d learned to hate the whole process. The thought of never writing again lifted that weight off of my shoulders.

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Don't Hide From Inspiration

July 12th, 2017

Aristotle and Oscar Wilde walk into a bar. Wilde orders the establishment’s finest absinthe, Aristotle picks a top-shelf merlot. A few sips in, they get into an argument about art and life and mimesis. Stop me if you heard this one before… Oscar Wilde opposed Aristotle’s perception that art imitates life when he wrote:

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No Escape from Planet Alcatraz

July 12th, 2017

When I first sat down to write the introduction for Hard Sentences, I was a little sad I couldn’t just write a story instead, but everybody was saying it was bad form to contribute fiction to an anthology you’re editing. And I was almost resigned to the fact I wouldn’t be able to write any tall tales about Alcatraz, until I realized what a perfect position I was in. All I had to do was write a story anyway and just claim it was true, the opposite of all great fiction. Or at least something all good intros should be, right?

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Magic for Beginners: 5 Tips for Fantasy Writers

July 10th, 2017

I make my living as a freelance editor specializing in speculative fiction, and as such, I've seen a whole lot of freshman fantasy efforts.  It's not uncommon for fans of SFF to try their hand at writing it without giving a whole lot of thought to the craft of fiction, just as it's not uncommon for fans of comics to try their hand at drawing one without having invested in art classes. To my mind, that's part of the beauty of these forms—they're egalitarian, and creators still largely come to them by way of voracious fandom.

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Storyville: The Proper Use of Violence in Fiction

July 7th, 2017

I have written a lot of violent stories over the year—horrible murders, terrible creatures, rape, and vengeance, and Lovecraftian unfurling of horrors that strived to get a visceral reaction from my readers. And then one day I woke up and said, “No more. This is a crutch. You don’t need to do this.” How do we know when to use violence in our storytelling, and when should we avoid it? Well, let’s talk about that, shall we?

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