Columns

The Internet Hates You: Five Writing Habits to Crush

November 22nd, 2013

"People are suckers for charlatans who provide positive advice (what to do), instead of negative advice (what not to do)," says professionally grumpy Nassim Taleb. My April column on how to create good writing habits seems to have been enough of a success for me to wonder whether I'm a charlatan. So, in the spirit of giving negative advice, here are five things I think you shouldn't do when trying to get your writing done.

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Book Brawl: House of Leaves vs. Night Film

November 22nd, 2013

When anything comes along which seems so unusual and unique that it’s beyond imitation, the one thing you can be sure of is that someone will try to imitate it. Or actually, lots of people. And the other thing you can be sure of is that any subsequent work which bears even a passing resemblance to the original will be decried as a pale, inferior simulacrum. Comparisons between Mark Z. Danielewski’s seminal House of Leaves and Marisha Pessl’s Night Film have already been drawn, usually to the detriment of Pessl’s work.

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It's Made Of SCIENCE: Amnesia

November 21st, 2013

Amnesia is the O Fortuna of the literary fiction world. It's a popular, serious theme which has been used so often it borders on parody. We have seen countless iterations of the amnesiac hero. The disorder has been used in storytelling at least as early as the 1600's with Giambattista Basile's The Dove, and continues to make appearances in our books and movies today.

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Library Love: Weed Your Library!

November 20th, 2013

Do you ever look at our bookshelves and feel a strange malaise? That same kind of feeling a look at the oldest clothes in your closet produces? Do you own books you think you should read, but deep down, you know you never will? Do you still have that little gift store book about spooning your ex gave you? A yes to any of these questions means your collection is a prime candidate for weeding.

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Writing: An Outlet For Psychosis

November 19th, 2013

Thanks to some excellent articles on mental health from LitReactor's own Nathan Scalia and Robbie Blair, I finally feel both comfortable and inspired enough to discuss how writing has helped me through my struggle with psychosis. For anyone unfamiliar with that word, it's a fancy medical term for being crazy.

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Should You Become A Multi-Hyphenate?

November 18th, 2013

About half a dozen years ago I realized that if I ever wanted to be successful at anything, I had to pick ONE thing. I was a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-nothing kind of gal, and while I'll probably never truly master anything, I realized that I wasn't nearly gifted enough to be successful in multiple writing-related areas, certainly not when I hadn't yet accomplished anything major in my writing-related life. 

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Analyzing a Short Fiction Publishing Contract

November 18th, 2013

When everyone thinks of the writing process, they think of two scenarios:

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9 Great Albums To Accompany Your Writing Process

November 15th, 2013

Do you listen to music when you write? If so, have you ever felt the music you listen to while hammering out those first drafts distracts you from the work at hand? Have you ever struggled to find the perfect album for the mood or atmosphere of your piece? Perhaps you've never put on a record while working, simply because you just don't know where to start.

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Bill Watterson: A Primer

November 14th, 2013

My dad and I have what you might call a “cordial” relationship now that I’m (ostensibly) grown and out of the house. Superficially, we don’t have a lot in common, which means much of our day to day (or month to month, as is often the case) conversation is relegated to political arguments—something I attempted to put to bed on my last visit home—and discussions of culture. As far as shared experiences go, however, these days, they’re mostly limited to family gatherings and the occasional movie screenings I force on him.

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Don’t You Dare Stop! – 5 Bullshit Reasons for Giving Up on NaNoWriMo

November 14th, 2013

Your plants are unwatered. Your hamster unfed. Despite Leah Dearborn’s exhortations to the contrary, your relatives have filed a missing persons report and you went to work in your slippers. NaNoWriMo has not only taken over your life, it has mushed your face slap bang against the harsh realities of writing fiction for a living.

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