Columns

What You Can Learn From Ronald Reagan: A Primer On Love Letters

February 14th, 2012

Digging through some old papers recently, I found a pile of love letters I’d received over the years from old boyfriends, a few admirers, and one guy who could have been considered a stalker. As expected, most of them were pretty bad—riddled with spelling errors and mushy sentiments. I do remember actively mocking a few of the letters with my friends, which, in hindsight, was totally undeserved by the writer. Rereading a few of them, something else occurred to me—they were sincere and brave!

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LURID: My Top 10 Bloody Valentines

February 14th, 2012

Image via Arianna Jade LURID: vivid in shocking detail; sensational, horrible in savagery or violence, or, a twice-monthly guide to the merits of the kind of Bad Books you never want your co-workers to know you're reading. Happy Valentine's Day! Whether you currently count yourself as a lover, or not, today's thoughts naturally turn to that biggest of Big Questions: what is Love, anyway?

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The Top 10 Fictional Antiheroes

February 10th, 2012

What makes a character an antihero? Certainly, he must be a protagonist who doesn’t display traditionally heroic traits, but there must be more. The reader must truly root for the character; we must be drawn to him despite ourselves. Perhaps his motivations are impure, his choices unconventional, but ultimately he must possess a certain allure that ignites our sympathy and engages our interest. The antihero is complex and unknowable, and because of that, he is fascinating in ways a pure hero or villain could never be.

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Behold! The Unfilmable: David Mitchell's 'Cloud Atlas'

February 10th, 2012

I can picture Don LaFontaine doing voice-over from the big vocal booth in the sky:

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The Myth of Writer’s Block

February 9th, 2012

Header images via DS Stories & Magda Ehlers You know what’s annoying? I can’t pick up a book devoted to writing craft or peruse an online literary forum without reading something about writer’s block: testimonies from those who suffer from it, a historic of famous writers who’ve lived with the condition, and tips on how it can be overcome.

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Un-Building Blocks: What to Do When You Can’t Do It

February 9th, 2012

Image via Free Images Just typing the sentence you are now reading is an act of will. That will is sometimes entirely absent. This condition is known as writers block.

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Beyond the Zombie: Something Ominous is Missing from Horror Fiction

February 8th, 2012

My friend, Phil, claims to be afraid of nothing. When I ask what he means, he says that “vampires and werewolves and zombies have become the new Pokemon. And I hate the Pokemonization of monsters.”

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The Curse of the Second Novel: Four Ways Not To Fuck Up Book Number Two

February 8th, 2012

If writing a book is hard, then writing a successful book is even harder. And if writing a successful book is a task akin to building the Eiffel Tower out of Jello and toothpicks while blindfolded, doing it your first time out has to be even harder still.

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Ask The Lit Coach: "Is It Possible To Sell A Novel On Three Sample Chapters?"

February 6th, 2012

For this issue of Q&A with The Lit Coach, I'm answering a great question I received on Twitter.  Question from Glory S. in London, England What are the chances of getting a book deal based on a 3 chapter submission [and earning an advance] that pays for living expenses while finishing the book?

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hitRECord: Where the Wild Things Are

February 6th, 2012

For most, the Internet is little more than a glorified science fair. People create something with a computer and then post it online for the planet to evaluate. Whether it's a Facebook status update, a poem about the delicate nuances of young love or a cell phone video of grandpa taking a golf ball to the prunes, the Internet is essentially a two-part exchange between the author and the viewer. Conversationally, the digital revolution boils down to this: "Hey, check this out."

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