Columns

What Neil Breen's 5-Hour Retrospective Taught Me About Making Art

June 26th, 2020

I watched Neil Breen’s 5.5-hour film retrospective about his process. This is the longest single movie I’ve ever watched. The amazing thing about it is the sound quality is horrible, the lighting is terrible, the ADR is lazy, and as a film, it’s abysmal and hard to watch. And damn it, I actually learned something about making art.

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Be Free on George Orwell’s Birthday

June 25th, 2020

Author photo via Wikipedia 1984. Animal Farm. These two classics alone bring chilling images to mind. Too many comparisons have been made to modern day situations, and after recent government measures taken in response to the pandemic and protests—I’m not even going to go there. No one needs that.

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How Many Books Will You Read Before You Die?

June 23rd, 2020

Recent life events. We’ve all had a lot of shit that could fall under “recent life events,” eh? 2020 is the year of “recent life events.” Recent life events got me thinking about death and what I’d like to do before I die. Among other things that don’t warrant mentioning, owning a stand-up arcade machine, and figuring out how to make cats immortal (in a good way, not an evil, Twilight Zone way), I want to read all the shit I want to read.

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I Just Spent A Year Exclusively Reading Women (and I Deserve No Congratulations For This)

June 22nd, 2020

On June 12, 2019, I made the following FaceBook post: I wandered back over to GoodReads for the first time in a while and perused the books I’ve read in my lifetime (I certainly haven’t logged them all there, but it’s close). What struck me in a good way was the variety of novels consumed over the years—not only horror, but sci-fi, fantasy, thriller, noir, and straight-up lit-fic, for lack of a better term. 

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Drunk on Literature: 10 Themed Book and Brew Pairings

June 19th, 2020

Reading and beers make underrated combos, like coffee and salty potato chips. Or Ranch and pizza (hey, I’m American). Reading and whiskey gets you too drunk, too fast. Wine is just so fussy. And it’s summer. Summer is the time for a cold beer and a book on the porch. Let me, someone who’s read a lot and sampled a fair number of beers, give you some pairings.

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Inconceivable: Social Media Branding Might Not Mean What You Think It Means

June 18th, 2020

Social Media is a mixed bag. If I'm honest, I have a lot of conflicting emotions about it. For one, it's distracting. It's so easy to spend precious reading or reviewing time mindlessly scrolling through tweets or posts. Sometimes I get sucked into a couple discussions and before I know it, I've spent an hour in back and forth dialog and searching for the perfect gif to capture my mood.

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Writing, Weight Loss, and Cops

June 17th, 2020

Original images via Andrea Piacquadio & Rosemary Ketchum I pitched this before the protests, before the tragedy of George Floyd. I recently started using a health app called Noom. Even with the malaise of Covid-19 and the stress of trying to run a publishing company and write during the pandemic, I have lost weight. The app works, but I don’t know if the way the police do their job works.

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What Tools Do You Use to Edit Your Manuscripts?

June 15th, 2020

Image by Pixabay via Pexels What are your preferred tools when you write? A pencil and paper? A pen and a pad? Do you write notes on your phone, typing away in your notes app? Or, do you reserve all of your writing for your tablet or computer? Ultimately, all writers use some sort of tool, and very often we are using a combination of tools, switching from various platforms and then combining all of our material into a single space.

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Storyville: Advanced Storytelling Techniques

June 12th, 2020

Today we are going to talk about some advanced storytelling techniques. These are for authors that are already functioning at a high level. You get the basics—everything I teach in my Short Story Mechanics class—such as narrative hook, inciting incident, internal and external conflict, rising tension, climax, resolution (and change), as well as denouement (epiphany). You already understand the main components—plot, character, setting, dialogue, etc.

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The Hottest Summer Trends in Books, Reading, and Writing

June 11th, 2020

We’re nothing if not trendsetters here at LitReactor. And while some outlets bring you the hottest fashions and spendy bullshit, we’re bringing you the hottest literary trends for summer. Get it? Hottest? Because the number of degrees is higher in summer? Because of Earth’s tilt? See, people think it’s about closeness, but it’s all about the tilt. Another trend LitReactor was onto first! We’ve got loads of sizzling, molten trends for you. Ignore them at your peril.

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