Columns

How Late Nights Are Killing You and Your Writing

February 27th, 2020

Writers love the romance of an all-nighter. Oh, we’re so into our coffee and our quiet and our manic hammering away deep into the night. Like most romantic things (showering together in a one-person tub shower, making out in a vehicle, dance in general), the all-nighter is a lot better in concept than it is in reality. It might be hurting you more than you think. Not Me! Let’s knock this out right away: Most folks will say some version of, “I only need about six hours to function.”

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The Zen of Morning Pages

February 26th, 2020

Original images via Pexels I’ve lost count how long I’ve been writing Morning Pages. I think I started in 2009, but maybe it was 2010. Either way, I’ve been writing a few pages every day for around a decade now.

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15 Traps That Could Hurt Your Writing Goals

February 24th, 2020

Original photo by Skitterphoto It’s that time of year when we fail at all our goals!

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Storyville: The Duality of Strong Emotions

February 21st, 2020

So, I’ve talked about this before, but I want to dig deeper. What we’re talking about today is the duality of strong emotions. How can we use them to create conflict, atmosphere, and a powerful resolution? Let’s talk about that. It starts with love and hate. So I want you to think about something or someone that you love. There are many kinds of love, in case you didn’t know that. The Greeks mention several:

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"P.S. I Still Love You" is All About Love and Heartbreak, in the Cutest Way

February 20th, 2020

Spoiler alerts for To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before: P.S. I Still Love You and its predecessor below Netflix gave the world of rom-com lovers the perfect Valentine’s Day gift when they released To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before: P.S. I Still Love You two days before the holiday. I watched it on V-Day itself, curling up with a bag of popcorn and my laptop after waiting two agonizing days to start one of my most highly-anticipated movies of 2020.

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Bob Seger's "Night Moves": A Short Lesson on Repetition

February 19th, 2020

If you don’t know the song...what am I saying, you know the song. What you don’t know is that it’s a great writing lesson that even YOU can understand, you dopey bastard. Allow me to explain. The Basics “Night Moves” starts out as an average classic rock song. Describe some Midwest-y characters, a little bit about the decade, that sort of thing. It was the song that moved Bob Seger from “local boy done good” to international rock star.

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What Is A "Mary Sue" Character and Do They Actually Exist In Fiction?

February 18th, 2020

In a recent Twitter conversation, someone referred to a woman in a work of fiction as a "Mary Sue" (the less said about the conversation overall, the better). I had not encountered this term before, and upon looking it up, my immediate reaction was to dismiss it as wholly sexist and non-existent, a trope that isn't actually applicable to most forms of fiction (novels, plays, television, film, etc.), but is recklessly hurled at those mediums regardless. 

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What My Tattoo Artist Taught Me About Writing Critique

February 17th, 2020

Photos via the author I recently put in some time in the chair with my favorite tattoo artist. This sounds like I have a lot of tattoos; I don’t. I have three, one of which is a little gray sun on my neck that I picked right off the board one random day when I was nineteen with fifty bucks in my pocket. I found this artist much the same way I found my sweet little sun—I drove around for a while with an idea and some cash until I got to a tattoo parlor with some cool designs in the window. You know, real scientific. 

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Five Literary Love Affairs To Get Lost in This Valentine's Day

February 13th, 2020

So many classic couplings spring to mind when we think of the greatest literary love affairs: Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy (or Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy?), Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester, Cathy and Heathcliff, Romeo and Juliet. And not to mention the more torrid romances novels have gifted us, such as Lady Chatterley and Oliver Mellors from Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Emma Bovary and Rodolphe Boulanger from Madame Bovary, and Atonement’s Cecilia Tallis and Robbie Turner.

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Why Don't Men Read Romance?

February 11th, 2020

I’m not going to waste time on anyone looking to disagree with the general premise: Men don’t read romance. Yes, SOME men read romance. Because if there’s a thing to be done, there’s a guy out there doing it, doing it with gusto, and I applaud his efforts. But if you know anything about books and readers, you know that romance is not popular with the fellas. Let’s skip the discussion of whether or not this is true. The interesting part is the Why. Why don’t men read romance?

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