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Original image via Pixabay

Imagine you’re writing a story set in Greenland. How much do you have to tell your readers about that country? It’s a place most English speakers aren’t too familiar with, so there will be some things to explain, but when deciding what to include in such a story that pesky glowing rectangle on the nightstand plays a role.

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Original image via Skitterphoto

The following is not any kind of exclusive prep-school grooming for writers. Nor is it me censoring you or telling you how to express yourself. Nor am I alluding that writers are somehow more evolved than non-writers (in fact, we are consistently, if not uniformly, manic). However, if the shoe fits, I’d like to make the humble suggestion to find the confidence to wear it; especially considering you’re the shoemaker.

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I’m not here to talk about bad sex.

Okay, maybe just a little.

Fiction has some terrible sex in it. There’s even a Bad Sex Award, which was sadly not presented in 2020, but you still want a highlight from 2019, right?

Highlight:

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February is Women in Horror Month (WiHM), and while we should be celebrating women in the horror industry all year long, this is a time of extra visibility and encouragement, and as such, I want to share some of my favorite contemporary authors with you, as well as tell you a little story about my own journey working and reading in the horror industry.

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Amateurs finish a book, and if it sucks, they say it sucks, and they leave it there.

Real readers go further. They figure out why it sucked. Partially because they’re curious. But mostly, and most importantly, because figuring out why you disliked a book helps you avoid reading another pile of shit just like it.

Writers do the same thing. You can’t finish a book and say, “Well, that sucked,” and expect to learn anything.

Let’s say you finish a lousy book. What’s the next step?

Buckets.