Category Archives: Uncategorized

Less than 24 hours to NaNoWriMo!

In less than 24 hours, I’ll be able to take some time off from creatively fitting in references to things like a distributor water filter into my blog postings and instead working on an actual novel whose first draft will be completed by the end of November. That’s because I’m participating in NaNoWriMo and I

Easy start-up

If I do go digital publishing with my religious writings, I’d have a fairly easy start-up. I have written enough sermons and commentaries over the past 18 months or so that I could think of six or seven titles I could develop and release over the next year, just by starting with material I’ve already

Finding ways to undercut seriousness

One of the skills one must possess to have fun while writing fiction is finding ways to undercut dour seriousness. While I’m not saying everyone should put on clown makeup, I am advocating coming up with character-driven ways to make a situation interesting. Let’s say someone is being questions by a Sheriff about a murder.

Two troublesome states of mind on writing

Some people would rather blather on and on about free term life insurance rates than tackle a novel, and yet strangely most people imagine that they have at least one good novel in them. This ambivalence about the task of writing ultimately has to be set aside if one is to become a successful writer.

Don’t be afriad to be weird

One of the things I find some writers struggle with is a fear of creating characters who are “too weird” to be “believable.” Whenever I hear this, I love to have them sit down and watch the two-hour movie debut of the old and short-lived ABC TV mystery, Twin Peaks. There’s no one weirder than

Dovetailing writing efforts

Sometimes an effective strategy to get more work done is to dovetail various efforts in different ways to complete more than one assignment. For example, in the past year I’ve put a lot of time into researching Jack the Ripper and other modern serial murderers, and it’s paid off in a published article in Ripper

Car goes vroom, kids get help

Ever heard of Car Angel? Well, about 2.4 million kids know of their work. The nonprofit group looks for car donations that they can either fix up and sell, or sell as-is. It’s a tax write-off for the people who make the donation, and all proceeds get funneled into a video outreach to at-risk kids

Thoughts on creative mobility

It used to be that if you were a writer, one thing you didn’t have to worry about was outdoor lighting. Now, with the world turning increasingly from laptops, palmtops and even keyboard-equipped cell phones as tools to express themselves creatively, writers are no longer limited to being strictly “indoors” people when they practice their

Writing under deadline

Writing content under deadline is one of the biggest challenges a writer can face. It’s also one of the most important for working writers. John Irving, for example, can write beautiful prose, wonderful novels that sing of a mastery of the English language. But he completes perhaps one novel every three to seven years; he’d

Writing CSI must be boring

Writing jobs are rare enough as it is, but even those jobs that are out there are becoming less and less about the skill of crafting compelling dialog, storylines, characters and scenes, and, increasingly, more about specialist knowledge. The term “writer” is losing its meaning. For example, I recently interviewed with an employer where the

The write chair…

The right furniture can make the task of writing much less of a task. In fact, next to a PC and word processor, I’d say that a comfortable chair is probably one of the most essential tools an aspiring writer can invest in. In my own experience, my best writing came when I owned a

Thoughts on The OC’s cancellation

The recent announcement that The O.C. was canceled got me thinking. It was never a show I watched, but I was aware of it. It debuted right around the time Dawson’s Creek was ending and seemed to fill that gap for a teen- to young adult-oriented prime time soap. I just never jumped on board.