Category: Writing Thoughts

  • Rewriting the Bard: Julius Caesar

    Cassius: Did Cicero say anything? Casca: Ay, she spoke Greek. Cassius: To what effect? Casca: Nay, an I tell you that, I’ll ne’er look you i’th’face again. But those that understood her smiled at one another, and shook their heads. But for mine own part, it was Greek to me. William Shakespeare: Julius Caesar, Act…

  • A Fond Farewell to the Dame

    Well, kids, that’s it for Agatha Christie. I hope that you found something interesting to use for your own work from this bestsellingest of authors. Stuff that I’ll take away: 1. You don’t have to be all organized in your notebooks. I know that seems like a really silly thing to take away, but I…

  • Formula Doesn’t Equal Easy

    Humorists, like romance writers and, to some extent, mystery writers, catch some flak because, for whatever reason, it gives the impression of being ‘easy’. Which, as anyone who has tried to write comedy knows, it isn’t. Why would people think it’s easy? It occured to me as I was reading Comedy Writing Secrets by Mel Helitzer…

  • The Influence and How It, Well, Influences

    My writers group, The Underground Writing Project, wrote what we call a ’round’ story. Basically, we each took turns writing a chapter and so on and so on until we reached the end. Lather, rinse, repeat. In a seemingly unrelated topic: literature classes bring up the question of influence and it  is always brought up in relation to…

  • Working on New Stuff: Weirdness

    It’s weird to be working on something outside my comfort zone. Novels for adults=Fine. I can handle that. So far I’ve finished two first drafts. I could put in as many curse words, as much violence, as much sex as I wanted. But it’s so weird writing something geared toward a younger crowd (my guesstimation…

  • Resolving the Resolution Game in a Revolving Manner

    It’s that time of year…the time of New Year’s Resolutions. However, after a recent conversation with Shane, I’d like to think of ‘resolutions’ as something slightly more positive. ‘Resolutions’, at least the way they are practiced at the present time, seem to focus on the negative first. “I suck at this, I’m too fat, I’m…

  • A New, Fruity Metaphor

    Recently I chit-chatted about ‘refilling the well’ of creativity. The only problem I have with that is that I don’t feel like a well. I feel more like a grape. When I’m working on a big project, or a pretty steady stream of little projects, I begin like a grape–round and ripe and full of…

  • Writing Friends…Keep ‘Em

    Once upon a time, I had a class with a prof who argued that writers do not write in a vaccuum–and many times directly collaborate. Her main focus was on Romantic and Victorian literature. Lots and lots of emphasis on how Wordsworth and Coleridge were buds and eventually rivals. Lots of focus on the Bronte…