True Fans and Indie Publishing
Thanks to Twitter, today I stumbled on a 2008 post about True Fans — an example of the long tail of the Internet in action. The short version of the post is that artists don’t need to hit best-sellerdom to …
Tag: jesse stern
Writer Yoga: Walking Along the Edge
There’s a phrase I use a lot when I teach yoga — I let participants know we’re looking for the space between “easy” and “ouch.” You know that space. It’s not just in yoga. In anything we do, there’s a …
Drawing the Line Between Skill and Trickery in Writing
Some of you know I’m a big NCIS fan — as if the weekly NCIS Day McMayhem warning on Twitter wasn’t enough of a clue. I’m a fan in part because for all the attention cable dramas get, NCIS does …
Good Writing Lets the Characters Share in Your Misery
“Best motivations for creating are the worst aspects of life: revenge, jealousy, loneliness, anger, pressure. Misery makes good inspiration.” — @JesseStern I’ve said before that the stories I’m telling now, I couldn’t have told 10 years ago when I first …
Embracing Change in Life and Writing
This weekend, I had to trash a few pages I had written in the first draft of my novel. They were good, but the character was no longer a POV character because of some structural changes. It was a little …
Circle of Writing Inspiration
Yesterday, I tweeted some lines from my Kindle Blog interview, including the one where I mentioned screenwriter Jesse Stern inspires me, with links to the interview. He saw it, and tagged me on Twitter to tell me I’d inspired him …
Reality drives my storytelling deeper
Back after Rep. Giffords was shot in January, I did some blogging about storytelling from that, riffing off some Twitter discussion among Jesse Stern and NCIS fans. In short, there’s the possibility of preaching when writing about big issues, but …
Texture and background
Write what you know is one of the oldest writing “rules” tossed around. Also one of the most difficult to interpret into good storytelling. Take it too literally, and you’ll either have a flat story or get sued. Ignore it …
Why Jesse Stern is my writing hero
(ETA: For NCIS fans who missed Season 8’s Enemies Foreign/Enemies Domestic two-parter, beware of spoilers) Wow. Last night’s NCIS ep still has me speechless. Jesse Stern is the master. He took loose ends that have been dangling for years in …
*Lightbulb* aka The HWYS Moment concept
(Edited from a Sept. 2010 post at my Live Journal to eliminate some NCIS-ishness) There was a great Slate article I stumbled upon today about how creativity is best in pairs, not solo. The dynamic of collaboration produces better work than either …