Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, Fiction, society, Thoughts, Writers, writing on July 28, 2024| Leave a Comment »
The business of a novelist is, in my opinion, to create characters first and foremost, and then to set them in the snarl of the human currents of his time, so that there results an accurate permanent record of a phase of human history.
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970), U.S. novelist, poet, playwright, painter.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, cli-fi, Fiction, inspiration, Joy Donnell, Writers on July 17, 2024| 1 Comment »
This story just came across my desk, part of the Grist Climate Fiction collection, which I’ve mentioned before. I haven’t read this piece yet but I’m looking forward to it. If you’re the sort of reader who enjoys hopeful views of the future, perhaps you’d like to join me.
Heirloom | Grist (by Joy Donnell)
A slight pressure on the mattress moves Dru’s foot. She looks down her body to see Helene sitting beside her toes. Her ancestor is a stunner. Perfect red lips. Her hair is curled and controlled, yet slightly tousled. Helene is also wearing the party dress but her version is composed of starlight regalia shaped like luna moths and floating bubbles of light.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, Fiction, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers, writing on May 28, 2024| Leave a Comment »
I’m sad that I haven’t written a lot of things, but I’m incredibly happy that I’ve written as much as I have. Because there was a point when I was younger where there was a very good chance that I wouldn’t write anything – I was just too frightened.
— Alice Munro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, alice-munro, Fiction, goals, inspiration, short stories, the greats, Writers, writing on May 17, 2024| Leave a Comment »
You may have seen that Canadian author and Nobel laureate Alice Munro passed away this week. A prolific titan of the short story genre, she published her first story in 1950 and continued to produce award-winning work in the many decades since. When asked how she got started in short stories, she said it was because that’s all she had time for.
She certainly made it work.
Here, award-winning Canadian author Margaret Atwood reads Dance of the Happy Shades by Alice Munro.
In this exclusive recording, The Handmaid’s Tale author reads the eponymous short story from the late Munro’s first collection in 1968.
If you’d like to read more of Munro’s work, here are 25 Alice Munro Stories You Can Read Online Right Now.
Enjoy!
“A story is not like a road to follow … it’s more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.”
― Alice Munro, Selected Stories
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, Fiction, inspiration, writer, Writers, writing on May 2, 2024| Leave a Comment »
You may remember that I’ve talked about NaNoWriMo, where intrepid writers challenge themselves to write a 50,000-word novel in a month. Professional writers often do much more than this (Dean Wesley Smith is a poster author for it), but I wouldn’t say it’s common. At all.
Now that AI is a thing, however, it’s easy to put many words in a line very fast. Not good words, mind you, but words.
I just ran across a reference to an author who has decided to embark on a writing challenge, pitting herself against AI.
Alberta author Alison McBain decided to do an “Author Vs AI” challenge. The goal? A well-written book a week for a total of two million words in 365 days. Dang.
She started a week or so ago and is posting daily word counts as she goes.
Here she is ramping up for the starting line: Three Days before Launch… Tips & Tricks to Writing Quickly
Here’s she is, taking off: TODAY Starts 2 MILLION+ Words in 365 days!
Of course, we aren’t really comparing apples to apples here. We’re comparing one person’s ability to convert their history, emotions and expertise into a coherent recipe for another person to experience, versus a predictive extrapolation of the collective yet selective distillation of humanity known as the internet, produced through many (many) hours of training and often poorly-paid drudgery.
(Trying to resist the obvious joke about it not being so different from writing after all, but also obviously failing. Even so.)
Writers write because they have something to say. They’re unable to shut up. They have a point of view. They put themselves through an emotional wringer to get it across, and sometimes lightning strikes and their work resonates with other people. — Ilona Andrews
I love that this writer has given herself a fun challenge, and frankly, she had me at “well-written.”
Color me impressed.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, Fiction, persistence, Thoughts, Writers, writing on April 11, 2024| Leave a Comment »
“Beginning is underrated. Merely beginning. With inadequate preparation, because you will never be fully prepared. With imperfect odds of success, because the odds are never perfect. Begin. With the humility of someone who’s not sure, and the excitement of someone who knows that it’s possible.”
— Seth Godin
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, Fiction, Thoughts, Writers on March 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »
The four sayings that lead to wisdom:
― Louise Penny
I was wrong
I’m sorry
I don’t know
I need help.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, espionage, Fiction, how to, master of disguise, spies, Thoughts, Writers, writing on February 27, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Today’s Now I Know (a fun free newsletter, recommended) talks about some of the fundamental elements of being a successful spy. Essentially, the key is to play a character as truthfully as possible.
When I moved to Canada I was suddenly surrounded by people and places that were just subtly different from what I was used to. The way people dress, talk, eat, smile, and yes, stand, are all signifiers of culture and place. It made me more conscious of what was the same and what was different, or what made me look at an actor in a commercial and immediately say, “Sooo Canadian!” when Mr Man didn’t register a difference.
Here’s the video referenced in the article, with Jonna Mendez, former CIA agent and Chief of Disguise:
What makes a character look “right” or not, or act as if they are rooted in a particular time and place? Understanding those fundamental cues is a great way to think about adding depth to stories and the characters who drive them.
While we’re here, Mendez also has a fun video critiquing scenes in spy movies, useful to anyone writing a story with espionage:
Alias for the win!
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, Fiction, genre fiction, quotes, success, Thoughts, Writers, writing on January 26, 2024| Leave a Comment »
“I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody.”
— Herbert Swope, American editor and journalist
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, curiosity, Fiction, inspiration, Writers, writing, WritingResearch on December 20, 2023| Leave a Comment »
If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to be someone else, either because you need background for a character or because some days, daydreaming about a different life is all that’s standing between you and a very impolitic email to your boss, this podcast may interest you!
Curious what it would be like to walk in someone else’s (work) shoes? Join New York Times bestselling author Dan Heath as he explores the world of work, one profession at a time, and interviews people who love what they do. What does a couples therapist think when a friend asks for relationship advice? What happens if a welder fails to wear safety glasses? What can get a stadium beer vendor fired? If you’ve ever met someone whose work you were curious about, and you had 100 nosy questions but were too polite to ask … well, this is the show for you.
Today’s episode? What it’s like to be A Professional Santa Claus.
You know you want to know!
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