Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, creativity, Fiction, free fiction, genre fiction, sff, Writers, writing on November 12, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Seems to me like it’s free fiction Friday. Here’s a story from Josh Bales via Future Tense Fiction. I particularly liked the ending.
The shop was a three-story brown brick building on the north end of downtown. The pawls on her bike clicked slower as she pulled up in front of it. Block letters in faded gold paint proclaimed REVERTE REPAIRS on the front window. Beneath that, in smaller letters: WE FIX YOUR BROKEN THINGS.
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Posted in Food and..., Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, Fiction, food, genre fiction, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers on November 10, 2021| Leave a Comment »
I think I’m going to start cooking my books.
Not in a bad way! But some days generating inspired dinner ideas is a pain. So to drum up new recipes I’m going to cook some version of whatever is being served in my current book.
For example, if the characters take a few moments between aliens and heart-pounding explosions to enjoy pancakes or roast chicken or curry, that’s my starting point.
Because invasion or not, one must stay fueled!
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, #adventure, creativity, Fiction, genre fiction, inspiration, technology, Writers, writing, yay on November 8, 2021| Leave a Comment »
There are a lot of ways to tell a story. Out loud, on a screen, around a fire, on paper, you name it. And structure? Novels, plays, shorts, longs, movies, TV, take your pick, and new technologies mean new possibilities.
This Twitter-based choose your own adventure story is one fun example:
Metaverse Noir on Twitter: “START HERE” by Kathryn Yu
Would you like to know more? Here’s an article about the project.
There are so many ways to be creative, and it’s nice to be reminded that most limits are ones we put there ourselves:)
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, #littlestuck, creativity, Fiction, genre fiction, nanowrimo, sff, Thoughts, Writers, writing on November 7, 2021| 1 Comment »
Hey hey, dispatch from the NaNo mines here, and I’m sorry to say that I may be a tiny bit stuck at the moment.
I don’t want you to think that my projects are always a breeze so full disclosure, we’re talking stuck as in deep underground trapped between a boulder leftover from the Pleistocene and a jagged hole leading onto a tiny ledge winding down into darkness, from which I can just hear a river rushing over the sound of war chants echoing through the uncharted cave system in which I find myself trapped for all eternity!
Ahem.
I keep starting and restarting my project, which is a problem I have sometimes. NaNoWriMo’s word count is a tool to get beyond that issue, but my goal for this month is not just writing but finishing. So yeah. It’s time for more thinking, prepping, checking to see how my favorite authors did it, reworking my whole premise, stalling doing.
The good news is that I’ve noticed there’s a problem and now I can fix it. Go me:)
There’s a light at the end of every tunnel, even if you have to turn around to see it.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, creativity, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers, writing on November 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »
We got up super early and yet somehow the morning is almost gone. Lots to do today including NaNoWriMo, so here’s another obvious yet still useful quote!
Everything worth doing is hard.
— Wil Wheaton
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, creativity, Fiction, finishing, nanowrimo, Writers, writing, yay on November 1, 2021| 1 Comment »
It’s been a while since I used November for its true purpose, which is (of course) writing a novel in 30 days.
Is it time?
I think it might be time:)
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, cake, creativity, Douglas Adams, Fiction, genre fiction, humor, inspiration, sff, Thoughts, Writers, writing on October 18, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Forty-two years ago this month, we learned the answer to life, the universe and everything. Even if humorous sci-fi isn’t your thing, Douglas Adams’ work has permeated pop culture.
42 years later, how ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ has endured
The influence of the Hitchhiker’s Guide “is everywhere,” says Marcus O’Dair, author of The Rough Guide to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
“We can see it in culture, where Adams’ story is rumoured to have inspired everything from the band Level 42 to comedy show The Kumars at No. 42,” he says. “We can see it in tech: in the real-life ‘knife that toasts,’ for instance, or in-ear translation services reminiscent of the Babel fish. The most visible sign of its ubiquity, though, might be the fact that we can celebrate its anniversary not at 40 or 50 years but at 42 — and everyone knows why.”
This book let me know that there was a place for humorous absurdities in writing, and that it really doesn’t pay to take yourself too seriously.
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is an indispensable companion to all those who are keen to make sense of life in an infinitely complex and confusing Universe, for though it cannot hope to be useful or informative on all matters, it does at least make the reassuring claim, that where it is inaccurate it is at least definitively inaccurate. In cases of major discrepancy it’s always reality that’s got it wrong.
This was the gist of the notice. It said “The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, creativity, inspiration, Jane Austen, literary analysis, Thoughts, Writers, writing on October 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »
I spotted this article the other day:
What I Learned About My Writing By Seeing Only The Punctuation
Hmm, I said, “That’s interesting in an upside-down sort of a way. I wonder what my writing looks like without, you know, words?”
My first thought was that I probably use too many commas. I headed over to the site developed by the article’s author and lo! I was right.
My second thought was to see how that story compared to other authors’ work. I visited Project Gutenberg and evaluated first chapters from a selection of famous and/or cherished books.
Now that was interesting, both for the differences in punctuation and for the variety and length of chapters. (Nineteenth-century authors also loved commas, it seems. Is it time to hang up my keyboard and pick up a quill?)
This approach certainly provides a new perspective on the building blocks underpinning different authors, eras and genres of writing. Will it help my writing? Maybe, maybe not, but it was fun.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, creativity, inspiration, quotes, Thoughts, Writers on October 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
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Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, creativity, family, fun, Mark Twain, quotes, Samuel Clemens, Thoughts, Writers, writing on October 4, 2021| Leave a Comment »
A long-time family friend always says goodbye by saying “Be good!” My father always answers the same way: “Have fun!”
You can see which side Samuel Clemens occupied.
I at least try to split the difference.
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