Books
Does good writing depend on looking under a story’s hood?
You'd think writing was just about putting words on a page, in a coherent and potentially attractive and compelling order. And you'd be right. But as with any interest/specialty/art what have you thing that people focus their lives around, apparently there's a hell of a lot of technical jargon, too. Stuff I grew up just…
Read MoreGoing, going “Gone Girl”: Read it now
I'm a little late to the party, but I can't recommend highly enough Gillian Flynn's terrific "Gone Girl." I ran through it in about ten days (which considering my schedule is pretty swift) and though it'll sound like a cliche, hadn't felt a book emotionally yo-yo me like that in, well, almost forever. If you…
Read MoreHow to deal with freeloading publishers: Look to ‘Goodfellas’
When I got started writing for newspapers and magazines, I did it for peanuts. Not literally legumes, but CDs. I was writing reviews for a tiny paper in Boston called The Beat, which was essentially done out of a basement and given away free in stores, and if I got a free CD out of…
Read MoreWaving with my hand, smiling with my mouth
We've all got evidence from somewhere in our childhoods that mom thought our artwork was awesome. Frame-worthy. My mom's particularly great at this kind of stuff: She has a framed picture of a hamburger I did in pastel in an art class — taken from an Arby's ad — hanging in her kitchen. I was…
Read MoreWhy writers write what they know, even if they don’t know they know it
Here's why I know anything about jazz, or Gaelic culture, or the criminal justice system: I wanted to write a book. Yes, NYU's continuing education program may have come in handy, a bit, on that latter one. But why would anyone bother to educate themselves on arcane knowledge just for the sake of a book?…
Read MoreWhy writers need to keep their eyes on the road
Me, writer's group last night: "The hardest part of writing a book is figuring out how to do it." Much raucous laughter. The thing is, that's true, even if completely obvious. People always ask "where do you get your ideas"? Ideas, frankly, are like flowers at a botanical garden. Everybody's got ideas. That's one of…
Read MoreA big fat Stephen King novel? Thanks, I’ll have another
Right now, there's nothing I'd really rather be doing than reading my current book. (Okay, maybe something involving a hot fudge sundae and a white sandy beach while getting a backrub might come out on top.) But when you've gotten your hooks into a book that just makes you keep turning the pages until you…
Read MoreHow to get lost, on purpose, in your own head
Went hiking yesterday, did about 6 or 7 miles in very light patchy snow up towards Gertrude's Nose in the Mohunk Preserve. Went with a small group of people I didn't know and had some light conversation along the way, but mainly I like to go hiking to be in my own head, and I…
Read MoreSize doesn’t matter (or) how I sold a book to a total stranger
So what if you gave a reading and nobody came? Not the highlight of Arisia for me, but it happens. The programmers ask if you're an author, and if you are, they'll generally slate you in with a couple of other people to sit behind a table and read some of your work for 20…
Read MoreSci-fi/fantasy will eat itself (or) HBO’s bid for literary success
Just returned from the sci-fi convention Arisia, up in the surprisingly temperate zone of Boston, in which I spent several hours on panels talking about sci-fi/fantasy films and TV. (I also sold a book, but that's for another post.) Lesson learned: It is possible to get about 20 people in a room to talk about…
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