This is the second half of my “Writing Process” article where I talk about how I go about crafting my novels. Part 1 can be found here. Second Draft Ah, the second draft. Time for spring cleaning. Here is where I address not only any typos or grammar issues I come across, but I rework …
I’m not sure how helpful or interesting this will be, especially to non-writers, but if you do find it interesting and would like to hear more posts along these lines, be sure to let me know over on my Facebook page. I thought I’d give a brief overview of how I write a book. I …
A few years back I read the Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo. If you haven’t read it, you might think it was a tragic, sad love story. It certainly is that, but it is also a book about architecture. The reference to the Paris cathedral is not just for the setting, you see. In this …
Scrivener A scrivener is a scribe, copyist, or clerk, someone who deals with paperwork or words. I’ve always liked this word because of the sound of it. It sounds like ‘scribble’ which is what I imagine most scriveners doing. Indeed scribe, scribble, and scrivener all trace their origin from the same latin roots, scribere ‘to …
Every good story has a hero. Those heroes are not perfect, but they are quite often more noble than many of us. And that’s a good thing. Because a literary hero quite often becomes a friend, at least for the time that we read the story and perhaps long after. And friends can pull us …
Chapter titles and tables of contents: do we really need them? I recently had an exchange online with another writer who was convinced they were completely unnecessary. She rattled off a list of books which I hadn’t heard of. None of them contained tables of contents. So I poked around on my book shelf …
I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil. – Gandalf, The Return of the King Books can be emotional affairs and rightly so. I wrote in one of my other updates how my short story The Artificer’s Apprentice really touched me when I read it out loud to my …
I’ve written before about how much I enjoy writing to music and how the songs I listen to often become the unofficial soundtrack to the words I am putting down, but in the case of my short story, Spirit of Caledonia, music played an even more integral role. The story, if you haven’t read it, was released …
