Here’s a somewhat belated addition to my series based on insights from writing my first novel, No Going Back. For the complete list of columns in this series, click here.
If art is, in part at least, the imitation of reality, it’s an imitation that’s largely bounded by and grounded in artistic convention. That’s something [...]

For the complete list of columns in this series, click here.
Fear is, I’ve come to realize, one of my great personal enemies as a creative writer (along with laziness). Part of this is probably just because of the kind of person I am. I suspect, though, that part of it may be endemic to the [...]

For the complete list of columns in this series, click here.
A couple of months ago, I was listening to an interview on NPR with someone who was talking about the death of mass marketing and mass media. I can’t really do justice to the man’s arguments — I didn’t hear the whole thing, and besides, [...]

Apologies if this is only semi-coherent. It’s based on a set of thoughts that have been composting for a while. I want to post them before they rot entirely…

For the complete list of columns in this series, click here.
I used to not have a lot of respect for writers who had trouble remembering the details [...]

For the complete list of columns in this series, click here.
It is a well-established fact that any writer, in possession of a manuscript, must also be in need of readers to review and critique his or her work. However, actually getting those critiques – and then deciding what to do with them once you have [...]

For the complete list of columns in this series, click here.
My wife cleans one room at a time. This, she insists, is the normal, the sane way to clean a house. You start with one room, you pick things up, you sort things, and then you vacuum (or mop, as the case may be). And [...]

For the complete list of columns in this series, click here.
Think about what passes through your mind when you’re reading a story. Do you see pictures illustrating the various scenes? A movie, perhaps?
Most people have a largely visual response to written text. Some of us, however, are more auditorily inclined. In my case, when I [...]

For the complete list of columns in this series, click here.
Edward Gorey – in a marvelous little piece titled The Unstrung Harp; or, Mr Earbrass Writes a Novel – describes the conditions under which his protagonist writes: “Mr Earbrass belongs to the straying, rather than to the sedentary, type of author. He is never to [...]