I have a new project on the burners – editing an anthology on the experience, process, and craft of writing from a position of diversity or marginalization. The model/inspiration is Janet Sternberg’s The Writer on Her Work, a collection of essays by women writers about their writing. What I’m looking for are essays that talk …
I started rereading The Stand a couple nights ago – it’s probably the fifth time I’ve read it. The last reread was quite a while ago, maybe even 10 years, so there are a lot of specific details and characters I’ve forgotten, and I’m not bogged down with remembering too well what’s going to happen …
I got asked a while ago to write a piece about Moth and Spark for Upcoming4me, a literary magazine that donates all its profits to charities. They do a column called “The Story Behind the Story,” where writers talk about their writing process. I thought that for this one it would be fun to talk …
I spent Labor Day reading over stuff I wrote a long time ago to see if any of it was salvageable. It was very encouraging to see how much better I write now, yet dispiriting to see places where I haven’t changed. Many of the characters are very similar to each other, structural weaknesses are …
I’ve started writing a different kind of book, which is going to be a mash-up alternate history, cli-fi, dystopia, and roadtrip novel. I have a reasonable sense of both the narrative and emotional arcs, the main character’s motivation, the kind of things that are going to happen to her, and how the end will play …
Last night I went to the bookstore and came home with 4 books by Cormac McCarthy and 2 by Hilary Mantel. The Mantel books and No Country For Old Men I have already read but decided I needed to own them, though I have no idea where they will live in my overflowing book pile. …
I have started lots of sequels in my life. None of them ever got to the halfway point, either because I lost interest in the characters or because it was too obviously just the same old same old story. Some of them would make decent books on their own if I went back to them, …
Today’s Grouchy Blog Post is brought to you by the following tweet: In new Bookends, Daniel Mendelsohn and Leslie Jamison on whether critics can also be good novelists: http://t.co/2E1f2VYgAS — New York Times Books (@nytimesbooks) May 6, 2014 To which question I shout the lawyer’s answer: IT DEPENDS!! I am getting kind of tired of …
Today’s post is a blog-hop post, with questions that writers are answering around the web. I was linked in to the process by Patricia Bracewell, who shares both an agency and an editor with me. Patricia is the author of the historical novel Shadow on the Crown, about 11th century English Queen Emma of Normandy. Check …
One of the questions I’ve been getting asked lately is why I write fantasy. I’ve been replying with something that is not exactly a canned answer but does repeat things I’ve said previously. This response has three major parts: 1) That was what I read growing up; fantasy was my first literary love; 2) I …