I’ve been looking forward to March for a while. That’s because I set a deadline to finish my first round of edits on Mik Murdoch: The Power Within for my editor. It is also because it looks like JR Murdock (no relation to Mik Murdoch – I wrote the book before I knew JR) and I will be tackling revisions on our book, Jack Kane and the Statue of Liberty. Those sound like good things, right? Except, now that I’m in March, I’m finding that I suddenly have a lot of demands on my time. Demands that don’t necessarily improve my ability to write and revise. C’est la vie, c’est la guerre, c’est écrit. It could be much worse, I […]
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I Followed Some (Great) Writing Advice
I am a firm believer that every writer is different. What works for you might or might not work for me. That is part of the reason I have interviews with writerly types on Get Published. If enough people tell their personal story to getting their work published, one of the stories might resonate with you. Last week I got some great advice regarding revisions. I have been struggling a bit on my current revisions and I was discussing it with another writer. He said he approaches revisions differently. He treats them as another opportunity to spend time with the characters. Time he wouldn’t ordinarily have. That made it more enjoyable for him. What I was doing wasn’t working so I […]
Read moreNot Every Antogonist Must be “Bad”
I grew up reading comic books where the villain was often evil and wanted to take over the country/world/solar system/galaxy. Pick whichever level of villain, but the evil characteristic was often the same. That negative bias for the antagonist creeps into my writing more often than I would like to admit. Usually when it does, the villain is pretty two-dimensional. Trying to add additional depth often fails because, at his or her core is a being that wrings his/her hands and has a laugh reminiscent of MWAHAHAHA! So, just as an exercise, I decided to try and create a character who is a normal, flawed person like you and me. He is friendly, intelligent and well-educated. He doesn’t have warts […]
Read morePoison Drip
I hit a milestone in my edits of Mik Murdoch: The Power Within, yesterday. I am now 1/3 finished my first round of revisions. I still like the book, but I have concerns. Yes, that’s right, I’m uncertain whether the book will live up to the first one. When I mentioned my concerns a week or so ago, it was pointed out to me that most authors go through exactly the same thing. The term used to describe the phenomenon was, Poison Drip. I will be honest, I haven’t heard that one before. I can guess at what it means though. Writers seem to have, as part of their imagination, the ability to be overly critical of their own writing. […]
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