writing
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Via From Sand to Glass. 1. If you blog anonymously, are you happy doing this? If you aren’t anonymous, do you wish you started out anonymously so that you could be anonymous now?I started off blogging anonymously and I had two reasons. Firstly, I was a little nervous of what reaction I might get. I…
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I submitted a short story to Electric Spec yesterday (keep your fingers crossed for me!) and one thing I had to do to get it ready was re-name all my characters. I have such trouble picking names. I’ve managed to get past it enough to write first drafts, on the basis that I can pick…
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A lot of the posts on this blog are about the books I’ve read and what I’m learning from them. But it would be true to say that I don’t do this in any systematic way, other than thinking about it and making some vague notes on this blog. Then I read a post on…
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I Write Like is an hilarious widget which analyzes your writing and gives you a comparison to a famous author. I tried it a few times and my results were: paragraphs from a business email – H.P. Lovecraft. I may have to think about how I’m writing to my colleagues! paragraphs from the brand new…
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Under the category of things that I love is the Online Etymology Dictionary. It tells you where words come from and when they were first used. With words that have several senses, it lists when the word first acquired each meaning. I always have in mind that Bernard Cornwell said he tried to only use…
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Identify ten books that have meant the most to you over your reading lifetime. These are not necessarily great literature or important or best-selling, just the one’s that have stuck in your mind and won’t let go. Mine are (in no particular order): Wuthering Heights by Emily BronteProzac Nation by Elizabeth WurtzelThe Misplaced Legion by…
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Plot. I have issues with plot. I have a mental block when it comes to getting my characters from one big event to another via smaller events. Perhaps it’s just a confusion, a lack of being able to see the big picture, and the plot really is there and I just can’t see it. If…
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Wow, what a difference two years makes. I’ve just got back from alt.fiction 2010 and it was thought-provoking and inspiring. I went to alt.fiction 2008 and it was a fun event. I met some people and learnt some things about writing and getting published, but it wasn’t such an amazing experience that I was keen…
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I was reading ‘The “Tyranny of Sex” in the Saudi Novel over at MuslimahMediaWatch today and it got me thinking about sex and writing, or more specifically, writing sex scenes. While the MuslimahMediaWatch article is more focussed on reflecting on Saudi society, this caught my eye: It was government cultural head Mahmoud Al-Watan who complained…
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Yesterday I spent the day on the work-in-progress which now, for the first time ever, has an ending. It also has a new front-runner for the title. I’ve been writing quite a bit of new material and had reached a point where I needed to get organised and put all my stuff in order. As…
Boudica Marginalia 