Some Prereading for NaNoWriMo

Before you bury yourself in the available hundreds of how-to books, take another moment to ask what your problem is—some books are very nuts-and-bolts, step-by-step instructions, and others are more philosophical. As a critic, here’s my definition of a good book about writing: when you’re done reading it, you feel like writing something (rather than,

The Trouble with Thrillers

I’m batting ideas about for something to work on for National Novel Writing Month, which has been an interesting chance for me to see my method in action—it’s been a while since I started a new project, and I’ve learned a lot about things like plotting and characterization since the last time I started from

Fear of Flying

This writing thing. Dreaming stuff up, getting it down, putting it together into something remotely coherent for the nonresidents of my brain. There is a stage of discipline in art, of making yourself forgo some fun stuff in order to sit in a chair (again) and type, of forming words and sentences and paragraphs. But