I am in bed. There are cats in my lap, and the TV remote is out of reach.
“Fetch!” I tell one of the cats.
It didn’t work.
Don’t mess with cats
The cat in my lap is growling at my other cat. When she does, I am making her vibrate so she goes RRRrrrRRRrrrRRRrrr.
I am probably doomed.
The sole secret of short-story writing
I’ll give you the sole secret of short-story writing, and here it is: Rule 1. Write stories that please yourself. There is no rule 2. The technical points you can get from Bliss Perry. If you can’t write a story that pleases yourself, you will never please the public. But in writing the story forget the public.
— O. Henry
Zombie 2014
For those who can’t wait for 2014 to be behind you: I wouldn’t trust 2014 while it’s still breathing, and maybe not even after 2015 has driven a stake through its heart. You’ll have to keep looking over your shoulder for a while yet for Zombie 2014 shambling along, parts gradually falling off.
Choices
Marry someone you love and who thinks you being a writer’s a good idea.
— Richard Ford
Dialogue
A line of dialogue is not clear enough if you need to explain how it’s said.
~ Elmore Leonard
How to please everybody
The surest way NOT to please everybody is to try to please everybody.
Except for you. You over there, shaking your head to yourself. What must I do to please you? Because I’ll do it. HEY, DON’T WALK AWAY!
Sigh. One MORE PERSON I’ll never please, I guess.
The creative imperative
Sometimes a title comes to mind and I think, I really want to read that story. I guess I’d better write it.
Only you…
“If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.”
~ Toni Morrison
I think about this every time I get a new story idea. NOBODY is going to write that story but me. Nobody else could.
Killing your characters
J.K. Rowling on Twitter:
“It’s the 16th anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. I’m having a moment’s silence over my keyboard. I hated killing some of those people.”
There was an article where the writer said “You guys! Despite cavalierly killing Lupin, Tonks, Fred Weasley, Colin Creevey, Lavender Brown, Severus Snape and dozens more, she does have feelings!”
SO wrong. Rowling didn’t cavalierly kill those characters; characters she had spend years developing. But there couldn’t be a Battle of Hogwarts where only the bad guys died. The stakes at the. Battle of Hogwarts were high. For none of the good guys to die would have been shallow, artificial, and unconvincing.
Fair warning to you: I’m writing. I will write characters I hope you like, and then bad things will happen to some of them. I won’t want bad things to happen to them, but if you know some of the characters are the author’s little darlings, living charmed lives, there goes the suspense, the drama. It might still be interesting, but it won’t be as deeply engaging as it could be.