i'm obsessed with shorts. short. stories.
i enjoy freefall writing–that’s where you react to a writing prompt and just write, no pause, no edits, no erasing. until someone tells you to stop. it’s fascinating what happens when you free your mind, the skips and jumps that occur. i use it to ease back into a writing schedule. today’s prompt was: a … Read more
He said, “What am I going to do about these fucking shoes, man?” “Whatever you stole,” I said, “I guess you already ate it all, right?” “Listen to how they squish,” he said, walking around carefully on his heels. (page 58) from the short story “Emergency” by Dennis Johnson. one of the best short stories … Read more
“run faster, you bastard.”
paddy doyle says you can learn the most about characters through dialogue. it’s the way people speak that defines them. but writing good dialogue takes a lot of practice and where it all starts is in eavesdropping. that’s right, eavesdropping. when you listen, really listen, to what people say and write it down, verbatim, you … Read more
i inhaled a beautiful book called THE VANISHING OF ESME LENNOX by Maggie O’Farrell. set in the 1930s, it’s a story about a young woman who’s caught wearing her mother’s negligee and institutionalized. the negligee, of course, is the last straw for a lifetime of being different. of wandering away from her desk at school. … Read more
i’m happy to say that one of my favourite characters, Fast Eddy, has made it into print. check out GRAIN Magazine (39.4) for my story “The Suitable Dress”. it’s a story about a woman with vertigo. here’s an excerpt: Sarah watches Fast Eddy sleep. Fatigue pools under his eyes like smog. She wonders how he … Read more
i’ve been thinking about firsts. to first write, to first send it out, to have a story accepted. to eat a fresh nectarine, the juices dripping down my chin into the folds of my neck. to talk to a real writer. to take a weekend away from my life. to stay up all night writing. … Read more
last year, i attended a writing conference and spent a week fleshing out the main characters of a book i’m writing. throughout the process, fellow writers commented that my character’s name, Mike Blank, was annoying. it’s the repetition of the ‘k’ sounds. they all agreed that i needed to come up with a new name. … Read more
i’ve been thinking lately about clutter. specifically, clutter in writing. those extra words and clauses that muddy my sentences and paragraphs. William Zinsser discusses this problem in ON WRITING WELL and states “be grateful for what you can throw away.” what writing have you thrown away?