Posted in Writing, tagged biography, book doctor, creative writing, editorial services, freelance writing, ghost writing, novelization, Writing on 20 Apr 2016| 3 Comments »
I have discovered a corollary to Parkinson’s Law. If you don’t know, Parkinson’s law is:
Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
My discovery, which I shall call the Researcher’s Corollary to Parkinson’s Law, is:
Research material expands to exceed the time available.
In my experience, the factor by which this material expands (aka the KRAG Coefficient) ranges anywhere from 50–100%, but in theory, it’s an open-ended scale.
Posted in Writing, tagged biography, book doctor, creative writing, editorial services, freelance writing, ghost writing, novelization, Writing on 14 Apr 2016| 3 Comments »
As regular readers have deduced, my current WIP, The Wolf Tree, has been languishing, left untended due to a variety of life events. I should probably call it a “work-in-stasis” rather than a work-in-progress. Now it’s official: The Wolf Tree is on the back burner.
The reason: I received an email asking if I’d like to write a book.
As a self-identified author, I’ve received pitches like this before: a guy has a “great idea” for a book, and all I have to do is outline it, write it, edit it, market it, sell it, and then (of course) give him a cut of the profits as payment for the use of his great idea. Win-Win, right?
Wrong. (more…)
Posted in Writing, tagged Alice Hoffman, creative writing, editing, gabriel garcia marquez, short fiction, short stories on 01 Feb 2016| 2 Comments »
It amazes me how, every time I read something I’ve written, I want to change it. When I finish it I think it’s great, then I put it down for a while, and when I pick it up again, I’m like…bleah…and I’ve got to make changes.
This has never been more true than with “The Book of Solomon,” my most recent short story, which I’ve recently ceased trying to sell to the “literary” markets.
Now, in my defense, this story is a major departure from my previous fiction, on many levels. It’s a genre I’ve not tried before (historical fiction), and it’s a style very unlike most of my other work. influenced heavily by authors like Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Alice Hoffman, I purposefully avoided dialogue, working toward a more internal narrative and fluid style. Also, I did not shy away from complex syntax; I wanted to let the narrative flow in the way my character might think rather than how a storyteller might speak. Lastly, there’s a flipping ton of chronological intrication, jumping around from present to past to deep past to near future to imagined future.
The result was a minefield. Every page carried dangers. (more…)
Posted in Writing, tagged creative writing, short fiction, short stories, Writing on 29 Jan 2016| Leave a Comment »
Dear me. How perspectives change.
A quick follow-up on my decision to pull from the market a story I’ve been shopping around.
When I started going over it, for no other reason than to reformat it for the web, I found that this story, one that I had edited and re-edited, sent to researchers for fact-checking, and passed to my Beta Readers for feedback, this story that, a year ago, I felt was suitable for publication, really needs another round of edits.
And it’s not just that I don’t like this phrase or I’d say that a little differently. There are errors of continuity, spotty problems with past perfect and past conditional verb tenses, and even (shudder!) a typo (only one, but still…yeesh!)
So, grasshopper, remember today’s lesson well:
It’s never as good as you think it is.
k
Posted in Writing, tagged creative writing, short fiction, short stories, Writing on 26 Jan 2016| 15 Comments »
Sixteen months ago, in September, 2014, I began shopping my latest story. It had been a long time since my last go-round marketing a short story, and while a lot had changed, a lot had stayed exactly the same. (more…)
Posted in Books, Writing, tagged book marketing, creative writing, marketing your book, Writing on 21 Jan 2016| 7 Comments »
I’m not telling you anything new when I say that the publishing industry has changed a great deal in the last twenty years. However, throughout these decades of upheaval, there are two things I’ve observed that have remained pretty damned consistent:
Posted in Culture, Writing, tagged creative writing, social media, unplugging, writerly habits on 24 Nov 2015| 4 Comments »
Update on my Social Media Detox:
I’ve done a “cleanse” like this before, and as always, I’m surprised by how much time suddenly appears in my day. But this time I’ve noticed something else.
I am thinking like a writer again.
Seriously. (more…)
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 