Category: Writing
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Novel Online :: How She Dethroned the eBook
Seems these days old men like me can’t keep up with the pace of publishing. And if that’s how I feel at 28 (my birthday’s this month!), I can’t imagine what it feels like to be a sixty-year-old literary agent or legacy publisher. Honestly, I’m excited because I love adapting. Let’s start with a couple of…
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Does Talent Exist?
No. Or rather the existence of talent is so widespread and common that its potency clocks in at around the near-impotent range. Here’s the thing: My buddy used to work for Community Support Services, which helps mentally handicapped people live bright and vibrant lives. His main client was Jerry. Jerry still ranks in the…
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Dead Guest Post :: The Fantastic Imagination
Today’s dead guest post is “The Fantastic Imagination.” In this piece, George MacDonald shows how the point of fantasy and science fiction is to change the physical laws of our world so that the spiritual — or moral or ethical — laws behind all worlds come to a sharper point. It’s one of my favorite pieces on…
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Adapting Your Novel to Television is like Entrusting Your Daughter to Her First Date…
The process [of turning my novel into a TV series] that began with Sam Raimi, ended up in the hands of producers and writers that took things in a very different direction. The best way I can describe it (without the gory details); it’s something like letting your daughter go out on her first date.…
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Making The Joplin Undercurrent — Our Second Photonovel
Making the Joplin Undercurrent, our second photonovel, may be the trickiest ledge I’ve ever had to walk creatively. And you guys know I love walking that line. Two years ago through our working relationship with the Joplin Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, Mark Neuenschwander and I talked over the virtues and vices of Cold Brewed, which is…
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Two Americas :: Thoughts on the Foster-to-Homeless Pipeline, the American Worship of Comfort, and Finding Your Calcutta
Now and again you’ll come across a strange night where you learn about yourself and, if you take action, those nights change your life’s entire trajectory . Tonight was one of those nights for me and I think I’ve placed a stake in the ground in a way that ten years from now will illuminate something of a…
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A Life of Learning :: Striving for the Striver’s Life
“When am I ever going to use this in real life?” Remember asking that in sophomore Algebra? Here’s the best-kept secret in education: this inevitable question pokes a hole not only in algebra but also in every other subject. Through that hole, a light leaks in from a land much deeper and higher: from a…
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Lone Wolf Artist: On Bad Myths, Guilds, and Societies
Some idiot along the way started lying to us. The lie was this: that genius, that true genial power, can only happen when some dude or dudette cordons themselves off from society to spend the next decade crafting his masterpiece. Lone wolf artists. It has many sources, frankly, but the lion’s share of the burden of the lone wolf artist…
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Novels Like Babies Don’t Need Perfect Parents
When Tara and I still lived in Joplin, I witnessed one father’s transformation from a mediocre parent into a good parent. He’d been the kind of tiger dad, the ruthless victor, who pushed his kids towards success and integrity at the expense of their joy (his words, not mine). He and I were walking through…
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Writers Retreat and Going Off-Grid
Last week, I took a midweek writers retreat up to Salem, Massachusetts (of witchhunt fame) by way of Boston bus and train. The retreat was organized by those who organized the Writer Unboxed Uncon (the writing conference I won the scholarship to last year). It was informal and available to everyone who went to the conference, so…
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Inkwell • from 54 poems at 27
Her house was underground in a town that ends in “A” her daddy was a preacher but the preachin’ wouldn’t pay when her brother tried to drown cause he didn’t wanna grey I tried for days to reach her but she took a week to say meet me in the roundabout in the town square…
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What they Chanted • from 54 poems at 27
Out of the sidewalks & into the streets Out of the sidewalks & into the streets Out of the sidewalks & into the streets If there’s no justice, gonna be no peace, until there’s no more killer police Hey hey, ho ho, these killer cops have got to go Hey hey, ho ho, these killer…