A Conversation With Stephen King
I wrote that title and realized it looked like I had a conversation with Stephen King. Damn, I wish. I would give my left arm to do that. On Writing changed the way I thought about writing. Stephen King isn’t my favorite author, and I hate some of his stuff, but if there is one thing I can say about him, he is unique. He takes risks, he is unafraid to be criticized, and he writes. And writes. And writes. And…well, you get the idea. What it really is is the video below. Whether or not you like his work, there is a ton you can learn about writing. Around the fifteen minute mark he talks about how he came up with the Green Mile and Cujo. Holy crap. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, at least watch that.
Deciding On a Publishing Path
I’ve been thinking I would actually publish this book for about three years. Not the wistful fantasies of what if, but the blood curdling idea that it might actually happen. As with anything I involve myself in, the first thing I do is research. It was a pleasant surprise to find multiple options. It was less pleasant to find the “right” path was hotly contested. Well, I’ve made a decision. I will be self publishing. At least for now. I am not writing this as a condemnation for traditional publishing or to uphold the standards of indie publishing. This is the first post in documenting the choices and challenges going down this path. I hope it is educational, and not in a “I won’t do that!” kind of way. There are a bunch of blogs that cover this, I recommend you read them first. My perspective is someone entering, and…
On Using Distractions
I was reading through some of my blog posts from the old Story Arcs and I saw one about writers block. In particular, it was about how one of the things I did to work through it, cutting through distractions. First, I’d like to say that a lot of people say there’s no such thing, there are just writers not writing, allowing things to get in the way or too afraid of “messing up” to put words on paper. That’s not important, not to my point anyway. It surprised me because things have changed bit since then. Eliminating distractions is often essential to getting things doen, but for a while now I’ve actually been using them. My favorite way to write at the moment is to put Netflix on one side of the screen and Word (or WordPress at the moment) on the other. Then I burn through some TV…
Iron Man 3
Iron Man 3 was great and there are several reasons why. It’s a great action flick, it has great humor, a fantastic plot, and does what the others have done so well, just better. Everything the second did wrong, it corrected. Everything the first did, it improved upon. I don’t know if I’m willing to say it was better than Avengers, but it was certainly close. And while there is a lot to this movie, what I want to discuss is the twist. It’s not really a review. If you want a review, well, it’s great, go see it. Done. If you don’t want to know anymore, don’t read any further. Really, don’t. Everyone who hasn’t seen it, just to make sure, you’re gone, right? Cool. Anyway, so it turns out the Mandarin is a fake and Guy Pierce’s character is running everything as a puppetmaster behind the scenes, using…