I just returned from a week’s vacation out in the sort-of-middle-of-nowhere, and it was glorious. Being my first long non-family or -convention-related vacation in ten years, it gave me some much needed down time to, e.g., work on my non-journalistic writing (along with spending time with a wonderful friend and meeting new friends, reminding myself…
Writing a weekly column can be a funny thing at times, especially when you wait until the last moment to do it. Not only does it irritate your editor but the blamed thing can morph from its original topic. Such as this week. I started with one topic and then found two others that I…
http://kriswrites.com/2014/04/23/the-business-rusch-all-good-things/#sthash.fGx9olHX.dpbs April marks the fifth anniversary of the blog. Not of the Business Rusch, exactly, but of writing every Thursday about business or writing or something to do with publishing. And now, it’s time to wrap it up…
“Must a name mean something?” Alice asked doubtfully. “Of course it must,” Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh; “my name means the shape I am – and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost.” Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll There was…
The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers (www.iamtw.org) is pleased to announce the nominees for the 2014 Scribe Awards, recognizing excellence in the field of media tie-in writing: books based on movies, TV shows and games. The winners will be announced and awards presented in July at a ceremony and panel discussion at the San Diego…
I’m over at Facebook a fair amount. I use it not just for friends and family, people I actually know, but also as a way to keep in touch with fans which I think is important. I try to give them a good personal experience with me because I value them; their support enables me…
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859 The other day two grandmothers, Mindy and Lynette, were visiting their beloved grandchild Meyer Manual. After playing and cooing and aahing and watching Alixandra attempt to feed him mashed bananas, 99% of which ended up…
“Whooooooooo are you? Who? Who? Who, Who?” WHO ARE YOU Composed by Pete Townsend The Who, 1978 Picking up from last week— All our super-powered mythic creations, whether hero or villain, man or woman, are avatars—whether we realize it or not. Superman, of course, is the Big Kahuna avatar of comics. Every corrupt politician that…
Absent any overall topic occurring to me, maybe we’ll try the ol’ shotgun approach – a bunch of writing tips with the idea that, if there’s enough of them, some should work. (My friend William J. Norris used to describe my sense of humor that way – if I just kept talking, a certain percentage…
This is a column for all you “I want to be a writer” writers out there. The XXII Olympics officially opened on Friday, February 8th, 2014 in Sochi, Russia. Thirty years ago the XIV Olympics took place in Sarajevo in what was Yugoslavia and is now Bosnia-Herzegovina, although the region is usually just called Bosnia. …
There are some days that I love being a writer. When the everything is cooking, when the words are flowing, when the characters are speaking to you, when you’re on the top of your game, it’s all magic. That’s not every day. Not by a long shot. There are the days when you’re staring at…
The toughest part of the story, inevitably, is the beginning. How do you get the narrative ball rolling? How do you get somebody’s attention so that they want, maybe need, to hear what happens next?
