Tag Archives: rules

May
9

Writing Advice: Do the Rules Still Apply?

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I’m always a bit cautious about giving out writing advice. After all, what works for me might not work for you.  I’m hardly in a position to sit up on the mountain to dictate what people should do to get published or how to write better. And the fact of the matter is that the game is changing – self pubbing and indie pubbing have opened doors to writers whose books don’t fit into nice little genre niches. (Which is one of the complaints I’ve seen from agents and editors – eg – “the writing is fabulous, but where would it be shelved??”)  Sometimes that just means the book is before its time – after all, it used to be that vampire books were barely a blip on the radar…and then the UF/PNR genre exploded – and now we have whole shelves dedicated to those sorts of stories. Sometimes it… Read more
Sep
9

No Rules. Just Write.

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This is a tomato hornworm that I found on my front step the other day. It was really big. Like the size of my index finger (girth and length). They’re not supposed to be brown with orange stripes – they’re supposed to be green with white stripes. I did a little research and found out that it either had a horrible disease. (whee) or that it was just a genetic mutation – i.e. a less common brown form.  In either case, I captured it in a jar and the kids and I watched it wiggle about for a bit and then we let it go. Yes, it’s a pest bug – but I don’t grow tomatoes, so I don’t really care. Which is sort of how I feel about writing rules. (Nice segue-way, huh?) After yesterday’s LJ interview, I did have a few questions posed to me off-line, and one of them… Read more