unasked for advice | Heart of the Dreaming

Tag Archives: unasked for advice

Jan

Square Peg, Round Hole

I was chatting with one of my friends the other night about writing – me, looking over revisions from my agent and trying to organize my thoughts on them. (And incidentally, I usually take a few days of NOT doing anything with revision type notes or suggestions. Better for me to let them sink and decide how I want to proceed.) So I was mulling. My friend, however, was disheartened at a rejection she’d just received. And we talked about that a bit. It was an interesting sort of rejection – the editor in question indicated that her short story read more like the first chapter in a novel – that there was more potential than what the current length was able to provide. It was upsetting to her because she was trying to follow the advice of writing short stories as practice. It’s common advice – hone your writing… Read more

Apr

Review Advice

Posted in blog | Tagged reviews, revisions, unasked for advice, writing | 3 Comments

I get a lot of questions sometimes about my writing methods, such as they are. I always feel vaguely uncomfortable answering them because there isn’t any real big secret. The way I do things may not be the way you do things, and there certainly isn’t any sort of magic pill. Except the Ass-In-Chair-Fingers-On-Keyboard sort. Because really, having all the writing rituals in the world isn’t actually going to write your story for you. Rituals are all well and good if they help you get into the proper mindset to work, but if you’re using them as an avoidance technique? That’s no good. (“I can’t write, right now! I don’t have my special candle/footwarmers/chocolate jellybeans, etc.”) But one thing I can say that I don’t do around revision time? Read reviews. Reviews can be a bit of a mindfield at the best of times, particularly on a site like GoodReads… Read more