Hedonism and a Warm Blanket

I should be doing more in the morning. My mind isn't buzzing full, I haven't gotten hungry, the dog isn't whining to go out for a walk yet, and there's plenty of things to do. Dishes, finances, prepping for the next semester of university (yes, already), clothes to mend, laundry to fold, appointments to set …

A Critique of K.M. Weiland’s Secrets of Story Structure Series

I'll be outright: I'm not a fan of it. Frequenters of this blog shouldn't be surprised, since I tout no rules writing enough to sound like a broken record, but as I've started diving deeper into why no rules this and subjectivity that, I figured it would be worth it to go in depth and …

Happy First International Asexuality Day! 🖤🤍💜

Little different than the normal pace of things, but happy first ever International Asexuality Day! Aces like myself lack sexual attraction, and since that's a statement riddled with misunderstanding, I thought I'd take a moment to talk real quick about what attraction is and how it can show up differently for different people. This is …

YA: Age Range, or Genre?

What is YA literature? Is it a collection of tropes? The works of some loose gaggle of authors? Anything meant for readers too young to think about taxes but too old to pretend sex doesn't exist? What actually makes a Young Adult book, a Young Adult book? There's an awful lot of places to start …

When Does a Draft Become a Book?

I mentioned this idea a little while ago, but I wanted to explore it further, so apologies if this gets repetitive. Drafts and books are different things, right? A book is published, and a draft is unpublished. Books tend to be physical objects more often than drafts. Drafts aren't meant for everyone, they're meant for …

How do You Track Your Writing?

Discussion time! The creative process looks different for everyone, and keeping track of the volume of your writing can play an important part in directing your process. You need to bulk your book here, trim down there, and keep at it because you're only halfway to your daily quota. At least, that's what popular advice …

Writing Theory 101: Why

Why must the inciting incident happen at the such-and-such percent mark? Why must there be an inciting incident at all? "Because otherwise your reader looses interest. By consciously choosing to have an inciting incident in your book, you open the possibility of continued interest past the first few pages. Further, it ignites what's going to …

Good Art is Subjective

When creating art, be it written, musical, digital, or physical, and even more so when talking about creating art, it's easy to slip into the mindset that Good Art is an objective thing. Tips and techniques become rules. When our opinions clash, we pretend someone must be in the wrong. Our art making relies on …

A Rambling Consideration of the Moose

We have four neighborhood moose. Mooses? Moosi? Moosen? However you'd like to conjugate it, it doesn't change the fact that every now and again you'll walk out the front door to what amounts to a big furry dinosaur eating a bush across the street. This hasn't been much of a problem for me due to …

To Rewrite or Rework?

Alas, poor Yorick, this is total shit,what lies here 'pon my first draft's heavy page.Tho shitty draft does often lead to wit,I wonder—whether it I should have made. The question: wouldn't Mama be so proud? To see me with two finished drafts in tow.But rest is needed for that recent work,the first is naught but …