Kate Bitters's Blog: The Bitter Blog

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Writers: Dare to feel life deeply

Memorable writing is provocative writing. It challenges our thinking; it creates emotional swells. Memorable writing puts us in a place and allows us to see, smell, touch, taste the surroundings. We’re there. We’re feeling the feels. We’re inside the character’s head.If a writer is able to create such a vivid world, they likely exist in such a world. They feel it deeply.These are the writers who go out into the world and dare to remove the barbed wire and cement walls around their hearts. The...

An Open Letter to George R. R. Martin

Dear Mr. Martin,With the next season of Game of Thrones (GOT) around the corner, I’ve been thinking a lot about dragons and wildfire and tiny not-quite-adults who kick a lot of ass.And I’ve been thinking about you.You’re a living legend in some people’s eyes, right up there with J.R.R.T. But for every word of praise you receive, you’re harangued ten times over. You’re criticized for buying old movie theaters instead of attending to your writing. You’re labeled a “sell out.” You’re b...

Book Review: Térata by Michael O'Leary

Térata book cover, by Michael O'Leary
When I read a monster book, I look for just the right amount of gore, mystery, and (in many cases) empathy with the beast. Térata, by Michael O'Leary, delivers all of that...except there are a dozen monsters instead of one (more, if you count the cast of mutant/superhuman characters known as the Awakened).

O'Leary takes us through a complicated alternative world where the Térata--monstrous shape-shifting creatures born in a lab--lurk in parks and auto deale...

Ideas Are Like Ankles

Today, I left my house to go for a very ordinary midday run. Out the door, to the right, down the street. Perfect weather to be outside.
It lasted .38 miles.

That's when my foot hit the edge of the sidewalk, my ankle wobbled, and I came crashing down, skidding my right hand and knee in the process.
"Workout paused," said my running app.

Ideas are like ankles.They can pop at any moment. They cause us to react, to pay attention.

Ideas are like ankles--they are only a small fraction of the larger pi...

Let's talk about character names.

I recently finished reading a book in which a large number of the character names began with the letter K. There was Kevin, Katrina, Karl, Kenneth. My head reeled as I worked my way through the pages. “Who is doing what now?” I’d ask myself.

“Whose brother is that?”

“Wait…isn’t Karl the one with super human strength? Or was it Ken?”

To add to my confusion, there were a wholelotta (that’s a word, right? You saw it here first!) characters in general. And everyone had a name, even a random plumber...

Presenting...EPIC FANTASY *With Dragons

Author Stephen Swartz has just released a new book, EPIC FANTASY *With Dragons, which promises to be even more compelling and inventive than his Dream Land series. Swartz is the author of several novels of literary fiction and science fiction. His novels usually feature exotic locations, foreign characters, and smatterings of other languages.

Epic Fantasy (*With Dragons) has all the features of a, well...EPIC adventure. There are brave knights, cannibalistic women, mysterious cities, and yes.....

Colina Linda

The beginning of something--a kind of character sketch. Inspired by my MinnSpec writing group.



The grandmothers of Colina Linda tell stories inherited from their grandmothers. Tales of misdeeds and heroics, of shape-shifting animals, of lovers and the witches who tear them apart. Ancient tales, from the time before the walls.My gran is one of the best storytellers in Colina Linda. Everyone says so, and I believe it. When Gran starts spinning a tale, I can see the gleam of the prince’s sword; I...

Homecoming

Puffy and heavy-lidded. I am a time traveler.

It's not as glamorous as it sounds.

Chugging across time zones. Bobbing on the cusp of sleep, only to be reeled back by baby crying, man kicking seat, angry flight attendant leaning over, turbulence.

Time travel leaves me groggy. Makes me want chocolate. A hug. A cradle that rocks.

Maybe I was the crying baby on the plane?

---

The Woman in Green [Story #25]

I'm continuing with my character exposes for my yet-to-be-written YA novel. This one plays off of the last post.


I am an ancient being. Big as the stars and the gaps between them. Bigger than the data flowing through supercomputers—machines that measure life in petaflops and pebibytes. Deeper than the Mariana Trench.
My enormity manifested into the form of a too-tall woman whose height and girth don’t match my Guatemalan ancestry. But my body is far too small. I feel—have always felt—claustroph...