E.B. Dawson's Blog, page 20

What I’ve Been Listening To

Music is a very important part of my creative process. It helps channel my thoughts, quiet distractions, pump up my adrenaline, and keep me focused. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I also have specific songs I attach to emotionally while writing. Some songs are linked to characters, and if I ever hit it […]

Home Stretch…

Guys, I’m almost there! I am so close to wrapping up “Into the Void.” I literally feel like I have been running the eight hundred, and this is the last stretch (why is the last stretch so brutal? And why did anyone ever invent the 800 meter race??!). I am so very proud of this […]

Hemingway vs. Melville

Did you know there is something called the Hemingway App for writers? You paste your writing in and it tells you how “readable” it is. It counts adverbs (which apparently are bad?) and highlights sentences which are in passive voice. This would have been helpful for me in college. As teachers were cramming SAT words […]

Why I Don’t Cater to Readers

Touchy subject, I know. Someday (maybe even soon) some well-educated writer will come along and explain to me why I’m wrong, and I’ll probably feel like an idiot. But for now I am going to share where I am at in this and why. I feel like I have good reasons… I feel like it […]

The Eve of New

I was going to write about whether or not to cater to readers, but then I realized I wanted to do a New Year’s Eve post! (So that one will come next week) It’s here. The Eve of the New Year. I love New Year’s. Where I grew up it was celebrated with fireworks, roman […]

Cliches

Yep, I’m diving headfirst into that one today! If you scan the internet for like, one second, you will find hundreds of rants concerning cliches in storytelling. Today, I hope to give a different perspective. “The plot was cliche.” “The protagonist’s struggle was so cliche.” And on and on. There is a mob of movie-watching, […]

Driving in the Clouds

I don’t know if you live in a climate that experiences snowfall. I didn’t until my twenties. You learn a lot. We had a beautiful snowfall tonight. The unique thing about winter is that sometimes the conventions are thrown out the window. Traffic laws are strictly upheld all year round. But there is a time […]

Movies About Writers

I love them. I watched a couple growing up and found them interesting, but now that I take my writing seriously they have much more meaning to me. It is fascinating for me to watch the personal journeys of writers and how their experiences influenced their work. It encourages me. Here are some of my […]

The OODA Loop and Your Character

I’ve been reading about the OODA loop this week. Have you heard about it? I guess it was first articulated by airman and theorist John Boyd. It stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. It describes how humans respond and behave to changes, especially in conflict/trauma. Training and preparation can help you move through the observe […]

MBTI and Your Characters

I find the Myers Briggs personality test to be interesting and helpful. Some people object to being categorized while others fully embrace it! I guess I’m somewhere in the middle. I have found my own personality profile to be insightful. Sometimes it helps me explain myself to others better than I ever could on my […]