Ransom Noble's Blog, page 23

Back to School

I've been teaching a writing class at Des Moines Area Community Education. "Basics of Writing Speculative Fiction" doesn't always attract the crowd that is interested in writing speculative fiction, probably because the term isn't used a lot outside the genre. That misunderstanding hasn't always been welcomed by students; however, I like to teach basics of writing stories. Parts are focused to the genre, but most of what I cover in the class is applicable for any story.

What is important to...

A Question of When

When do you do your writing? Priorities scream at everyone, and we choose what we'll do every day. And we put in as much as we can…

So there's a job. And a family. And all that other stuff we think has to be done, whether we get paid for it or not. At the end, we're exhausted. Yet we still find time to write.

Sure, some don't. What's a writer who doesn't write? Just an r?

I'm just curious when the rest of you find time. We do. There are 24 hours in a day, and the most important things get done. ...

Is Blogging Writing?

On one hand, of course it is. A blogger strings words together just like a fiction writer does. The words add up if you're writing in a blog or a story or a novel.

But if you're counting words toward a goal, I always wonder if I should have blogging in a different category as those other projects. One thousand words toward my blog, especially like I've been posting lately, could give me over a week's worth of small blurbs. Usually it's only two if I write them ahead, but it gets away from me.

S...

Protagonists

Do you ever wonder why so many main characters we see on TV and read about in books seem to be writers or artists or something people-related?

If you're waiting for that engineer to become the star of the show, you'd probably better stick to Dilbert. Though Big Bang Theory might make it seem dorky in a good way. Both of those are outside the norm, and both of them poke fun at the profession.

It's hard to imagine pages of someone working by himself in an office with a computer all day, who...

Careers

See my interview with Mike Manno today!

What do you say when someone asks what you do? I'm sure for some people it's easy. Some people go to work and go home and stop working.

They're not writers.

Not many of us can stay at home full time and crank out the stories, even if we'd prefer to do just that. So we work more, during the day at our regular jobs and during the evenings typing by the light of silver screens.

Sometimes we're lucky and get in print. Then the marketing fun begins. It's...

The Great Iowa Book Event

Yesterday I spent the day at Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines. There were definitely over 20 authors with their books. I'm not sure if we had the full 42 expected, but wow, what a crowd!

Many of the authors present were at their first signing type event with their books. I'm hardly a veteran, but there were a few who could be called that.

One of the neat things is to connect with others and trade tips. One of the hard things is that a lot of the mall-goers weren't looking for or expecting us. I...

Time Flies

The old saying is when you're having fun, but I'm sure it's more accurate to say when you're not paying attention to it.

So I haven't been paying much attention to it lately. And it's really hard to keep track of. My daughter's running around the house; she gets into everything. Just because she didn't bother it yesterday doesn't mean it isn't the most intriguing thing in the room today.

I think she's also stolen away my muse to play with. So I've been taking a lot of notes and placing them in ...

Writing…

In my critique group, one of my fellow writers talked about a workshop he attended. He said the proper way to write was in composition notebooks. Or, so he learned in his workshop.

That tidbit sparked a small debate about whether it was a different experience to write by hand versus by computer. Something about people who type directly into the computer are wordier than those who don't.

I never like broad generalizations, but it's an interesting theory.

I still don't understand why the...

The Book or the Movie: My Sister's Keeper

I finally got a chance to see the movie. I read the book by Jodi Picoult a few years ago. Both are good, and both have different endings. I'm a little disappointed by Hollywood's changing of the end, but it's good to know that the author has nothing to do with it.

I must remind myself to read that again if I ever have a book that gets made into a movie. Or the next time I go see a movie after reading the book.

My husband told me the new ending made the movie open to a larger audience. I'm...

What makes a cliche?

Today's witticisms can be tomorrow's cliches.

The definition of a cliche is "a saying, expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect."

But does that mean it shouldn't be used in writing? Much of the current wisdom says you can use a cliche in dialogue, but not narrative. The reasoning behind this is that people speak in cliches all the time. We squeal like stuck pigs and go green with envy. We see red when we're...