Bryan Young's Blog, page 4

Hiatus Ended

As many of you might have noticed, I've been gone from this space for a bit.

Life has been pretty busy.

There were holidays, deadlines, cruises, and ski trips.

Sure, I've been jet-setting around the world, but part of that has been refueling my creativity. That's something we should all give ourselves permission to do. I didn't stop writing, I just turned the spigot off on a few things I was doing regularly so I could enjoy myself and really soak in what was around me and reconnect with my famil...

Writing is Listening

In many social situations, I'm a talker. I like to think of myself as a raconteur, but it's more just like I don't know how to shut up. At least in the right situation. I've done a lot and know just a little bit about so many different things, it's easy for me to find something to talk about with people. When I can come out of my social anxiety shell, I actually like talking to people. But there are times when I can't really talk, I don't have the energy, emotional or physical, to do it. Inst...

Word Games For Inspiration

I like to read a lot of books about the craft of writing. Probably a full ten percent of the books I read are about the craft of writing. The vast majority of books have some bit of wisdom or inspiration I'm able to take away from them and incorporate into my own writing. I'd been reading Dean Koontz books since I was ten and was looking for more craft books to read and found that he'd written this one.

It's long out of print. It was published originally in 1972, and by then Koontz had already...

NaNoWriMo: 10 Tips to Stay on Top

We're just over three weeks into National Novel Writing month and I'm just now crossing the 75,000-word threshold. I was looking around, thinking about how I got to this point two years in a row at about the same time and I thought I'd bring some of that advice to you.

So, without further ado, here are 10 tips to staying on top of your NaNo...

Know Where You're Going - Have, at the very least, a general road map of where your story is heading. I don't always have the most detailed outline to wo...

The Symbiotic Relationship Between Art and Politics

Art is inherently political.

Let's just get that out of the way. We all have things we want to say (or things we want to not say) in our personal lives that shape the art we make. And artists, more often than not, are trying to say something with their art, even if their goal is to not say something.

There is no doubt that this has been a turbulent week in the country I live in. There are many of us that are confused and shocked and afraid of what might be to come in the future. That's understa...

NaNo: Week One

It's been a week of furious writing, but I've got almost 25,000 words of a novel to show for it. And most of a short story.

There's something great about National Novel Writing Month that always kicks my ass into gear and makes me want to get so much more done. Part of it is the community. I love being able to interact with other writers who are going through the same thing I am. More often than not, writing is a bizarre and lonely process. I don't get to talk in specifics about what the issue...

National Novel Writing Month

It's November and you know what that means. Yes, turkey (or tofurkey), obviously, but it's also National Novel Writing Month. Each year, through the month of November, writers around the world work to complete 50,000 words of their novels in a long sprint that can reach the heights of both agony and ecstasy.

There is a lot of debate back and forth every year, bickering between working writers and newcomers, about what good NaNoWriMo does.

It's true that you will very rarely have a finished nove...

Finding Motivation When You Have None

I don't want to be writing this right now.

I would rather be working on something else.

If it were up to me, I'd be curled up in a blanket on my couch playing video games with my kids.

But I'm work. I'm writing. I have to write. One of the things I have to write on a regular basis is this blog. Most of the time I really love it. Sometimes, trying to think of an idea to write about is as difficult as breathing on the moon. Sometimes, I imagine they feel about the same, too.

So how do I motivate my...

Deciding on the Next Novel

Since I don't write licensed fiction (yet!), I often get asked how I pick my next novel project. I'm currently working on my 12th novel length work and I'm continually finishing one and then moving onto the next. I've been in a pretty constant pattern like this since my second book, which turned out to be Lost at the Con. 

I'm not sure how usual that is. It usually takes me less than a week or too, sometimes as little as a day, for me to choose my next novel project.

I know some writers ta...

Anatomy of an Opening: The End of the Affair

Instead of breaking down a scene from a movie, this time we'll break down the opening of a book. (Previously, I've done scenes from City Lights, Citizen Kane, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  I've also broken down the opening to Starship Troopers.) 

Graham Greene's The End of the Affair is absolutely one of my favorite books. The writing is lyrical and story heart-wrenching and beautiful. Greene's style of writing is such that he always has me gripped...