Elizabeth Spann Craig's Blog, page 246

Knowing Enough to be Dangerous

My husband is a computer whiz. He does something so complicated at work that I don't even understand it enough to explain it.

I'm pretty good on computers. I'm much better than many people, but I know only a tiny fraction of what my husband knows.

But I can open up a computer control panel and make changes. I pull up the run box and type commands and paths in. I know different things to type in at a C prompt. I can get into a system folder.

Basically, I know enough to completely...

Taking it Personally

I'm sure that everyone reading this blog has been affected in some way by the hobbled global economy.

Whether it's a friend or family member who's lost a job, benefit cutbacks due to employers' economizing, or a difficult time selling a house—it's likely hit home.

I've read about the different issues people have faced and shaken my head at the craziness.

Then our county started messing with the libraries.

Last week, out of the blue they decided to close 12 out of the 24 local...

Trying Something Different

Last Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, I took a trip to the North Carolina mountains with my father. My sister and her husband were in Blowing Rock part of the time, too.

Taking trips without the kids isn't something I get to do very often, but it's fun when I do. I definitely miss the children, but it's nice to pull away for a little while and not have to consider eating at restaurants that have chicken tenders and French fries on their menus.

Daddy is an English professor and was on ...

Edits and Revisions—Guest Post by L. Diane Wolfe

I'd like to welcome L. Diane Wolfe to the blog today. As a professional speaker, Diane travels extensively for media interviews and speaking engagements, maintains a dozen websites & blogs, manages an online writer's group, and contributes to several other sites. In addition, she's the author of a YA series, Circle of Friends, and her 5th and final book of the series, The Circle Of Friends, Book V...Heather released March 16th. More information about Heather is at the bottom of the post...

Chapter Breaks

I thought I'd do a short post on chapter breaks today—because I'm currently going through my manuscript and sticking them in, so they're on my brain!

As I've mentioned a couple of times, I write the text straight through and then put the chapter breaks in later. Although this isn't a technique that works for everybody, it helps keep me from worrying about the formatting of the novel until I'm done being creative.

My books are about 75,000 words, so roughly 230 pages in a regular font like ...

Knowing Our Genre, Audience, and Market

I love doing small things to recognize holidays---even St. Patrick's Day.

But I went too far when my daughter was in kindergarten.

Remembering the tradition that involved the leprechaun playing harmless pranks on children, I put different things in unusual places in our house while the kids slept. So my daughter's toys went into the bathroom, her backpack was moved into my son's room, several chairs were moved upside down, and my high heels were placed prominently in my daughter's...

Our Protagonist's Self-Discoveries

My husband and I had a rare night with no kids last weekend…our son was camping and our daughter was spending the night with a friend. We didn't exactly know what to do with ourselves with no friends, so we decided to go to the movies and see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.

The 7:00 movie was full, so we bought tickets online for the 9:40 show. It was in 3-D (and it was a Saturday night), so we wanted to go early and get a good seat.

I encouraged my husband to take a book with him so h...

Learning What *Doesn't* Work

For some reason, it took me a long time to figure out what worked for me and what didn't with my writing.

I kept trying to use techniques that other writers I knew found useful.

Sometimes I thought up new approaches to writing a book and tried them out.

Finally, after failing miserably trying these different things, I discovered what worked. And now that I know, I'm not deviating too much off of that.

What works for me: (but not for everybody!)

Getting an idea—usually about the...

Being Midlist

"A midlist author is one whose books are well received but have failed to make a commercial breakthrough; whose work sells solidly but unspectacularly, who's well known within the writing community but the majority of book buyers have never heard his name."

-- David Armstrong, "How Not to Write a Novel: Confessions of a Midlist Author," 2003

Some people say that midlist doesn't apply to genre fiction writers—that we're our own species altogether. It's true that publishers have...

Undermining Our Protagonist's Perspective

This is a meme that's made the rounds but I thought it made a good point about character perspective—and maybe getting another character's second opinion on our protagonist's point of view.

In an amazing feat of synchronicity, Elspeth Antonelli ran the exact meme on her own excellent blog yesterday, so I'll link to her here.

I'm editing this for space, but you can see the entire Dog Diary vs. Cat Diary here.

The Dog's Diary

8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!
9:30 am - A car ride! ...