Kate Elliott's Blog, page 62

On Second Guessing in Writing

joncwriter asks:

how about explaining how you get past second-guessing yourself when writing?


I had my answer to this question all worked out, but then I thought maybe it was wrong.

How do you get past second guessing oneself when writing? How does anyone?

First, I'd like to invite everyone reading this to chime in, please, with your own techniques. If you never second guess yourself, then, man, I just don't want to hear about it because it will make me wonder if everything I have ever done wit...

SFF Film and TV: Ken Scholes & I on Babel Clash

On Babel Clash, Ken Scholes and I discuss some of our likes and dislikes with sff film and tv.

A Reader Asks: How do you determine skill level?

In email, I received the following note from a reader.

I want to say up front that I think this is a very difficult question to answer, but an important one that we are all struggling with all the time (as I see in posts all over the internet phrased in all kinds of ways). I believe it is a question that touches all writers, and especially those of us at the beginnings of our writing careers and aspirations.

With permission, I'm quoting it here in italics.


How to determine skill level?

My goal i...

On Writing the Novel, Babel Clash, Ken Scholes & moi, onward

And, here with over on Babel Clash, the second part in which Ken Scholes and I trade comments On Writing the Novel, Part Two, including:


When I look back at how I wrote my early novels, mostly I don't remember much about the drafting process. The main thing I do know is that I am much better at revising now than I was then. As a newer writer, I preferred writing the first draft and found revising an onerous and difficult chore because I often didn't really know how to fix things. Now, I...

On learning to write novels, Babel Clash

Ken Scholes and I, again, over at Babel Clash. Part One of On Learning to Write the Novel (or some such title).

I hope someday to figure it out.

On Writing the Series, and girls playing sports

Over on Babel Clash (where I'm doing most of my posting these two weeks), I've followed up on Ken's post On Writing the Series, Part 1, with my own answer, called (shockingly), On Writing the Series, Part 2.


Also, being a jock at heart as well as a person whose high school life was impacted positively by the implementation of Title IX, I love this post by Justine Larbalestier on YA & Girls Playing Sports.

Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows I am skeptical about our abilit...

Current Reading & Ken Scholes On Writing The Series

Over at Babel Clash, Ken Scholes discusses how he writes a series. It's quite interesting.

Meanwhile, via swantower, I'm reading Dr. Johnson's Women, which is really good popular history, by Norma Clark. Very revealing on women as writers and intellectuals who engage, to a greater or lesser extent, in the public sphere in the mid-to-late 18th century.

A couple of novels read recently (I'm missing several, and will track them down eventually and note them here):

BONESHAKER, by Cherie Priest. Z...

On Influences

Over at Babel Clash, Ken Scholes and I talk about what sff viewing and reading influenced us in our early days.

kateelliott @ 2009-09-18T07:19:00

L'Shanah Tovah.

Rosh Hashanah begins this night (will already have begun for some, depending on their time zone).

Iran

Meanwhile, following Twitter, things are happening in Iran. Keep your eye on the news, or wonder why the news is silent.