An acquaintance of mine is obsessed with perfection. "Everything has to be perfect." "Everything has to be one hundred percent." Those are his favourite sayings. And he is the most frazzled, unhappy person I've met in a looooong time. I'd love to tell him that perfection is an illusion and just plain impossible, but why bother? Some people just feel the need to drive themselves crazy trying to obtain an unobtainable standard.Read more
I talk a lot about clichés in writing, which doesn’t mean I’ve never used them, I have. But I do a lot of research because I want my characters to feel authentic, and I tend to avoid police officers and the like, because I just don’t know enough about them, and I wouldn’t want my bias from films, television and my own bad cop experiences to flavor them fake.Read more
I’m sure it’s happened to most writers. You’re busy finishing up a manuscript to send off to so and so, but you’ve also got a couple partials on the back burner, maybe five to ten thousand words, and a whole lot of ideas with pins stuck in them. You’ll get to that one after you finish all this current work. But then you do finish, and turn your attention to those partial start up novels. But suddenly those fabulous ideas that were gonna make readers fall at your feet and say “FINALLY! A man worth killing!” …don’t sound like very good ideas anymore. In fact, they sound like contrived crap, and you can’t believe you ever thought you could make a novel out of this mess.Read more
Note: The ELEW is having some technical issues with posting, so in order to keep the scheduled posts coming, I (Dina) will be posting a couple of blog entries this week that aren't written by me. Today's entry is brought to you by Lieutenant Quillstabber, Skye Christakos
The most common question asked authors is "Where do your ideas come from?" It's an odd question, really, because the people who ask it seem to think that authors have some kind of clue where their ideas come from. Perhaps some authors do. I know everyone's writing process differs, but I think how we come up with ideas differs too. There is no magical book that supplies plot ideas or characters. I kind of wish there was. But everyone comes up with their stories in their own ways.Read more
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