“Know what you’re trying to say,” and nine other tips for good writing. It’s certainly not an exhaustive list. (via Tim Challies)

Maxine talks about book reviews after getting some criticism that her review was a plot summary, not a review. She says, “I find it hard to judge whether to read a book if ‘random reviewer’ states a view on the writing quality, the plot, etc, rather than giving the reader some degree of objective information (which I do not think is found in the official “blurb” of the book, as in crime fiction these blurbs tend to summarise key, late plot points and so remove suspense and even in some cases any point in reading the book).”

So, plot summary or review?

Writer Eugene Cross talks about doubting his writing ability and that being a good sign. “As the amazing Richard Bausch puts it, doubt is an indicator that you have an ear for the way the work should sound and that you realize it’s not yet there.” (via Jane Friedman)

Gave blood at work today. It went pretty easily for me, as it generally does. I told the technician that bleeding well is one of my gifts.

But one of the students, across the aisle in the Bloodmobile, apparently had a harder time. From what I could gather, they failed to get a good puncture, tried more than once, and eventually gave up rather than turn his inner arm into hamburger. I heard his technician tell mine, after the student had left, that it was the second one he’d messed up that day.

I didn’t like the sound of that.

Last night, I went back to my fiction writing. I’ve been busy getting my taxes ready recently, plus the desultory promotion I’ve been doing for Troll Valley. But I have the feeling Troll Valley‘s surge (such as it was) has passed. Haven’t seen reviews from several of the bloggers who got free copies, but I have to assume they’re doing what I do when I get a freebie that disappoints me—exercising merciful silence.

So I’ve taken up revising the next manuscript I’ll send to Ori for e-publication. This one’s called Hailstone Mountain. It’s another Erling Skjalgsson book, but this time in the H. Rider Haggard vein, with a lost world and horrible eldritch mysteries. I think it’ll be a fun story, though it has tragic elements. Continue reading Back to the workbench →

I posted about this last night on Facebook, and I think it’s worth sharing here. It’s about writing. I’m not sure when it came to me, but I was looking at various pieces of writing, amateur, professional, and thinks-its-professional, and this thought came to me.

Amateur writers generally think that their thoughts are too simple, that they need to be dressed up for publication. Professional writers know that their thoughts are too complicated, and need to be simplified for publication.

Much of the problem, I think, for the amateur is insecurity. He contemplates the thoughts in his head, the thing he wants to say, and thinks, “I have to dress this baby up in his Sunday best, or people will laugh at him.”

But that Sunday best is likely to be stilted language, plus the biggest words the amateur knows (or thinks he knows).

The professional sets his ideas down, muddy and unkempt as they may be, and then takes a knife to them. He cuts away the unnecessary stuff, until all that is left are words that convey precisely the thoughts (or feelinsg) he intends to communicate.

Clarity. Focus. Economy. Those are the marks of the professional. Knowing what to take away is what separates the pros from the ams.

Jeffrey Overstreet writes about his distaste for talk of integrating one’s faith with one’s art. “If you are a Christian, and your art does not reflect that, the problem is not primarily with your art but with your faith — because true faith transforms what we are and do.”

I heard Mark Noll say something like this in an interview. He didn’t like the word “integration” because it lightly assumed the things being integrated were essentially different, but if the Bible is right, if it describes real life, then work, art, and play are naturally Christian for the one who follows Christ Jesus. We don’t add our faith to these things in an effort to Christianize them.

Poet Eric Weinstein writes about things he wished he had always known. One point opposes originality as often defined: “All writing is collage. The more and wider ranging influences you have, the more connections and juxtapositions you can create in your own work.”

Writer’s Digest has six tips on reviving your writing routine. It’s essentially making a plan and pursuing it. Don’t wing it. You were made to fly like that.