This week, I’m going to give you the writing exercise up front, because it was a prompt and, in the “real” world, the audience would know what I was writing toward before-hand: The other day, I posted a clip from The Daily Show in which John Hodgman jokingly suggests authors stage live “writings” in bookstores,Continue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: “This is happening””
Tag Archives: fiction
A Writer’s Notebook: one-sentence stories
The other day, some friends of mine and I were celebrating a new story by a writer friend of ours, Riley Schultz. Which is nothing new — I am lucky to know enough writers that I get to celebrate new fiction quite frequently. But what makes Riley’s story particularly noteworthy is that it is onlyContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: one-sentence stories”
A Writer’s Notebook: query plot synopsis
So, first some notes: I’ve skipped a couple of weeks of the Writer’s Notebook, not because I haven’t been working but because I’ve been working on writing not really suited to the Notebook. I’m in a place right now where I have a lot of finished work I want to get into print, and itContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: query plot synopsis”
Not really a new publication
Remember back almost a year ago when I wrote a little story based on Chris Van Allsburg’s “Uninvited Guests” from his book The Mysteries of Harris Burdick? It was for a Writer’s Notebook exercise,* and it turned out to be a lot of fun. Anyway, I’ve always enjoyed that story and I like revisiting it nowContinue reading “Not really a new publication”
A Writer’s Notebook: The Writer’s Toolbox, sentence sticks
So, last week I let Jamie Cat Callan‘s The Writer’s Toolbox help me start a story. It was about John, an architect from Minnesota who is feeling guilty over abandoning his elderly mother in order to stalk the woman he’s secretly in love with. Don’t ask me — the Toolbox came up with this story. But that’s whereContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: The Writer’s Toolbox, sentence sticks”
Not-so-new publication
Back in the spring of 2010, I published a story in the online literary magazine Temenos. Later, they decided to select from their spring and fall issues to produce a small print anthology for that year, but time and budgets being what they are, it took a while to finish the project. I’d quite forgottenContinue reading “Not-so-new publication”
A Writer’s Notebook: The Writer’s Toolbox, Protagonist Game
I’m going to do this next Writer’s Notebook exercise in two parts. This weekend, I’m just getting down some basic ideas, and over the coming week, I’ll develop these ideas into a draft and toss it up next Friday. What appears in the Notebook this week are notes from an exercise in Jamie Cat Callan‘sContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: The Writer’s Toolbox, Protagonist Game”
A Writer’s Notebook: Bill Roorbach’s bad advice
Yes, I missed last week’s Notebook. Skipped, more like, but my wife was newly arrived from two months overseas, so I forgive myself and I trust you will too. Besides, this week (as I’d intended to do last week), I’m using an exercise from Bill Roorbach’s newly-minted “Bad Advice” series over at the blog heContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Bill Roorbach’s bad advice”
New fiction from Amos Magliocco
I love promoting the work of people I know, but here in the summer months most of my short-fiction friends suffer a dry spell of publications. Such is the nature of what we do: many of the venues that publish us are tied to academic institutions and therefore are tied to the academic calendar. SoContinue reading “New fiction from Amos Magliocco”
New fiction: the OBCBYL project, story #5
I am finished. My run at Our Band Could Be Your Lit is, today, officially over. My last story is online now. I had a blast doing it, and many thanks to Ryan Werner for making me sound cooler than I am (with only one exception, all those titles were his, and like any good editor, heContinue reading “New fiction: the OBCBYL project, story #5”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 