I’ve said before that I want this whole apocalyptic novel-in-stories to focus on the characters and their personal struggles more than on the trappings of the whole apocalyptic genre thing. Which is to say, I don’t want to eat up much page space with descriptions of the apocalyptic environment or background on how the worldContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo 2011, week 3”
Tag Archives: writing
Merry freakin’ Christmas (don’t worry, we do Thanksgiving and New Year’s, too)
It’s been a good week for publications. On Monday, my story “Barefoot in the Guadalupe” appeared in Red Dirt Review, and the same day I got word that I’ll have a story in Scintilla sometime in the future. Then today, Jersey Devil Press‘s special Holiday Half-Issue my colleagues and I have been working on turned upContinue reading “Merry freakin’ Christmas (don’t worry, we do Thanksgiving and New Year’s, too)”
Who’ll get me a book I ain’t read….
Oh, where to begin? It seems like the publishing market — or, at least, the small press and indie lit markets — like to work in tandem, with everyone publishing stuff all at once. It’s like our literary periods are in synch or something. I say this because a lot of my friends and acquaintancesContinue reading “Who’ll get me a book I ain’t read….”
New publication
Just a quick note about a new story of mine, though “new” is a bit misleading — I actually wrote the first draft of this one something like a decade ago and have been revising and retooling it ever since. A while back I finally got it where I wanted it, and it’s been makingContinue reading “New publication”
A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo 2011, week 2
This has been a strange week. If you’re following my daily word counts, you’ll see a lot of spikes and dips: on days I teach, my word count plummets, sometimes into the mere hundreds; then, on days I don’t teach, it leaps up as I try to make up for lost time. So far I’mContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo 2011, week 2”
The sounds of my NaNoWriMo
Long-time readers know I love having music while I write. Sometimes it’s just background noise, but often it’s a specific set of songs, and in the case of whole books (like my story collection or two of my novel projects), it’s full-blown soundtracks, with each song selected and organized to reflect what’s going on inContinue reading “The sounds of my NaNoWriMo”
A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo 2011, week 1
I’m on day four of National Novel Writing Month. And it’s been a good but strange few days, because while I have a table of contents already and a relatively solid idea of what I’m writing about — the apocalypse, and, now that I’ve done some quick-and-dirty background research and settled some things in my head,Continue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo 2011, week 1”
More notes on my NaNoWriMo table of contents
On Monday, I was explaining the concept of NaNoWriMo to my students, and they asked what I was writing. So I told them about my book idea and the “table of contents” I’d come up with, and one student asked me, “How do you write from a title?” But before I could answer, another studentContinue reading “More notes on my NaNoWriMo table of contents”
NaNoWriMo in a comfortable sweater
I’m starting NaNoWriMo today, so I figure I ought to get comfortable. I have a lot of writing ahead of me. This is a sweater my mother-in-law gave me a few years ago. At the time, I was living in Wisconsin and renting a duplex from a wonderful couple who knew I taught at theContinue reading “NaNoWriMo in a comfortable sweater”
A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo table of contents
In just a few days, National Novel Writing Month will begin. So of course I’m gearing up. I have a lot of explaining to do about what you’ll see on the “notebook page” below, but I don’t want to front-load all this. Better just to give you the list, and then I’ll explain everything below. ToContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo table of contents”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 