Category: The Ramble (page 177 of 463)

Imogen has grown up reading fairy tales about mothers who die and make way for cruel stepmothers. As a child, she used to lie in bed wishing that her life would become one of these tragic fairy tales because she couldn’t imagine how a stepmother could be worse than her mother now. As adults, Imogen and her sister Marin are accepted to an elite artists’ colony—Imogen as a writer and Marin as a dancer. Soon enough, though, they realize that there’s more to the school than meets the eye. Imogen might be living in the fairy tale she’s dreamed about as a child, but it’s one that will pit her against Marin if she decides to escape her past to find her heart’s desire.

* * *

Not everyone needs to go to Hell.

Roses and Rot is a riff on the medieval ballad “Tam Lin.” And one of the things that has always been my favorite part of “Tam Lin” is that every seven years, Faerie pays a tithe to Hell. And boy, do I love a good trip to Hell. I mean, it’s great in terms of story – the tragedy, and the direness of the situation, the impossible task to bring the lost person back safe, the backward glance.

Actually, you should probably skip that one.

But really, it’s one of my favorite tropes. So I tried and tried to make it work out in early drafts. Nope! Turns out, if you disappear one half of one of the most important relationships in your book for like the entire middle third of the text, things go flatter than a soda left out overnight. So for the sake of the story, I said goodbye to one of my favorite plot points.

Write for an audience.

From the moment I knew I wanted to write Roses and Rot, I knew I was writing this particular story for my sister. Now, you probably cannot write a book for my sister (well, you could, I suppose, but that might cross over into weird), but you can write a book for someone. Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s your best friend. Maybe it’s a fuck you to the person who told you that you couldn’t write. But writing a book can be hard, and it can help to have a person that you’re thinking of, where giving them that story can help you keep going.

But don’t write for everyone.

It ‘s a truth universally acknowledged that an author with a book is in want of a one-star review. Someone out there is going to hate what you write, because someone out there hates everything. And there’s something really freeing in acknowledging that you’re not here for everyone, you’re here for the people who like what you do. I mean, if what you want is a book about killer robots, or mind-controlled bee assassins, or a lonely astronaut on a quest for one more inhabitable planet, Roses and Rot is not going to be the book for you. (Though, I might want to write about mind-controlled bee assassins, actually.) But if you want a version of “Tam Lin” set at a modern day artists’ colony that has romance and betrayal and sacrifice and magic, it might well be.

Also, did I mention it has a sea monster? Don’t worry, we’ll get to that.

Romance novels will save you.

I spent one month doing a fairly massive revision of Roses and Rot. Like, throw out almost the entire draft and rewrite it in a month sort of revision. It was probably the hardest thing I’ve done in my career, and it fried my brain. (I ran into a friend at a local Starbucks, and he literally stepped back when I said hi because “it looks like you might bite someone.”) Not just because of the amount of words that I was trying to write every day, but because there are parts of this book that are not at all nice. Things hurt. Not everyone gets out of the story alive. I needed a way to step out of that world, and let me tell you, fun stories with a guaranteed happy ending? Yes and yes. I read Nora Roberts and Eloisa James and Tessa Dare and I think Julie Anne Long’s entire catalogue. Having the comfort of something that I liked that I could turn to at the end of the day’s writing was the best, and exactly what my brain needed to keep writing. Maybe it’s not romance novels for you – maybe it’s binging on a favorite tv show, or playing a well-loved video game. But have something that you can relax with that isn’t the writing, and that keeps you from biting people.

Sometimes you need a sea monster.

I do this thing, when I am stumped on how to begin writing for the day. I think of the weirdest possible thing that could happen. I figure that once I’ve shaken that bit loose from my brain, the stuff that the story actually needs will fall out, too. And sometimes it turns out that the weird bits were exactly what I needed.

In the case of Rose and Rot – set, by the way, mainly in a forested area of rural New Hampshire – I decided that an acid yellow sea monster needed to show up. I was probably going to edit it out later, once I got into the scene and figured things out, but (spoiler, I guess) it’s still there, because having the sea monster show up was a way for two characters to have a needed conversation. Like I said, sometimes the weird works out. Maybe for you, it’s not a sea monster, but whatever it is that you need to start writing, or keep writing, or distract your brain enough to get to the part of the plot that you actually need, use that. And write.

* * *

Kat Howard’s short fiction has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, anthologized in best of and annual best of collections, and performed on NPR. Roses and Rot is her debut novel. She lives in New Hampshire.

Kat Howard: Website | Twitter

Roses And Rot: Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

Once in a while, I like to take the myths about writing that circulate, and I like to hunt them, and I like to slay them with my GOLDEN ARROWS OF WISDOM. (Man, how’s that for ego? ‘Golden arrows of wisdom?’ Somebody needs to give me a right good slapping.) Seriously, though, writers are often sandbagged by these persistent goblins of untruth that climb up on their backs and start riding them like ponies. That’s no good. You want to write, then write. And get shut of any toxic myths that would poison your process.

Here goes. Ten — no! Eleven! — myths I wanna kick in the basket.

“Writers have to write.”

The myth is that writers are urged, compelled, forced to write as if by some indomitable, external spirit. It’s true that many writers are driven obsessively to create, but the danger in this myth is that when you sit down for a day of writing, if you don’t feel the sacred wordmonkey spirit move through you, then you’re a bad writer, or not a writer, or that you just shouldn’t write at all. Some days I don’t want to write. Some days I am so uncompelled by the act that I’d rather do anything else at all. I’ll clean my desk, or build a blasphemous icon out of paperclips, or groom my hirsute body of various mites and ticks. It’s bullshit. Writers don’t always want to write. And that’s okay.

“Writers have to write every day.”

BZZT, false, poop, myth alert, no.

I write every day. I write every day because I am a person who a) needs the discipline and b) has a mortgage to pay and c) pays that mortgage with my crass penmonkeying. If I don’t write, I don’t get paid, and so I endeavor to write every day — and by every day, I don’t actually mean every day. I mean Monday through Friday. I take weekends off. I take holidays off. I take random days off to go do random shit.

Every writer is different. Every writer possesses a different process. Some people open their maws and disgorge 10,000 words at a time. Some writers peck through the word count — a hundred words here, a hundred there. One writer takes a year to write a book. Another takes three. I write a first draft in around 30-90 days. Everybody does their thing. No thing is wrong as long as the thing is getting done. Whatever your process is, accept no shame for it. (Shame is a worthless booster anyway.) The key here is: make sure your process works. Some writers get married to a process that doesn’t work, and then they stubbornly cling to it like a monkey riding a tiger, afraid that if they leave the beast, the tiger will eat them. We can always refine our process. And as we grow and our lives change, so do our processes. Just as there is no one perfect process for all writers, there is no one perfect process for you individually, either.

“If you’re not published by Age XYZ, then you might as well be a rodeo clown.”

Mmmnope.

Some writers start young.

Some start middle-aged.

Others in retirement.

OTHERS SCREAM NOVELS FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE.

Who cares? Write if you wanna write. You don’t even need to marry being a writer with being published. If you want to write, write independently of your desire to be published. That secondary part can come later. Write to write, don’t write to be published. It matters little what age you are. Age lends weight and experience to the work. You’ll be fine.

If you’re 15, 50 or 105, go ahead, write.

“Outlining diminishes magic.”

a) writing is not magic, though it sometimes feels that way

b) outlining, or any act, will not kill the magic that doesn’t exist

c) magic does not exist

d) unless you’re harry potter

e) but you’re not harry potter

People worry somehow that outlining like, bottles the lightning or steals the thunder or robs them of some precious elf juice. Like, if they outline, they’ll give away their novel to this ugly process and now it’s all ruined, pouty-pout-mopey-face. Listen, if you ruin your story by outlining it, then your story wasn’t that fucking exciting to begin with — and oh ha ha ha oh shit it’s a good thing you never got to the editing phase, because boy howdy, editing feels less like wizardry and more like plumbing.

To be clear, I’m not saying you need to outline. (Though I’ll always remind writers that though you may hate the idea, some publishers will ask for synopses and outlines, especially as your career advances, so it remains a skill worth learning if not universally incorporating.) What I’m saying is, if you choose to do it, it won’t kill your work.

I compare writing a novel to taking a cross-country trip: in taking that trip, you would likely plot your journey, but plotting that journey does not rob you of all the things you will see along the way. Imagining the journey is not taking the journey. Nor does it prevent you from taking unexpected routes or exits when the sights call for it.

“I don’t need to know the rules.”

You need to know the rules because that’s how writing works. You only break the rules once you know them — breaking the rules willfully is an act of artistic independence. Breaking the rules ignorantly is an act of being an asshole. Knowing the rules is a good way to realize what rules are important to you and which ones are not. That is a way to be stylistically in command and not some Forrest Gump doofus gumping his way around Novel-Land hoping to get lucky and not shit it all up. Breaking rules with knowledge of the rules is some bad-ass, sinister shit. It’s walking away from an exploding building without flinching.

Be that character. That character is awesome.

“I’m not a real writer because [insert reason here].”

Real writers write.

Like, that’s it.

Three words, so simple, so precious. Do you write? You are a writer.

Avoid artistic purity tests.

Actually, avoid most purity tests, because they’re cliquish and elite.

“I need an MFA or some kind of formal training.”

NOPE.

Nobody cares about your MFA.

Nobody cares about Clarion or your degree or what karate belt you’re up to or what you had for dinner last night. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter one lick.

That’s not to say MFAs are bad. Or that Clarion is bad. They can be great. They may be useful to you in building skills. Look at it this way: if you submit a manuscript that is shitty, it doesn’t matter if you have an MFA. If you submit a manuscript that is amazing, it really doesn’t matter if you went to Clarion. You do programs to learn, not to build a ladder. (Admittedly, sometimes these programs offer you connections, and those are good. Just the same, they are utterly non-essential and you still have to actually write a good book. Though, more on that in a few.)

“Writing is a talent.”

Nope! Some writers are certainly talented, but talent ain’t shit if you don’t have the work ethic to back it up. Worry about skill. You can build skill. You can practice skill. You can manifest the desire to be a writer, and then you can be a writer by iterating and reiterating and learning and thinking. Sure, some jerks are probably sprung from the uterus with a copy of Scrivener in their hands and half-a-novel already written. They still have to do the work. Talent is like a field of fertile dirt — you still gotta get your hands grimy, you still gotta plant the garden. I’ve known a great many talented writers from my youth, and very few of them made anything of themselves. Meanwhile, I’m a total shithead, and I’ve got a proper writing career because I work very hard at doing it. If talent is real, it barely matters without work. So do the thing you control. Do the work.

“Someone is going to steal my idea.”

They’re not.

Ideas are not precious little snowflakes that melt if you breathe on them.

Ideas are not diamonds people want to take.

Ideas are rugged, brutish, ugly things. Ideas are pieces of wood and hunks of stone. It’s up to you to sand them and polish them and fit them together how you see fit. They’re not rare gems. Your vision of an idea will be different than mine even if they come from the same core concept. I could right now try to write Die Hard and I’d come up with my own version of it without even meaning to. The only thing original about your work is you. You’re the rare gem. The idea is just the light that filters through your many unusual facets.

“Writing is supposed to be easy.”

Ha ha ha ha

Haha hehe ho oh oh oh

ahhh

yeah

*wipes tears away*

*blows nose*

That’s a good one.

Some days writing is easy.

Some days writing is like trying to castrate a unicorn with a BB gun.

If writing does not come easy to you:

Welcome to the club, the club called THE WRITING IS SOMETIMES FUCKING HARD CLUB, where we sit around our treehouse and try to write and bite our knuckles till their bloody and engage in training montages (punching frozen beef, drinking lots of whiskey, running through a gauntlet of readers smacking you with one-star Amazon reviews nailed to wooden paddles). Writing isn’t easy. It’s work. And sometimes work feels like work and that’s okay.

“All it takes is for me to write a good book.”

And here, a hard truth.

Writing a good book matters. It matters to me. It matters to you.

It also doesn’t matter as much as you want.

Here is a true fact: lots of great books have failed either to get published or to sell well once they got published. Here is another true fact: lots of very shitty books have done very well.

This is just the way of things. It’s the way of life. Sometimes mediocre people excel. Sometimes geniuses die alone and broke. It can go the other way, too — mediocre people end up landscaping your lawn while you, the genius, are a billionaire who goes to sleep on a bed of her own bitcoins.

Here’s what I will tell you: writing a good book is not the key to the kingdom, but it is valuable just the same. It’s valuable because a writing career — and really, all of life — is predicated on luck. That sounds suspiciously like I’m admitting that there really is magic in the world, but I don’t consider this magic. I consider the existence of life to be relatively random. A mad confluence of atoms and molecules. A turn of the wind, a cataclysm, a shift in weather.

Luck is the universe walking halfway down the road and stopping.

You have to walk, too. You have to meet luck in the middle.

Sometimes, bad luck happens in life, right? But often when this is the case, it’s like — okay, you still had to do something to catch the glinting flinty eye of the Bad Luck Beast. It was bad luck that you went out and a deer ran out in front of your car and the deer came up over the hood and through your windshield and beheaded you. (That actually happened to a guy outside my house when I was a kid, by the way. Big deer took off his head.) That’s bad luck, but it still required actions to take place, right? You still had to get in your car. Still had to drive it down that road at night. It was random, but it wasn’t impossible — like, deer exist. They crash a lot of cars here. They tend to go down backroads at twilight. And if you’re out, and you’re driving fast enough, and if you’re not paying enough attention…

Wham.

The deer is in the backseat of your car.

Along with your head.

Bad luck. Oops. So sorry.

It’s not that the person deserved that. It’s not that you shouldn’t go driving just in case a deer tries to suicide in front of your speeding bullet of death-steel. But factors lined up in a certain way because you nudged them to.

You met the universe halfway and it fucking killed you with a deer.

Writing is like this.

You cannot control luck, but you can get its attention.

You get its attention in a lot of ways — by engaging with the industry, by going to conventions, by entering an MFA program or by trying to accepted to Clarion. And of course, one of the chiefmost ways of urging luck to your side is by writing a book. You won’t get a book published if, uhh, you don’t write a book. That’d be fucking weird. Not just improbable, but impossible. You write a book, and that ups your chances. You write a good book — and that adds more to your chance. It’s like stacking positive modifiers on a dice roll in a roleplaying game. Sure, you might be able to kill that ogre with a stick you find, but your chances are a lot better if you have like, a chaingun that shoots magical swords.

Writing a book is like forging a sword.

But writing a good book is like forging a magic sword.

I know, I know, I said there was no magic, but damnit, this is metaphor.

The magic sword does not guarantee you’ll slay the ogre.

But it damn sure ups your chances.

Besides, magic swords are fucking baller. And writing a good book gives you the satisfaction of having done so. No, writing a good book is not a guarantee that you will be successful. But it feels great and it ups your chances, so try to do it anyway.

* * *

ZER0ES.

An Anonymous-style rabble rouser, an Arab spring hactivist, a black-hat hacker, an old-school cipherpunk, and an online troll are each offered a choice: go to prison or help protect the United States, putting their brains and skills to work for the government for one year.

But being a white-hat doesn’t always mean you work for the good guys. The would-be cyberspies discover that behind the scenes lurks a sinister NSA program, an artificial intelligence code-named Typhon, that has origins and an evolution both dangerous and disturbing. And if it’s not brought down, will soon be uncontrollable.

Out now Harper Voyager.

Doylestown Bookshop | WORD | Joseph-Beth Booksellers | Murder by the Book

Powells | Indiebound | Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Google Play | Books-a-Million

Took that one at the end of last week, and I kinda love it.

And, same subject, different angle:

So, yeah. There you go.

Me and B-Dub went around on Saturday, just looking for cool stuff to look at, stuff that might be worthy of a photo or three — and for those of you with kids little or big, we’ve found that giving him a camera was a really great investment. And I didn’t buy him one of those kiddie cameras, because really, those are very expensive and are… honestly, just cameras. So, last year for the B-Dub B-Day, we got him a Nikon Coolpix camera — waterproof and a little rugged, so he can drop it and get it wet and it’s no big deal. And he loves it. He took to it quickly and knows more about it than I do. I’ll post some of his photos eventually, but they’re a lot of fun. I mean, some are horrible and are just pictures of dog butts. But, y’know. Art.

He and I were looking for bugs and flowers and turtles. We found the first two. Not so much the third. Those photos will make their way here eventually. But it was fun, a good bonding thing, a good excuse to go out and just examine the world big and small. Sometimes people accuse photographers of looking more at the camera than at the real world, as if it creates a separation, but I don’t buy that. I think the camera is a way to interpret and capture the world — both as it is and as the camera can contain it. And if there is any separation, it’s the separation that must exist between REALITY and the artist, who is a TRANSLATOR OF REALITY. There always exists a middleman, and mastery of that interstitial process has value, I think. I’ll shut up now.

LESSEE, WHAT ELSE.

In case you missed it, I’ll be in SUNNY CROTCH-HOT FLORIDA in June — I’ll be doing the closing keynote at the Orlando Book Festival. Details here if you want ’em.

Oh, also, this:

Cool, huh? That’s the Japanese version of Zer0es alongside some promo material for the mass-market paperback version of the book which lands May 31st, if you wanna pre-order.

And finally, I got a copy of the Chinese translation of Blackbirds:

PRETTY AWESOME.

So, that’s it.

I’m out.

*leaps into Monday’s slavering maw*

*hopes to emerge from Friday’s puckered sphincter in five days*

*waits*

HEY LOOK I STORIFIED SOME STUFF I SAID.

This batch: about dialogue.

Please to enjoy.

THEY FIGHT CRIME.

It is one of the greatest websites in the history of sited webs.

You will go there. You will click on the link. It will give you an awesome pairing of two characters (I just got HE’S A BISEXUAL SCIENTIST WHO BELIEVES HE CAN NEVER LOVE AGAIN and SHE’S A PARANOID MAGICIAN’S ASSISTANT WITH HER OWN DAYTIME TV SHOW, which is really just amazing). You will take these two characters and put them in a story together.

I don’t really care so much that they actually fight crime.

You can have that as a basis, but mostly, I’m just looking to see these characters interact.

So, do that.

Length: ~1500 words

Due by: May 20th, noon EST

Post online at your online space.

Link back to the story in the comments.

Enjoy.

[EDIT: I see that the site automatically makes each of the two characters male and female — I don’t think there’s any need to enforce that in your stories. Feel free to go with whatever genders you see fit.)

Nobody wants you to be an artist.

It’s for a lot of reasons. Some come from a good place — they think, hey, we want better for you. The life of an artist is hard. Be a bricklayer, a doctor, a ROCKET LAWYER, something, anything. Art is how you lose. Art is how you die. Don’t be an artist, because we don’t want to see you struggle, starve, and go mad.

Some of the reasons come from a deeply cankerous place: jealousy (“why do you get to fritter away your hours MAKING ART and I have to sell toilets?”) or misunderstanding (“art isn’t work, it’s just lazy piffle for lazy losers”) or alien menace (“ART GIVES HUMAN BEINGS HOPE AND IT MAKES THEM MORE RESISTANT TO HOSTILE TAKEOVER FROM EXTRATERRESTRIAL FORCES”). Some governments don’t want artists because art is truth, even when couched in illusion or deception. Some schools don’t want art because how do you test art, and everything is about the test, goddamnit. Want to get a mortgage? Tell them you’re an artist and ha ha ha oh shit.

Art is a hobby, art is a waste of time, art is a thing you do when you’re in elementary school or in the retirement home. It isn’t a life. It isn’t a career. FUCK YOU, NO ARTING. It’s all bullshit, of course, because nearly everything demands art. Advertisements. User interfaces. Logos. The whole Internet is made of WORDS and IMAGES. It started off looking dog-ugly, like something a self-aware bank ATM would shit into the world — but then it became a thing of elegance and design (er, mostly). It became a thing of art, collectively.

Let’s switch gears a little.

Last week I wrote a post about anxiety, and on Twitter and across Ye Jolly Interwebs people asked, well, okay, whilst in the throttling grip of the Mighty Anxiety Snake, how do you wriggle free enough to still make art? And it’s a fine, fine question, because the business side of art can help lend cosmic-level strength to the Mighty Anxiety Snake, the one who twists around you, the one who constricts your heart and makes it feel like your throat is closing. Think long and hard about the business — not just today, but tomorrow, next year, five years — and you’ll find yourself breathless in existential despair. It’s a series of mountains and cliffs and you’re just a wee mountain climber and a storm is rolling in and ye fucking gods, why not just go home and have some liquor and a nap? Then you start thinking about what other people are able to accomplish: awards, sales, movie rights, foreign rights, six-figure deals, seven-figure deals, publishing contracts that stipulate the writer gets a pet snow leopard (by the way this is why you don’t fuck with Neil Gaiman because his snow leopard will hunt you as prey). It’s all very crushing. It’s like laying down and having a hydraulic press push in on your chest.

So: how does one deal with that?

Well, obviously, I am not you. (Not yet, not until I finish work on THE MACHINE, and then we’ll just see, won’t we?) As such, I cannot possibly speculate how you deal with it, but I can speak quite expertly on how I deal with it, because I am the me rooted in this floppy, bearded body.

And here is one of the ways I deal with it:

I worry very little about the result of what I’m doing.

Note: what I mean is not that I care nothing for the quality of the result. I care very much about my own level of satisfaction with the thing I’m writing. It’ll never be perfect, but I want it to be good. But the key here is that I want it to be good because I want to be happy with it.

I don’t care if you’re happy with it.

And the “you” in that equation can be, well, really anybody. The nebulous Audience. Or reviewers. Or publishers and editors. Or other authors. I don’t worry about because I can’t worry about it. I don’t know what you want. (See earlier comment: I am not you.) I don’t know what the market is doing. Chasing the market is like chasing starlight: by the time I find the star that made the light, I remember that light travels slow and that star is already dead. I don’t know what reviewers want. I don’t know what reviewer I’ll get. If I sit down and I go to write and I carry with me the baggage of expectation — if I sit there and try to imagine what every single potential interaction with my book will be like — then I’ll probably freeze up. I’ll soak my shirt with blubbery fear-weeping and sadness-snot. I’ll make a low keening sound in the back of my throat like a ferret pining for its ancient ferret homelands.

The key there is: I cannot be pinned by expectation.

Some people think outlining a book robs the book of its magic. Some people think the business kills the joy of making words and creating art. But for me, the great thing that will siphon the joy out of what I do — the pesticide that murders the butterflies flitting about in the dark shrubbery that is my heart — is expectation. Not my expectation. But yours.

And now we come full circle because once again, I say:

Nobody wants you to be an artist.

Not the people who love you. Not the people who hate you. Not the people who don’t know one whit about you. Nobody wants that for you or your life.

I want you to think about that for a moment.

I want you to focus on that for a moment.

Take the idea like a pebble or a pearl, tuck it in your mouth, swirl it around.

This is what that does for me:

When I sit down and I start to write, I take a secret thrill in what I’m doing. Because this is forbidden territory. This is verboten. Everyone has built a fence of expectation around what I’m doing and yet, here I am, having climbed the fence. I’m making art and the world doesn’t want me to make art. I’m in a secret garden stealing your vegetables. I’m traipsing about someone’s home in the dark while they sleep. I’m mixing potions. I’m making monsters. I’m tap-dancing on the edge of a cliff, and the world can watch me kick off my shoes, pirouette, and lift both middle fingers in the air with a smugly self-satisfied look on my big beardo face.

Let me distill this down for you:

How do I survive my anxiety and the business and the expectations and still make art?

FUCK YOU, that’s how.

(Not you specifically! I’m sure you’re lovely.)

Don’t think I should be making art? FUCK YOU.

Don’t think I can finish this book and do it my way? FUCK YOU.

Think this is a waste of time? FUCK YOU, it’s my time to waste.

My anxiety wants to scare me away? FUCK YOU, I won’t be run off, Mighty Anxiety Snake!

Those two words — FUCK and YOU — form a glorious act of defiance, an empowering gush of confident magma in your chest that you can vomit all over reality’s face. Reality doesn’t want me doing this? Reality expects me to conform? HA HA HA HAVE MY ANGER-MAGMA, AND ALSO, FUCK YOU BIG, SUCKER.

So, when it comes time for you to sit down —

And start to write —

Or start to paint —

Or doodle or design or color or whatever it is that you do —

And you start to feel the Mighty Anxiety Snake coiling in your bowels —

And the weight of expectations pressing the air out of your chest —

And you start to look too far down the road and imagine all the potholes and broken bridges —

And you start comparing yourself to everyone else —

Extend one middle finger.

Then the other.

Scream FUCK YOU in a great profane yawp.

Then get to work.

Forget perfection. You can’t control success. You aren’t anybody else. You are you. It doesn’t matter if anyone believes in you. Let their disbelief charge your batteries. You can believe in you.

Focus on today. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Make something. Create something. Act in defiance of reality’s accord. Spit in the eye of any who expect you to do differently.

Relish in the unmitigated thrill of doing what nobody wants you to do.

Nobody wants you to be an artist.

But you do, so fuck them.

* * *

The journey to become a successful writer is long, fraught with peril, and filled with difficult questions: How do I write dialogue? How do I build suspense? What should I know about query letters? How do I start? Where are my pants?

The best way to answer these questions is to ditch your uncertainty and transform yourself into a Kick-Ass Writer. This new book from award-winning author Chuck Wendig combines the best of his eye-opening writing instruction — previously available in e-book form only — with all-new insights into writing and publishing. It’s an explosive broadside of gritty advice that will destroy your fears, clear the path, and help you find your voice, your story, and your audience.

Amazon

B&N

Indiebound

Writer’s Digest