Con season is almost over, so that tells me it’s a most excellent time to write a post about con season! Right? Right? Fellas? Where you goin’, fellas? WHATEVER FINE JUST LEAVE. Anyway. I figured that writers go to conventions and conferences year-round, so it’s a good idea to talk to you penmonkeys about what […]

Sometimes, writers get out of the groove. They lose their voodoo. This isn’t just writer’s block — hell, you might even still be writing. But it feels hollow, unrewarding, like it’s not just giving back what you put in. You need your creative mojo back. Which means, another list of 25, comin’ right up. (Some […]

I’m about to tackle a new novel (The Blue Blazes, coming in something-something 2013!), and also, I see the green flash on the horizon that indicates the coming reality storm that is “National Novel Writing Month,” so this seems like a good time for a post like this one, yeah? Do you actually need to […]

Okay, what follows are really just mottos or sayings or made-up platitudes that I happen to live by, and for all I know I’ll only live by them for a couple weeks until I realize they comprise a fetid heap of horseshit. But, I thought I’d like to write them down just the same. Some […]

1. Comparing Two Unlike Things A metaphor is a little bit of writing magic that allows you, the writer, to draw an unexpected line between two unlike things. You are comparing and connecting things that have no business being compared or connected. How is a wasp like an auto mechanic? A banana like a storm […]

Creativity does not live in a cave inside your head. That shit’s gotta come out and play. It has to splash in rain puddles. It has to climb trees. It has to build a ground-to-air star-exploding laser out of Duplo blocks and a repurposed iPhone. You need to give yourself the time every day to do the thing that you want to do.