My Agent Told Me To Make A Blog

I've come to find myself repeating one concept over and over. We talk about it every week at writing group. It comes up all the time on critiquing websites. I even have to tell myself from time to time. Based on the results, I'm starting to think this may be the secret ingredient: When writers are bored of their own stories, it's almost always due to a lack of conflict or tension. There may be some. In fact, there's usually some. But in brainstorming, and editing, and critiquing, and discussing, problem-solving always comes back to this. There needs to be enough to propel a whole scene. What really doesn't work, I've found, is "this scene has to be there so we understand x." There lies the path to characters going through the motions. Dialogue that informs us of something, but has no oomph; scenes that are pretty and realistic, but seem to drag; low-level tension that lacks the sizzle you expect. I'll bet you've read scenes like that, and...

I'm like the last person on the planet to read the Dresden Files, and within a few pages it's obvious why. There are very few books that make me actively irritated if I get interrupted. I started this one on an airplane, planning to read it while I was out of town... but I finished it before I managed to get out of town. I may have a particular soft spot for the roguish, lonely, haunted-past, tall skinny male leads. The Doctor. Sherlock. Constantine. I definitely have a type, and Harry Dresden fits it. With his messy history of magical-rulebreaking for self-defense, he's got all sorts of problems following him around, not the least of which is a wizard council that's just itching to find the slightest provocation to have him executed. Add this to the fact that the character is a total powerhouse of bad-ass magic, restrained by his sense of ethics and, well, being a gentleman. I think Harry Desden might have been tailor-made to melt my heart. Plot-wise, I haven't...

The prompt for this one was... 'He's always following me. Even if I don't see him I know he's there- I look out the window and he's on the other side of the road, he's trailing behind me in the forest, he's going through my bins. One night I woke up to see him standing in the corner of my room'. I don't usually write in first person or in present tense, but I find flash fiction is a good place to practice. --- I crouch on the rooftop, watching as two men follow a tipsy girl into an alley. It’s foolish of her to be walking home alone to begin with; taking shortcuts like this is even worse. Maybe tonight’s scare will teach her to be more careful. The men close in on her. One draws a knife just as she glances over her shoulder, and she lets out a squeal. They lunge. And I descend on them like a wildcat at its prey. I land on the first one’s shoulders, bowling him to the ground. His friend—the one with the knife—turns and raises to slash. I ...

One of my most memorable experiences was Blackwater Rafting in the glowworm caves in New Zealand. The word "rafting" is a bit misleading, because it's actually tubing, and at a rather relaxed pace. The awesome part comes from the fact that it's on the underground river, through a cave, with glow worms lighting up the ceiling overhead. Some of the tours cross bridges over the river, so you can see each other occasionally. One of my early Setting Inspirations was from another part of the same cave network , if you want to check that out. All right, that photo above isn't from the blackwater rafting. It's a photo of the caves I got from google. There are that many glowworms, but as most of the tour was in pitch blackness, I don't have any photos of them. All the photos came from the tour guide, who had a waterproof camera. Before we launched, we had to don wet suits, helmets, and go over procedure. One of the important steps we had to do was to link ...

Considering my recent major career change, I suppose some explanation is in order. Turns out, when you're an animal doctor, you have to see sick animals all the time. Who'd have thought? The animals aren't too much of a problem, though. Sure, instead of unconditionally loving every dog I see, I now think about why they'd make a terrible patient (too fat / fearful / no manners / land shark / awful veins / cancer factory), and I think of potential pets in terms of life span, but if all I had to do was treat pets in a vacuum with no client contact, I'd be quite content. Clients suck. They either make me angry or sad. If they're reasonable people who love their pets, then I just end up heartbroken that their pet is dying. The rest of the time, it's arguing about money, facepalming at the lack of compliance with my instructions, re-explaining concepts twenty times, and giving advice I know will be ignored. For example, my favorite appointments used to be ...

You know how I love writing and do pretty much nothing else with my spare time? Maybe you didn't know that. I'll bring you up to speed: if I'm not writing, I'm reading about writing, or in a chat room with other writers, or critiquing someone's writing, or watching lectures on writing, or just generally... talking and thinking about writing. The best days at work are when I have a big space without appointments so I can get some progress done on my draft while I'm there. It didn't take long for me to figure out that I want to eventually be a writer. My criteria for this started far-off, and gradually shrank... "I'll quit my job when I'm making more money from writing than from vet." "I'll quit when I've sold at least a couple books and have a steady income." "I'll switch to writing when I've sold a solid 3 books, so I know the first two aren't flukes." "I'll quit my job after I pu...