Home Again
Hello everyone!
I'm back from the Willamette Writers Conference, and I'm glad I went. I learned lots of good stuff about the craft of writing fiction. I had been writing pretty much on instinct, and that was going fine, but there's nothing like being able to step back and look at writing from a pragmatic perspective in terms of writing strong sentences, keeping the story moving while creating a setting, focusing on consistency in point-of-view, and avoiding lazy writing. A classic example of lazy writing is, "He walked angrily across the room," as opposed to, "He stomped across the room." I have lots of "walked angrily" in my manuscript, so I'll definitely be going back and making my writing tighter and more descriptive (and better) when I'm revising. I also learned that exclamation points are lazy, and that I should show exclamation with my word choices, not punctuation. My story is loaded with exclamation points, so that's another thing I'll need to work on.
I'm tempted to pepper this blog with tons of exclamation points just to get it out of my system, because blogs aren't bound by the same rules as fiction. But I think it's good to get in the habit of avoiding them in all my writing, so if you love exclamation points, this may no longer be the blog for you. And, no, that doesn't give license for smartass readers to point out in the comments every time I forget and use one, okay?
Personal
Important stuff I very recently learned: Sometimes you have teeter right on the edge of losing something to realize how important it is to you.
The above statement is as cheesy as I ever hope to get here, so if you're into that kind of crap, enjoy it while you can.
Moving on.
Politics
I shut myself off from the political world during my stay in Portland, so I can't comment on anything specific. But it's safe to say violence is happening somewhere, people are dying for no good reason, politicians are making truly outrageous and/or stupid claims, and the ultrawealthy are getting ultrawealthier. And most people feel powerless to do anything about it. Am I right?
Food
If you ever find yourself in Portland, do yourself a favor and head on down to the D Street Noshery on Division and 32nd and pick up some Bulgogi Tacos from KOI Fusion's food RV. Then sit down under the tent and wash your food down with a pint or three from Captured by Porches Brewing Company's beer bus. You'll be glad you did. I was.
I also highly recommend stopping by Genies Cafe on Division and 11th for breakfast. The chorizo scramble is all kinds of amazing.
In Closing
I'm going to wrap things up somewhat early because I'm motivated to get back to writing my book. Until we meet again!
Rob
I'm back from the Willamette Writers Conference, and I'm glad I went. I learned lots of good stuff about the craft of writing fiction. I had been writing pretty much on instinct, and that was going fine, but there's nothing like being able to step back and look at writing from a pragmatic perspective in terms of writing strong sentences, keeping the story moving while creating a setting, focusing on consistency in point-of-view, and avoiding lazy writing. A classic example of lazy writing is, "He walked angrily across the room," as opposed to, "He stomped across the room." I have lots of "walked angrily" in my manuscript, so I'll definitely be going back and making my writing tighter and more descriptive (and better) when I'm revising. I also learned that exclamation points are lazy, and that I should show exclamation with my word choices, not punctuation. My story is loaded with exclamation points, so that's another thing I'll need to work on.
I'm tempted to pepper this blog with tons of exclamation points just to get it out of my system, because blogs aren't bound by the same rules as fiction. But I think it's good to get in the habit of avoiding them in all my writing, so if you love exclamation points, this may no longer be the blog for you. And, no, that doesn't give license for smartass readers to point out in the comments every time I forget and use one, okay?
Personal
Important stuff I very recently learned: Sometimes you have teeter right on the edge of losing something to realize how important it is to you.
The above statement is as cheesy as I ever hope to get here, so if you're into that kind of crap, enjoy it while you can.
Moving on.
Politics
I shut myself off from the political world during my stay in Portland, so I can't comment on anything specific. But it's safe to say violence is happening somewhere, people are dying for no good reason, politicians are making truly outrageous and/or stupid claims, and the ultrawealthy are getting ultrawealthier. And most people feel powerless to do anything about it. Am I right?
Food
If you ever find yourself in Portland, do yourself a favor and head on down to the D Street Noshery on Division and 32nd and pick up some Bulgogi Tacos from KOI Fusion's food RV. Then sit down under the tent and wash your food down with a pint or three from Captured by Porches Brewing Company's beer bus. You'll be glad you did. I was.
I also highly recommend stopping by Genies Cafe on Division and 11th for breakfast. The chorizo scramble is all kinds of amazing.
In Closing
I'm going to wrap things up somewhat early because I'm motivated to get back to writing my book. Until we meet again!
Rob
Labels: beer, food, Korean tacos, Portland, writing
posted by Rob at 12:19 PM
2 Comments:
Why is everyone so angry in your writing!?!?! You should write about happy people floating across the room (sidebar: would they be dead then?) or racing around with glee! Sheesh! Hey!!! This is fun!
They're not always walking around angrily. They're often performing other actions with lots of other adverbs. I didn't list them all because I'm a lazy writer, remember?
And, yes, floating people would be dead. But since my protagonist is Jesus Christ, floating could be appropriate. I may have to steal that.
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