Look at all those pages. They contain time-travelers, demons, wayward teens, psychopaths, dragons, and other mad adventurers. They're all clamoring for their stories to be finished. I've made this commitment to them before and then been lured off the path by even more shiny tales of the heartbroken, the daring, and the wicked. So here …
I've decided to break up the manuscript I've been working on. Well, I've been working on several manuscripts, but the one I'm breaking up is the next one up for publication. The story sprawls, and I like it that way. The story is nothing like Harry Potter. Well, okay, the main character is 11 at …
Some people promise to diet or to exercise every day or to be more patient. Do you do that? Swear you're going to be different and somewhere between three minutes and three days that is all shot to hell? Mine is that I'm going to be less neurotic. I've been trying to come up with …
Recently I joked, "I could've written a light comedy." And my husband replied, "I don't think you have light comedy in you." A friend said, "It's odd because you're a funny person." Hey, I didn't set out to write a dark, emotional novel. I started with an image and went from there. But I don't …
I hate the "A" question. So, I read a blog post by my friend JES regarding the "A" word--as in What is your novel About? An agent is currently looking at my first novel, and this "A" question is on my mind. My first novel is about a difficult subject...a conversation stopper subject. Now let's …
Okay, I'm not exactly thinking about Hitler. But the last post discussed the idea of killing in a time traveling sense, which meant if-this-then-this thinking. Writers do this kind of thinking all the time. If I have my character go here instead of there or say that instead of this... And if you've written the …
Marta Pelrine-Bacon 