Run-DMSteve

  • Write-a-thon, Day 16: To Shirley, with love

    When I was in junior high, I started reading The Writer, which surely must stand as one of the worst-designed magazines of its day. It was filled with advice on writing, mostly, as I recall, from second-string novelists and science fiction and mystery writers. There were even a number of…

  • Write-a-thon, Day 15: As prolific as I wanna be

    I wrote 700 words this week. That is, I kept 700 words. I wrote many more than that. “Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer,” Colette said. “But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity,…

  • Write-a-thon, Day 14: Almost cut my hair

    I get a progress report each week on the current Clarion West workshop and this week’s instructor: “It’s week two of the writing part of the Write-a-thon for 345 writers all over the world and week two of the six-week workshop for 18 writers in Seattle. This week, Neil Gaiman went…

  • Write-a-thon, Lucky Day 13: I still haven’t found what I’m writing for

    I started building models when I was a kid. At first I built cars and ships, but my sister, who was a tiny Megatron, would play with them and break them. I finally started building planes and spaceships because I could hang them from the ceiling. Some of them survive…

  • Write-a-thon, Day 12: Writing on a thin line

    Today’s cartoon comes to us courtesy of noted Southern industrialist Jim Cobb. “Maybe you need this guy to help you finish your book,” Mr. Cobb says, and I can’t say I disagree. Duke Ellington once wrote, “I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline.” If I had a…