There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there about characters. Do you make them quirky and unusual (like Amelia Bedelia), or more ordinary (like Charlie Brown)? Do you make them heroic (someone readers might aspire to be, like Atticus Finch), or deeply flawed (like FH in Jesus’s Son)? Do you make them raw and human […]
The single best piece of writing advice I ever got was to write the book you most want to read (more on that here). After that, here are six other bits of writing advice that have made the biggest difference for me (and that I need to keep reminding myself of to keep on going). […]
The dynamic writer/radio host Richard Keller asked me about tesseracts, squirrels, writing YA books, suicide prevention, staying sane as a writer, and the trouble with Shakespeare. This is what happened: http://ncwpodcast.podomatic.com/entry/2015-02-26T11_06_37-08_00 Many thanks to Rich for asking such brilliant questions, and putting this together (with music by Cloud Cult!). If you’re a writer in Colorado, […]
The Denver Post just did an article on campfire stories that they interviewed me for. Here’s the link if you want to know more: Why We Love Campfire Stories —and how to tell them Kate (the DP reporter) and I had a long discussion about ghost stories. Unfortunately, most of that couldn’t fit in the article, […]
“No vision is real until it’s enacted upon the earth for the people to see.” —Black Elk I love writers and poets and artists and musicians and all those crazy dreamers who have the guts to enact a vision and put it out in the world for the people to see. But the world is rarely […]
