Recent content by stephenspower

If something is bouncing off a forearm, that would be more like a bunt. The car would have to be propelled by a swinging forearm to come off like a home run, in which case you could use A-Rod or, better, Raphael Palmeiro. You could also just say "like a juiced home run." Nonetheless, I find the...

My favorite quote, or at least the one I've told others the most is, from Hemingway: "The test of any story is how very good the stuff that you, not your editors, omit." I tend to misquote him, though--editing him, perhaps fittingly--by saying: "The test of a story is how much good stuff you...

Outline novels, pants stories (although after a third I can usually see the other two thirds).

What if a character just kept a vein open with an IV line of sorts and poured in what was necessary when needed, the works covered by a long leather glove in which little vials could also be stored?

Those are good strategies. I find that short stories suck up a lot of time from novels, so now I reward myself with them: finishing outlining a chapter or part, get to write a story. That keeps the novel from becoming a grind too. A funny thing I read about yesterday that could act as a test...

Erase and start over. At the very least go back to where you don't hate what you've written and start afresh from there. Not revising or rewriting. Totally recreating. That was Tolkein's strategy.

I've only done it once so a year or 18 months till I'm done. I'm shooting for 9 months for at least a first draft of DT. Of course this week was a disaster because the story that supposed to launch Dragons of America came back from F&SF with a great review: first two parts awesome, last part...

Keep at it. I came here today just to see where you are. To share, I'm on the third outline of the sequel to Dragon Round, The Dragon Tower (I write increasingly detailed outlines until the fourth functions as a first draft). Last night I figured out where to start (one of four possible...

I kind of work it back and forth: What I write at night I try to get to a general place I like, then the next morning I start by going through, revising, so that I've built up a head of steam when I get to the new stuff I have to write. The trouble with this system is that the early parts of a...

Hemingway's best advice: Have a daily goal. Once you reach it, you get to go fishing. If that's at 10am, great!. If it's at 6pm, damn.

Next Friday? The world could end on Thursday. Start today. Just a line to tide you over. Or a paragraph to get the juices flowing. Use Google Docs so you can take the ms anywhere and keep at it wherever you happen to be. Go go go!

Boy, I hope so. So should Ernest Cline. Armada is basically a half-dozen movie scripts chopped up and reassembled. Everyone speaks in movie and tv quotes.

I'd forgotten about the Piasa. And that mark is right where I need it. Thanks!

Wendigos have been used many times. My favorite ABC-TV movie as a kid was The Manitou. Currently I'm outline a book/series on the Dragons of America starting in the 1830s, and what's weird is that there's no real analogs in Native American mythology. There are thunderbirds and some lizards and...

It's kind of blue.