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Entitlement

The Eng­lish word title, as in title of a book, is very old, a part of Old Eng­lish vocab­u­lary. They are very hard to write. [You can read what I have writ­ten here about some of my titles in a March 19, 2012 post­ing]. Some­times a title emerges ear­ly in the book writ­ing process. However,

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In which I am caught by surprise …

Many years ago, I had writ­ten a nov­el, about which I was pleased, but felt some­thing was not right. I couldn’t think it out. It was a rather seri­ous tale about a rur­al boy who had his revenge on his tor­men­tors. I sent it to my agent (Dorothy Markinko), who read it and sug­gest­ed I

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Familiarity breeds content

Some­times I think a first draft is called a draft because so much wind blows through it. That is to say, there are so many gaps, lacks, and holes; you might as well call it a hunk of Swiss Cheese. But with that first draft, you can (and should) return and return again and fill

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Getting the first line right

David, from San Fran­cis­co, CA, writes:  “You always talk about rewrit­ing. Can you give me an exam­ple of what you do?” I’ll try. Years ago, when I wrote The True Con­fes­sion of Char­lotte Doyle, for some rea­son (I don’t know what that rea­son was,) I kept track of some of the book’s line changes. Here then

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Birthday gifts

As a kid, and an adult, I have always enjoyed my birth­day. When much younger it was a day I always shared with my twin sis­ter. Still is—as least by phone. Our birth­day was near Christ­mas, which added to the excite­ment. And, more often than not, I did not have school, the day being tied

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Writing is not talking

When­ev­er I talk to young peo­ple I am asked, ”What can I do to make my writ­ing bet­ter?”  The answer is sim­ple: read. The more you read the bet­ter your writ­ing will be. I has­ten to say, the qual­i­ty of what you read can make a dif­fer­ence, too. If you read a lot of good writing,

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Short story or marathon?

Is writ­ing a short sto­ry very dif­fer­ent than writ­ing a novel­la or a nov­el? My own expe­ri­ence sug­gests the answer is no. Good writ­ing is good writ­ing, and the goal is to achieve qual­i­ty no mat­ter what you write. But sure­ly, you say, there must be some dif­fer­ences when com­pos­ing these dif­fer­ent forms. Actu­al­ly, in

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Do I believe in ghosts?

I have just sent in a new col­lec­tion of short sto­ries to my edi­tor. As yet unti­tled, it con­tains a ghost sto­ry. In 2016, a ghost sto­ry nov­el will be pub­lished. I have pub­lished oth­er ghost sto­ries, Some­thing Upstairs, Seer of Shad­ows, and there is a ghost short sto­ry in the col­lec­tion Strange Hap­pen­ings. No surprise

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The middle game

I sup­pose we all know what a mid-life cri­sis is. We’ve had our youth, and now, in our mid­dle years, we’re not so sure about all those deci­sions that brought us to where we are now. Worse, we have a sense of what the end game might be like, and we’re not sure we like

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