Shortly after the two of them first meet, Shrek tries explaining to Donkey that ogres, like onions, have layers. Novels have layers, too. As I mentioned the other day, I’ve been writing some of my scenes in almost a short hand style of writing. Something like: Skip pours a drink. Monica stares at the sea. Skip does something. Monica throws her glass out into the ocean. Usually this happens when either (a) I’m tired, (b) I’m not really in the mood to be writing, or (c) I’m writing an action scene, and my fingers can’t keep up with my brain.… (read more)

One on the (hundreds of) things other kids made fun of me about was how much I enjoyed doing homework, specifically writing assignments. I loved reading books and writing book reports. I looked forward to writing essays almost as much as going out on the playground. That being said, let me tell you what the worst part about being a writer is.

One of the things we’ve learned in class is that character names matter. Imagine two princesses, one named Priscilla and the other, Ivana. Chances are, you didn’t imagine identical twins. George Lucas may be the master of obvious names. The lone smuggler’s last name is Solo, and the alien who shows up to collect money from him is Greedo. One particularly nasty enemy is named General Grevious. Luke comes from the Latin word for light, and may be related to Rey (of light) as well. The overweight X-Wing pilot was named Porkins. You get the idea. Here are the character… (read more)

I never was much for group projects at school. Assign me a project and I would dive into it, working on every aspect until everything was perfect. Stick me on a group project however and watch me curl up into a shell. The problem with most group projects is that everybody in the group feels like they are smarter and do better work than everybody else in the group. The best group projects were the ones where I ended up with one or two people who didn’t care about the project at all. I was not one of those kids… (read more)

A couple of years ago, I got assigned to a couple of projects at work where I ended up writing a lot of code and scripts. I didn’t know a lot of the commands I needed off the top of my head, so often I wrote what we called pseudo-code before writing real code. Pseudo-code isn’t real code that a computer can understand, but rather a summary of what you want the code to do. For example, if I were quickly sketching out what I needed a script to do, I might write something like “do SQL database query here,”… (read more)

A couple of days ago, my primary desktop computer died. I had some concerns, like long was it going to take me to replace it and how much money was it going to cost me, but one thing I was not concerned about at all was, “is my novel backed up?”

Many years ago (back in the mid-90s), a friend of mine and I started a monthly electronic magazine. The magazine consisted of original short stories and poems. Along with copy editing everybody else’s submissions and assembling all the electronic code, I was also on the hook for contributing a few original short stories of poems each issue. After only a few months, “the well was dry,” so-to-speak. I had already printed all of my previously written stuff, and began to experience writer’s block. And so, late at night, I would go for a walk.

In the original outline draft of my novel, I didn’t tell the protagonist’s back story until chapter three or four. The back story was revealed to the reader through dialogue that takes place between the protagonist and a secondary character. The back story, save for the climax, is one of the most action packed scenes in the book. My professor suggested that I move this scene into the prologue. After completely agreeing with her, I went home and searched Google for information on how to write a prologue. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Yesterday in class our professor returned the synopses we wrote for our novels. I got a “B,” along with a few suggestions and critiques. Not so many years ago, I would have flared up after receiving comments on something I had written, but not anymore. Over the years I’ve learned a few techniques that help type A people such as myself handle critiques. Off the top of my head, here are a few things that help me deal with criticism:

This is kind of silly, but I wanted to save (and share) it. The beginning of my novel takes place in a bar located just off the beach. Before writing, I went back and looked at some of our vacation pictures we took in Cozumel a few years ago to set the scene in my head. Then, I opened Pandora (the free music streaming service) and searched until I found a music feed called Laid Back Beach Music. With Ziggy Marley playing softly in the background, I really got into the mood and began to visualize just what this little… (read more)