Category Archives: WRITING

With about a third of the original wording cut out of A Bottle of Beer, it’s time to look at the changes and how and why they work.  Not indiscriminate slicing of adjectives, nor cutting of necessary incidents of story, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Sometimes it’s the rhythm, the semantics, the grammar. Reading and reading and reading again will point out problem areas. From A Bottle of Beer: “He thought that it slept, unconscious in the blistering noon sun. So the mouse scurried forward, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

This time I’m adding in–not much, and it’s still a bit heavy, but I just felt the end should be a bit more wrapped up.  Throughout the linear part of the narrative, the sun is setting, the runner is approaching, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Another small example of annihilating ‘lazy’ words: Original: A scorpion skittered across the porch, stopped in front of the rocker, fled from Yolanda’s sandal as she lifted her foot to annihilate it.  It had noticed the change in light, the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Old Version: Joe felt the knife with every hot slap of his feet against the hard packed dirt.  Remembered standing there and pain urging its way into the numbness that had immediately followed the strikes of blade that froze him … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Except reading, of course, and I think it’s time to put Tropic of Cancer back on the shelf; I’ve made little progress towards learning to like it and it has inhibited my starting something else. But writing it’s been, to … Continue reading → Continue reading →

In A Bottle of Beer, there is really no dialogue.  I’d realized this early on, kept it in mind as  I wrote, but found little reason to call it into the story.  Afterwards, I wondered why. Dialogue is an excellent … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The Mac was tuned to the Hypercompendia station all day while I wandered between editing A Bottle of Beer and everything else I do in life with the everything else taking a back seat.  It is amazing how much I … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Per gentle suggestions from The Grim Reaper, I am slashing at sentences, eliminating words that mean nothing, phrases that may sing, yet they are merely refrain.  It has dawned on me that if I saved into story all that I’ve … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Now here’s what it’s about, from a published playwright, producer, professor, writer: Topsy-turvy normalcy – characterized either by mania or by depression or by alternating mania and depression  = manic-depressive Sure describes a lot of writers I know, including myself. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Interesting dilemma today.  There’s a story sitting in Storyspace that I’ve pulled and nudged and felt and yet it’s not working for some reason.  It has depth, it has some serious meaning, and yet to get it to move is … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Editing can become a never-ending process.  It certainly takes a lot more time to rewrite than it does to assemble the initial story into a cohesive narrative whole with plot, pacing, tension, conflicts, climax, resolution and some healthy doses of … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Okayokayokay.  And I realize it’s not just words, but likely whole lexias that can fall by the wayside.  One lexia at a time though: YOLANDA Down the road to the west where sunsets sizzle like a ball of melting butter, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I look forward to the day when the words come already trimmed and complete.  In the meantime, with the guidance of a reminder, here is what editing does to a piece: YOLANDA (old version) Down the road, out towards the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

A Shard is an enhancement of a Fragment in Hypertextopian terms.  But it goes to all writing of creative form, think poetry, think image, think keeping your reader alert. So I take out "far edge" at the "far edge of … Continue reading → Continue reading →