Recently Found Tools For Writing Novels

I’ve just finished writing a second novel. I wanted to share a few of the tools I’ve found that helped me get it done, and will aid me in the future as I start on the third one. By ‘tools’ I mean books on the craft of writing, and software. There is a large industry […]

A Puzzle My Unconscious Gave Me

I’m writing a second science-fiction novel.  This is partly while I wait for responses from literary agents as I flog the first sci-fi novel around, and partly because I’ve finally discovered how novel writing, a life-long ambition, can work for me.  I want to pursue it further. This second novel started out in my notes […]

A Tale of Two Books About Writing Novels

The Plot Whisperer, by Martha Alderson, Adams Media, 2011Plot, Ansen Dibell, Writer’s Digest Books, 1988————————————– I read a lot of books on the craft of writing.  It’s a little like my quest for meaning and spirit during my twenties — a search for the book or person or method or experience that could make sense […]

The Quest to Write with Meaning

In my long quest to write with meaning, always approaching but never quite reaching, I’ve written one science-fiction novel, and now I’m almost ready to start the draft of a second one. I’m trying to flog the completed sci-fi novel, without success so far, to agents and publishers.  But I can’t wait around, as I […]

The End of the Novel First Draft

“A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, […]