Just about every writer has heard the advice, “Kill your darlings” (and if you haven’t, you just did). The advice has come to have an almost mythic quality to it. Hell, someone even titled a movie about a writer after it. The “kill your darlings” formulation apparently comes from Faulkner (who graciously specified that this […]
Distillation of spirits is a wonderful process in which one starts with an alcoholic liquid and proceeds to remove as much of the water as possible in order to concentrate the alcohol and flavors. This is made possible by the fact that different liquids have different boiling and freezing points. The simplest method for doing […]
I finally finished that freaking novelette I’ve been working on, and realized that I’ve done very little writing other than that. Now, this is mostly because I’ve been really busy — the kitchen renovations are on the last lap, we’re doing the preparations now for the last step, countertops. But that’s not the whole answer. […]
Here’s a quick little piece I dashed off this afternoon. It’s just for fun, so I figured I’d post it here. Enjoy! Nor A Real Bastard
I’ve mentioned here before that when I was in high school and college I wrote pretty prolifically. Not great fiction, but plenty of short stories and most of a novel. I submitted one story in high school, got a half-page rejection (Asimov’s, I think? I can’t find it) and more or less kept my stories […]
Good news, everyone! My short story, “The Body and the Bomb” has been published over at Crossed Genres for this month’s issue on Mystery, linked from the front page. If you haven’t seen it yet, I hope you enjoy it! (And don’t just read mine! There’s some great stuff there)
I spend a lot of time thinking about the creative process from a practical point of view, but not much thinking about the nature of creativity itself. So, I was intrigued when I came upon a reference to Graham Wallas’s Stages of Creativity. (quoting Wikipedia here) (i) preparation (preparatory work on a problem that focuses the […]
I haven’t given up on the argument posts, don’t worry. My blogging has had to slow down due to a confluence of events: kitchen renovations, a lengthy bout with a stomach bug, and general business. I also picked up a copy of Stephen Toulmin’s original book on the philosophy of arguments in which he introduced […]
Mr. Chuck Wendig, esq put up a flash fiction challenge earlier this week: spin a thousand-word yarn riff off the term “Irregular Creatures”. Now, I’m exactly the sort of person to say no to a challenge, but I had a look at some of the excellent entries (don’t miss Marko Kloos’s Seeds if you have […]
As someone who is still trying to get published, I see a lot of outfits trying very hard to milk people like me for money. They play to our egos and our vanity. I’ll be honest, I sometimes get rejections back and think bad thoughts to myself about editorial taste — but I shake it […]
John P. Murphy 