Last week, Nathan Bransford talked about what he feels makes a character sympathetic. He gave this formula: "charisma - action = redeemability" and suggested that if a character's redeemability dropped below a certain base line, that character would lose the sympathy of the reader, and if that chara...

Ever get an interesting assignment, land some great interviews, and then struggle for motivation when it’s time to start writing? A freelancer friend of mine was having a crisis of this sort recently and talked about it in one of the writers forums I belong to. There were a lot of people who e...

Ah, a day in the life of a blogger and computer geek. It began with an attack from two ten year old emil viruses and ended with the star blog of the article I was working on disappearing. Blogging can be easy and fun, but if you do it for a living, it has its ups and downs, good days and bad. In my ...

You probably have editor’s brain if you’re always writing five words and deleting four, if you automatically critique every word choice (and everyone else’s), and you can pick up a newspaper or read a book and automatically spot the one error on a page. Editing skills are great to ...

Is it possible to have enough brainpower left over for freelance work after a full day at the office? That depends. As some of you may recall, I started working a full-time job a couple weeks ago and am now freelancing part time. Under “normal” conditions, starting a new job can be menta...

The DQ is studying genetics in school. She’s working out how she gets brown eyes when I have blue and Ms B has brown. Also, I can curl my tongue, and so can Ms B and so can the DQ, but not the TT yet. And she’s working out hair color. But there’s an interesting other genetics thing...

I recently received a short story rejection from Beneath Ceaseless Skies. It was a nice rejection; he explained what he liked about the story and what didn't work for him. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the things that didn't work for him were things I didn't like either. One of ...

When was the last time you had ink-stained fingers after reading an article? It’s been a while for me. As someone who grew up around newspapers, I am almost ashamed to say this: I can’t remember the last time I picked up and read an actual newspaper. These days, I read all my news online...

Before and after WordCamp Whistler 2009 in Whistler, BC, Canada, I took advantage of the good graces and lovely home of Glenda Watson Hyatt of Do It Myself Blog (@GlendaWH) and her husband, Darrell Hyatt of Enabling Abilities to Appear in Vancouver, British Columbia. Spending time with Glenda and Da...

Write where and when you can write. The other day, one of my Twitter friends tweeted: At XYZ, writing. Or trying to. This place is insanely distracting on… um… many levels. This place could be trouble for me. This statement mystified me and I @replied to him to get clarification: Trying ...