Month: June 2013

It’s time to people watch like a big-time creeper!

Personally, I enjoy character research. It’s an excuse to people watch. Every new person I meet is fodder for a character. I think people watching offers a great window into understanding character interactions. Among other things, It can help with: dialogue mannerisms traits background Some of my favorite places for people watching are parks, coffeehouses,…

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Courtyard of my Dreams

I stood before you my soul naked. And you embraced all my faults and sorrows loving, accepting. There have been times in my life when I thought I would love no one not even myself. But then I found you standing in the Courtyard of my Dreams full of wild flowers in bloom, your shirt…

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Blaming David

your smooth flesh is marble, etched hard muscles like no man [save supermodels] evanescent beauty is forever yours vita brevis arta longa the mold of you casts a shadow across me still how did you find the time to perfect mind and body and still work 40 hours each week? my beauty is rain in…

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My eyes are deceiving me

Can you trust your eyes and ears? Can we trust the eyes and ears of a character? Playing with narrator reliability can be fun, but it’s a double-edged sword. Readers must never feel tricked or lied to, so substantiating the unreliability of a first-person narrator is important. “I’m a liar. I’m a known liar, that’s…

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Let’s talk about sex, baby

Ah, the sex scene. Some writers seem to love the lurid detail and intimacy of a graphic sex scene. For others, the idea of intimate detail is a bit more difficult to approach. In my writing, I have mostly done the movie equivalent of “the camera pans away as things get hot and heavy.” In…

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If food is culture…

I do not want to eat some watered down bastardized version of Moo Goo Gia Pan. I want to eat real Chinese food. I do not want to eat complacent middle American tacos and burritos. I want authentic Mexican food. I have had enough hamburgers, artificial flavors, artificial colors, reconstituted chicken product and processed cheese…

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