writing

A collection of 9 posts

New podcasts from Streetlamp Media - Pitch! and Before the Fade

This is an exciting week. In my previous post, I hinted at several upcoming announcements. Today we've got two of them.

Last year, I met two filmmakers working in Los Angeles. Leah Saint Marie and Angel Daahoud Murphy. Leah is a former investigative journalist. Now a screenwriter and director, she has multiple writing and filmmaking awards under her belt. Angel is a multifaceted actor, writer, and musician. Together, they're creating two great new podcasts, and my Streetlamp Media company is helping to produce and distribute.

The first podcast, Before the Fade, is a precursor to a documentary Angel plans called

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Wilted

snippets • 2 min read

Life is a dance.

We step in varied rhythms. We swing, we glide, we dip, we fall.

We move from one dark corner of a crowded dance floor to the next. At times we lead. At times we are led.

Occasionally, we grow bold, and we waltz with a partner or tango with a muse. We elbow our way to the center of that dance floor. We shine beneath a chandelier. We bask in the light’s sparkling brilliance, moving in harmony, together as one, choosing a path, a future, a next step.

But the light is fleeting. The dance

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A Lonely Duel

snippets • 3 min read

They demanded confidence, and so there was confidence. They demanded happiness, and so there was happiness. They demanded ambition and kindness and wit, both of which were evident in every word he spoke, in every act he performed, in every nod to passersby and every smile to strangers who drifted through his days. They demanded laughter, and so he laughed. He told jokes, made clever observations, whispered wildly satirical commentary in the ears of intelligent ladies, and they laughed. Day after day, night after night, strangers and friends alike, they demanded the world, and so he gave them the world.

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NaNoWriMo 2015 in Time Lapse

writing • 2 min read

For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo is an abbreviation for National Novel Writing Month. People across the globe take part every November. To “win”, you must write 50,000 words in 30 days, but the real goal is to get you to sit your butt in a chair and write.

Like so many others, I struggle with that part. I take pleasure in having written, not in the painful task of actually writing. It’s work. Brain hurt.

One of the more frustrating aspects of writing in today’s social media world is that you have so little to

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Patrick Rothfuss Talks Charities and Process

Video • writing • 1 min read

This “writing process” video seems to focus on a charity more than a writing process, but secretly it’s all about process. These are the thoughts you think before you ever write a word. Ideas need to make sense in a writer’s head before they’ll make sense in a reader’s head. Obviously, some people don’t work this way, but I certainly do. So much down time, staring at a wall, unfocusing out a window, pacing around a room, thinking and plotting and dreaming, wondering how to tell a story.

And mindspace is wonderful. I love music

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NaNoWriMo - Day 1

writing • 1 min read

Trying a different motivational experiment for NaNoWriMo this month, because why not make a difficult thing a wee bit difficulter?

For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. It happens every November, and the goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I’m less concerned about word count this year than forcing myself to block out at least an hour every day for writing. If I hit the word count, even better. As for what I’m writing… That’s a bit of a secret, but the working title is Blockadia.

I’ll

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To Consume or Create

writing • 5 min read

Are we defined most by what we consume or what we create? Can it be both? Should it be either?

On a warm June evening, I sat near an open window reading a novel when a pang of guilt interrupted my moment of leisure. Why, I wondered, did I spend so much time reading but so little time writing?

This wasn’t the first time I’d asked myself the question. The answers came quickly, and I imagine they’re rather universal (for writers, anyway). Many writers I know spend far more time reading than writing. Reading is fun, after

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Amontillado: From First Draft to Last

amontillado • 6 min read

I found myself unexpectedly giddy this morning. Why? Nostalgia, perhaps. Or maybe a sudden influx of satisfaction.

While cleaning and organizing files on the computer, I stumbled across the earliest drafts of AMONTILLADO. Among the collection, I found the very first draft of Chapter 1. I have only vague memories of writing it. For structural and tonal reasons, the early chapters went through the most numerous and thorough revisions, meaning the words that spouted from my fingertips during those early days are furthest removed from those that made their way to the bound pages of the novel. Nothing unusual about

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New podcasts from Streetlamp Media - Pitch! and Before the Fade

Wilted

A Lonely Duel

NaNoWriMo 2015 in Time Lapse

Patrick Rothfuss Talks Charities and Process

NaNoWriMo - Day 1

To Consume or Create

Amontillado: From First Draft to Last

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