Sunday, August 26, 2012

Emotional Resonance and Rocket Launchers

Hello, readers.

Three things.


1)  Every Brilliant Piece of Writing Advice* from Clarion 2012 from Sam J. Miller

2) Clarion 2012: Apocalypse When, FourGreenSquares breakdown of their experience of Clarion and its teachers.

3) Joss Whedon on what matters most:

The two things that matter the most to me : emotional resonance and rocket launchers. Party of Five, a brilliant show, and often made me cry uncontrollably, suffered ultimately from a lack of rocket launchers. (whedoninfo)

That is all.

Happy Saturday.






ttfn.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Some Things I Learned At Clarion

Hello, readers.

I went to India. And Dubai. I came home. I attended Clarion, in San Diego. It was amazing. All of it. Clarion most of all. Feels like I have a family and army at my back. Feels like I loved more than I've loved in some time.




Here are some things I learned there.

1) Start with the goosebumps.

2) Don't burden your heroes with a busload of dead classmates.

3) You must kill your children.

4) All stories are romances at heart.

5) It's your job to save the world.

6) Top four uses of Nazi's in fiction.

7) Mad scientists are poised for a comeback.

8) People will buy the crazy stuff if you make the really, real stuff feel real.

9) Not everything has to be subtle.

10) They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

11) Our job as writers is not to be profound. It's to tell what happens next.

12) Don't listen to the bullshit. Make your own mistakes.

13) Fail early. Fail often.

14) There are people out there who want to read your stuff. They just don't know it yet.



Happy Friday, readers.


ttfn.