tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86227928081812371442009-06-03T14:41:30.775-04:00Specially dosed to help those creative juices flow…Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.comBlogger88125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-12002455330493934542009-04-04T22:31:00.007-04:002009-04-04T22:50:43.761-04:00

Personal update: I had surgery yesterday and am on pain meds atm, so please forgive me if this isn't the most coherent post I've ever written. Different people have different writing processes. Some write by hand, some by computer. Some outline; some just write on the fly. But everyone, it seems, offers and seems to follow some very basic advice: write first, edit later. Now, that's good

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-33777601736381487182009-03-14T21:55:00.003-04:002009-03-14T22:25:26.185-04:00

Okay, I admit it: I'm a fantasy nerd wannabe. Why wannabe? Well, I live with my parents. Who hate fantasy and call it "childish escapism". So, though they haven't tried to forbid me from reading/watching/writing it, they have made it clear that they think I read/watch/write far too much of it. That means I'm quiet about my fantasy habits while around them so I don't rub it in their faces.

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-56100982795502344332009-02-28T21:12:00.002-05:002009-02-28T21:16:52.956-05:00

Okay, okay. I should've done this back when I had my long haitus, but I didn't. Unfortunately. "This" is contemplating this genre theme. I shouldn't have started it. It's a what, and I really should be focusing on why—and, in the case of grammar and style, how. So I'm contemplating a better way to organize my posts. Instead of a coherent, structured theme for a month—because I can't pull

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-42632648020025097622009-02-21T20:43:00.003-05:002009-02-21T21:03:44.380-05:00

Unless you happen to read either or both genres, you're likely apt to think that "women's fiction" is a euphemism for "romance". Not so, say the hard-core readers—because genre romance is a type of women's fiction. Notice that the main similarities between women's fiction and genre romance can be summed up in three things: appeal to positive emotions life-affirming if not happy endings

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-25767824150286547402009-02-14T21:13:00.002-05:002009-02-14T21:23:13.846-05:00

Sitting here, gritting my teeth against the pain from my slowly-recovering calf muscle, a question has occurred to me that I probably should have addressed already. Unfortunately, I hadn't thought of it, before. Why should you care about common characteristics of genres other than the defining factors? If you don't know what's standard in a genre, you don't know what's usually done. You also

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-47730471792892981952009-02-07T17:07:00.002-05:002009-02-07T17:12:13.608-05:00

Fighting a cold wouldn't be so bad. I slept in this morning, so that helped. Fighting the pain from a severely strained calf muscle and the ensuing nausea isn't so fun. I was in an accident last Wednesday, and hadn't thought anything of my knee's ache being followed by a stiff ankle. It would work itself out. When, a day after those were both fine, my ankle started aching, I'd figured I'd

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-10880257816339421462009-02-03T09:07:00.004-05:002009-02-03T09:18:41.828-05:00

Where was I Saturday? Uh... distracted. [looks sheepish] I first mentioned Scrivener in October 2007. I had really, really wanted to try it then, but I didn't have the correct system. I was poking around on Cuppa Caff recently, and realized my recent system upgrade meant I now did meet the system requirements. So I downloaded it, and... Forgot to post on Saturday... I don't want to do a

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-49415126543280525042009-01-24T08:10:00.002-05:002009-01-24T08:13:03.670-05:00

Books in the suspense/thriller genre can have that effect. Horror novels, though certainly speculative fiction like I've called them before, also qualify as suspense. Action novels and crime ones—even mysteries—can be counted as thrillers. A story can have horror elements without necessarily being suspense—Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere did an excellent job of creeping me out with some of the

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-14533144591068940762009-01-17T20:22:00.002-05:002009-01-17T21:42:53.316-05:00

I probably should have mentioned this before I even started this genre series, but "genre fiction" is a genre term that actually doesn't refer to all fiction. There's also such thing as "literary fiction", which is a genre in itself. Confused yet? I am. In essence, anything that has asperations for a work to last the test of time seems to be called "literary". Anything evidently more

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-76081356440611271972009-01-10T07:08:00.002-05:002009-01-10T07:20:15.729-05:00

In case you don't know, queer is a word that means strange, odd, unusual, and not only the meaning everyone other than me seems to think of when he sees it. At any rate, I'm sure if folks from a few centuries ago could see the historical fiction presumably set in their times that's written now, those folks would say something to my title's effect. Historical fiction is general stories set at

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-49819042886800753922009-01-03T15:39:00.000-05:002009-01-03T15:39:54.430-05:00

The above question might just define the mystery genre. Mysteries are a bit like romance novels, in that they, too have a formula. Someone did something that needs figuring out. It can be done so all the details are there for the reader to figure out, or it can be written so the reader probably won't figure it out before the Great Reveal even though the narrative character does. The former

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-51673297117935222042009-01-03T08:56:00.002-05:002009-01-17T20:30:44.845-05:00

Absolutely something! Clichés exist for a good reason. Namely, they work. …That is, they worked, once upon a time, before everyone realized they worked and tried to mimic them without taking the time to analyze why they had worked and thereby ruining them… Clichés also come about when something becomes so inanely popular that anything using anything remotely similar becomes labeled a blatant

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-34156911476888631852009-01-03T08:55:00.002-05:002009-01-03T08:56:43.643-05:00

My Internet went out last Saturday. I'll see if I can't get two genre posts up today to make up for it. Hope everyone had a happy holiday, and has an excellent year!

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-87907370622725346662008-12-20T08:50:00.002-05:002008-12-20T08:51:04.919-05:00

That question seems to aptly summarize romance, no? Now, I'm not too fond of genre romance; it's too formulaic (and steamy, for my tastes). That's not to call the formula bad, or to say it shouldn't be formulaic. See, that is what's a bit strange about romance compared to other genres: it's supposed to be formulaic. The formula is what makes a novel this genre. Now, not everyone agrees that

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-27881758863747278752008-12-09T08:01:00.001-05:002008-12-09T08:02:30.542-05:00

I can now log in from home, again! I have some computer upgrades to do this weekend, but after that… I'll be back!

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-48512059412957505702008-11-26T14:52:00.001-05:002008-11-26T14:53:58.525-05:00

I can't seem to log in. This problem has been plaguing me for a few weeks, now--thus the lack of updates. I follow the directions, and it still doesn't work. It used to work fine with my version of Opera, then changed overnight. I still can't figure out why. How, then, am I writing this now? Let's just say I'm not at home and leave it at that, shall we?

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-57596613539027757592008-11-05T17:57:00.000-05:002008-11-05T17:57:01.730-05:00

I'm actually participating in NaNoWriMo, this year. Yes, despite the new job, flu, and resurrection of this blog, I'm also plodding away at writing 2k words a day (since I don't want to write on Sundays and I'm sick enough to sometimes come home and do nothing and sleep 'til morning). As you might've noticed, I've changed the blogging schedule to update every Saturday. Now that all my methods

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-23419650281055710742008-11-01T15:26:00.000-04:002008-11-01T15:27:25.254-04:00

Note the "tutor" on that. Yeah, finding a copyeditor can theoretically help in general, but that doesn't do you much good in the long haul. (Though they likely are a bit easier to find…) You see, a straight-up copyeditor doesn't really need to know why something does or doesn't work, per se. He just needs to be able to make things work. He's the guy you go to fix your stuff. But do you

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-72870320028302564162008-10-25T14:17:00.001-04:002008-10-25T14:17:47.386-04:00

You read that right. Okay, so I'm overlapping a bit with Tip #3: Take the Time, but the point stands. Waiting before you try to proofread your work is both a tip and a method. I say that because waiting, giving yourself space to forget what you meant to write so you read what's actually there, is something all writers should ideally do. But waiting a few days (or months) before rereading

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-79927554892342941962008-10-20T20:02:00.003-04:002008-10-20T20:14:02.762-04:00

Remember me? I used to write pretty nice blog posts, here, though I've been gone for about as long as this blog actually functioned. New job starts tomorrow, so I'm turning my attention back onto this blog. I also finished this draft of a fantasy novel, last week. Preliminary feedback from my friends (who happen to be excellent critics and have no qualms about telling me when I, uh, flunk)

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-44792376051130147062008-04-04T15:59:00.005-04:002008-10-25T14:04:13.937-04:00

My apologies for any readers, but I have to put this blog on haitus. Between required overtime and a pending layoff, I cannot in good conscience keep this up until I have steady work, again. Till that day, may you benefit from what information is here!

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-45416204878982700682008-03-26T19:25:00.004-04:002008-03-26T19:32:41.951-04:00

First, an apologetic note: I'm terribly sorry for missing Saturday's post. I was asleep most of Thursday and all of Friday, and also for what of Saturday that I wasn't at work, since I was struck with the flu. Now, on to the method for today: Read your writing backwards. No, no—that does not mean you read it letter by letter so first becomes tsrif. That means you start at the end and read it

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-77604772247658443652008-03-19T22:16:00.000-04:002008-03-19T22:17:33.003-04:00

Nuh-uh, I know you're probably thinking. I don't really have to read my work aloud to proofread it… That thought is true, strictly speaking. But if you want to proofread something well, reading it aloud is actually one of the easiest methods for catching your own mistakes. When you read something you've written, part of the difficulty in editing it is you remember what you wrote. You know

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-58924114469947791122008-03-15T21:55:00.003-04:002008-03-15T21:56:14.095-04:00

Starting next week, I'll get into the methods you can use to best proofread your writing. (Sorry for the almost non-post; work has been more understaffed than usual, this week.) These methods that I will cover do work. You just have to be willing to take the time to do them. You also have to be at least mostly familiar with what the grammar handbook says about what you're writing. If

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622792808181237144.post-66103559984250478862008-03-12T19:43:00.002-04:002008-03-12T19:43:55.459-04:00

Tip #4: Don't panic. The flip side to the impatient tossing off a first (or second) draft is done is nitpicking over every little line. Sure, that's how some great writers made their work so great, but if you're reading this blog, you're probably not a national celebrity for your writing skills. All writing can be improved. Write that line in big, friendly yellow letters and paste it to your

Carradeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05431561739001270522noreply@blogger.com0