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Monthly Archives: January 2009

My Top Villains

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

I do so love a good villain. Who doesn’t? In some stories, they’re more captivating than the hero. But how do you go about making a villain great? I was recently reading a post on Murderati that suggested I begin by just listing my favorite villains, then looking to see what they had in common. [...]

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Honestly

Monday, January 26, 2009

Maybe I’m a little young to be saying this, but sometimes I just don’t know what this world is coming to. 1) Several teenagers are charged with child pornography for sending nude photos by cell phone. 2) Seattle parents are shocked to learn there is no law prohibiting a teacher from having consensual sex with [...]

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The Deck of Many Things

Thursday, January 22, 2009

A while ago I talked about my method for creating characters: (1) Choose two Defining Characteristics, (2) Select a Major Mannerism that exemplifies both of them, and (3) Some other stuff. I don’t have a pressing need for any new characters right now, but one likes to keep one’s hand in. Which is why I’ve [...]

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C Corps and S Corps and LLCs, oh my!

Monday, January 19, 2009

Yesterday I blogged about my decision to form a company and some of the benefits involved. Now it’s time for me to look at what type of company to form. For advice on this I looked to the Small Business Kit for Dummies. It went over the basics, but just the basics. To really find [...]

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To Be or Not To Be… A Legal Entity

Monday, January 19, 2009

The book’s nearly out the door, which means there are visions of agents and editors dancing in my head. And dollar signs. Big dollar signs. So I’ve been doing a lot of research into the question of whether or not to incorporate my writing business. I still haven’t made up my mind yet, because it’s [...]

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The Birth of Manifesto Monday

Monday, January 19, 2009

The other day I was talking with my friend Becky about this blog. “I keep meaning to recommit to it,” I said. “But I keep failing to do so.” “If you’re going to recommit to it, you should find a way to make it really work for you,” she replied. Wise words. So herewith we [...]

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Revision Plan

Monday, January 19, 2009

Well, the book is done, but there’s done and there’s DONE. Right now we’re sitting at Stage #1 Done, where all the scenes have been written but there are a few things that don’t add up, a few characters that could be stronger, and a few major plot points I sorta forgot to mention in [...]

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In Which I Leave my Life’s Work at Barnes & Noble

Sunday, January 18, 2009

The other night Mark and I went over to Barnes & Noble so he could indulge his new bridge fetish by browsing through the Games section. We both brought our laptops along so we could hang out and be trendy in the cafe for a while. But it turned out I was more interested in [...]

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The Good Old Days

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Becky over at Suburban Matron had a clever post today about “dating herself” — a sort of “remember when” montage about how things used to be. I’ve decided to copy her shamelessly, so here’s how old I am: I used to do research in the World Book encyclopedia. As children, my best friend and I [...]

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