book writing Archives ⋆ Writing Lives...lots of them...all the time...day and night...awake and asleep...I can't control it...

Tiffany Studios Buying Guide

A year ago I was working on my military sci-fi series when on a lark I started putting together some notes on a hobby of mine: collecting antique Tiffany Studios pieces. I certainly can’t afford lamps or the high-end pieces, but I inherited a small collection from my parents, which I have occasionally added to. As time has gone by, buying antiques has shifted from estate sales on dusty yards in front of rundown houses to online auctions.

Buying antiques online, though, is fraught with danger.

As I began to buy online, I decided to document for others how to do it safely. One thing led to another, and my notes turned into a book. As it turned out, it is about 80% buying guide, 10% history of Tiffany and his various enterprises, and 10% personal history.

I’m very happy with it, and it has been well received. As I worked on it, I also added chapters on Tiffany Favrile glass, and Tiffany Furnaces pieces. I plan to update it a bit from time to time as I own (at least briefly) new pieces. You can see it on Amazone at this link: Tiffany Studios Buying Guide

But it is time to get back to fiction… 😉

Descriptive Writing, Agency, Telling Details, and Adjectives

Descriptive Writing

As I continue to edit my work in progress and think about meeting readers’ expectations, especially when it comes to descriptive writing, I recently came across and interesting review of Peter Mendelsund’s What We See When We Read, “a book that explores how people imagine and remember the things they read.”

I’ve always been loath to write (and dislike reading) detailed descriptions of characters and settings. I’m OK with details that surface as the story progresses when they are relevant, but one of the fastest ways for me to lose interest in a book or story is a front-loaded block of description sentences which have no other purpose, and an abundance of adjectives and adverbs. She was tall and had green eyes. She stepped over the puddles with her long legs while smiling at Bob, showing off her perfect, white teeth… Ugh.

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Writing a novel? Warning: Bad Days Ahead

I think about writing like I think about long distance biking. I (used) to do a century (100-mile) bike ride about once every other month and even tried a double century (but only made it 172 miles ). Tour de France rider I am not.

The analogy is this: Writing is a long-haul exercise, just like any endurance sport. And if you are into endurance sports you know you are going to hit really bad times along the way. It’s going to happen. You have to be ready for it, or you will give up when you hit the hard times.

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Bestsellers, good writing, bad writing, and popular writing

At the risk of provoking the popular vs. good debate, aspiring writers who wish to write well should study the novels that have endured (let’s call them the works of “masters” for this discussion), not the forgettable books on the top 10 bestseller list this week.

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How to use Free Indirect Discourse to strengthen your Fiction

Free Indirect Discourse (also called Free Indirect Speech) seems a clunky mouthful, but it is also a powerful tool to make your writing more intimate when used in proper measure. Wikipedia says: “What distinguishes Free Indirect [Discourse; FID for short] from normal indirect speech is the lack of an introductory expression such as ‘He said’ or ‘he thought’. It is as if the subordinate clause carrying the content of the indirect speech is taken out of the main clause which contains it, becoming the main clause itself. Using [FID] may convey the character’s words [and thoughts] more directly than in normal indirect.”

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