November 28th, 2010 by Brent Toderash
There’s a book meme going around Facebook again, which I’ve seen there and on the Writers’ Collective website. It runs thusly:
Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions:
• Copy this into your NOTES to respond on Facebook.
• Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety.
• Italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read only an excerpt.
Older versions of the meme differ slightly, and include the instructions Continue Reading →
August 19th, 2010 by Brent Toderash
I really must lament the fact that Winnipeg doesn’t have anyplace to buy a decent pen. In Vancouver, this must represent mecca for pen-o-philes. A visit here was followed up with one to Paper~Ya on Granville Island, where I was pleased to find some Field Notes brand notebooks — yet another thing that can’t be found in Winnipeg. Add in some Montblanc blue-black ink to go with my new Lamy Safari fountain pen with extra-fine nib, and I’m set. For a little while, at least.
July 13th, 2010 by Brent Toderash
I follow a number of authors and writers on Twitter, and today when I saw Margaret Atwood tweet that she writes like Stephen King, I was intrigued. Apparently an online tool can analyze a few paragraphs of your writing and tell you which author’s style yours most resembles. And I had to know. So it was that I discovered,
Huzzah! That analysis is based on an excerpt from my unfinished novel, which according to the wisdom of some random autodrones, seems to be written at the same level as a couple of award-winning authors. Nice. As for my latest blog post, it turns out that Continue Reading →
July 3rd, 2010 by Brent Toderash
I’ve taken notice of something that Angela Ackerman does on her blog, The Bookshelf Muse. She’s come up with a set of thesauri for emotions, colours, textures, shapes, symbolism, and settings, and she adds to them periodically. Recently she posted Setting Thesaurus Entry: Courtroom, and As I thought about her process, it seemed to make good sense.
When I’m writing, I can tend to be too focused on the action and advancing the plot (which isn’t a bad thing!) but too much can leave the finished scene feeling a little sterile, needing deeper investment in descriptives. This is where a thesaurus like Angela’s could be helpful. Continue Reading →
