Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Poptart -- A forum for those of us with a little more snow on the roof would be a blast. It would be an extra bonus to correspond with someone who actually uses the word "blimey" in common parlance. (I suppose it shows that I haven't traveled much.)

Okay, I'm geezing like r louis scott. It is interesting to see how young many of the Nathanians are. I'll be 53 in August and I have had stories in my head all my life. I have recited them to myself; I have lived them in my imagination; I have heard them in that time before dawn where reality mixes ...

I noticed on the "all things writing" forum, there have been lots of language grammar and style-guide discussions recently. Seems like you could have an "all things language and word usage" forum. Long riffs on the evil adverb or the much-to-be-avoided opening a story by commenti...

I identify with tameson. My day job requires me to write with stiletto-sharp brevity. By the time I get to my fiction keyboard, I have to slow down, have a glass of wine, and show the reader that my story has flesh. My edits almost always require me to do what I call "warming up" my story....

Is your writing mostly for external or internal affirmation? If you are reading (or writing) this, you have the audacity and possibly the arrogance to believe that someone wants to hear what you have to say. In fact, we writers go beyond the boldness of the message and believe that others may find o...

. . . when you read your MS the following day and see that your story has wandered into disturbingly dark places, making you incapable of looking at your characters the same way ever again.

I was addicted to stationary once, but then I moved. Now I just hang out at stationery stores. ;-)

My experience is like Simpatico's. I like first draft input because it gives you a deadline and it serves as a reality check as you move along. My writer's group (now no more) read one or two chapters of my first manuscript at a time. We were comfortable enough with each other that they could say, &...

Egad. I know so very litte. This must be why humility is so cruical to learning. Seriously, I've enjoyed everyone's wisdom on this topic.

Hi, Craig, I am still new and still aspiring. No point in linking to my published things or my awards -- I have Marilyn envy. (Marilyn is one of the more affirming presences here.) One manuscript was in the can a year ago, but no takers yet. I'm not sure when I'm allowed to say it's literary fiction...

Interesting topic and blogs. I promise to read more of yours if you read mine. I'm up to a whopping 12 followers. Someone said in one of these forums that he had the feeling that he was talking only to himself, and boy, does that ring true. My idea was to simply post a couple-hundred words of dialog...

Okay, so I just spent an entire week away from my day job, leaving my house only to shovel another foot of snow off the driveway periodically. I recognize that there are other demands on found time besides my WIP. For instance, my wife thought it would be a great time to clean out closets, and my ro...

Thanks for these suggestions. Still looking. I've downloaded trial versions of a few, and now I have a few more. Trying to find the time for the test-drive is a little daunting. I guess I should rule out anything that takes too much time to learn.

The dog just sits on the driveway and accumulates snow on her fur. She stares up at me as I shovel. She's a Corgi, usually sassy and energetic, but her four-inch legs have been over-exerted lately, and the snow is making any lively play restricted to the narrowing swaths of shoveled or plowed areas....

Here in Montgomery County, MD, we're trying to figure out whether we're on the 8-15 inch band or the 15+ band that cuts right across the county. I caught the mail carrier today, who could not get to our rural mailbox because it had about 5 feet of snow piled in front of it by the plow. Federal gover...